The article doesn't tell lies, but it certainly spices up a lot the story. Some points to clarify:
* The "finance minister who knew nothing about economics" was actually a very respected sociologist, a senator and a very intelligent and skilled politician. He later became known as president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. I.M.O. one of the best 3 presidents this country had.
* What Edmar Bacha, Pedro Malan and others did was to break inflation's inertia/momentum. A lot of people already knew it was necessary; but no one else knew how to do it.
* The article doesn't comment on the strict and cautious monetary policy implemented by Fernando Cardoso. It was as much important as the "fake money" trick.
* Big inflation was a huge tax on the poorest people. Because they were poor, they didn't have the knowledge and means to protect against rising prices. It is because inflation ended that they began consuming more and the country increased their internal markets.
Diego, thanks for the much necessary clarification.
Besides the monetary policy that you mention, Cardoso also implemented a stricter fiscal policy. There's no way they could have defeated hyperinflation without cutting government spending. He also continued the trend -- started by the previous administration -- of opening the economy (slashing the tariffs, etc) and privatizing state companies.
The most important aspect of the plan was that all the triggers that were put in place to automatically raise prices, tariffs, and salaries were turned off.
These were the biggest producers of inflation and were what made Brazilian inflation unique. It was a sort of administrative inflation.
It's also valid to mention that the impeached president also ended up helping out in one way: he froze the saving accounts, since one way to stop inflation is to cut down the buying power of the population.
* The "finance minister who knew nothing about economics" was actually a very respected sociologist, a senator and a very intelligent and skilled politician. He later became known as president Fernando Henrique Cardoso. I.M.O. one of the best 3 presidents this country had.
* What Edmar Bacha, Pedro Malan and others did was to break inflation's inertia/momentum. A lot of people already knew it was necessary; but no one else knew how to do it.
* The article doesn't comment on the strict and cautious monetary policy implemented by Fernando Cardoso. It was as much important as the "fake money" trick.
* Big inflation was a huge tax on the poorest people. Because they were poor, they didn't have the knowledge and means to protect against rising prices. It is because inflation ended that they began consuming more and the country increased their internal markets.
[Edit]Wikipedia has a more comprehensive explanation about what we call here Plano Real : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plano_real [/Edit]