... some of America's most prominent economists are claiming that a revaluation of the renminbi vis-à-vis the dollar would not only create more than 1m jobs in the US but that it would inject new vigour into an otherwise anaemic global recovery. Economists should know better. Changes in relative prices are the ultimate zero-sum game - they re-slice the pie rather than expand or shrink it.

Currency, or relative price, adjustments between any two nations are not a panacea for structural imbalances in the global economy. What is needed, instead, is a shift in the mix of global saving. Specifically, America needs deficit reduction and an increase in personal saving, while China needs to stimulate internal private consumption.

Washington's scapegoating of China could take the world to the brink of a very slippery slope. It would not be the first time that political denial was premised on bad economics. But the consequences of such a blunder - trade frictions and protectionism - would make the crisis of 2008-09 look like child's play.

But wouldn't increasing the strength of the RMB encourage precisely what the author advocates, i.e. Americans would save more because they would be buying fewer (because now more expensive) Chinese products, and Chinese would spend more on private consumption.  That may just "re-slice the pie rather than expand or shrink it", but it would also be "a shift in the mix of global saving".

(The only potential problem I see in my interpretation is with the word internal in the clause

China needs to stimulate internal private consumption.

If internal means Chinese buying Chinese products, then I don't see how a stronger RMB would encourage that.  But if it simply means private consumption "among Chinese people" (regardless of whether what they buy is produced in China), then a stronger RMB should help with that.)

The point is not to be right, but to get to right.