

Bretton Woods transcripts available - proemeth
http://www.centerforfinancialstability.org/brettonwoods.php

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lmm
Available, but only if you're from the US.

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simba-hiiipower
wow a pretty significant release.

for those unfamiliar with the bretton woods summit (officially the _united
nations monetary and financial conference_ ), it essentially laid-out the
foundation of our modern (open) global financial system. it took place just
after the second world war (1944) and the monetary system it created was in-
place through 1971.

the key objective was to facilitate a more open global economy and one in
which the leading (read: western/industrialized/democratic) economies would
cooperate in governing and maintaining the system. given the timing, it had a
particular focus on (and was quite effective in) helping rebuild post-war
economies (namely germany and japan), through policies which helped lower
barriers to trade and capital movements during those periods of rapid
redevelopment.

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some high-level details and history; adapted from wikipedia [1]:

 _The plan involved nations agreeing to a system of fixed but adjustable
exchange rates where all currencies were pegged against the US Dollar, with
the dollar itself convertible into gold (in effect a gold-dollar exchange
standard).

Two significant international financial institutions, the International
Monetary Fund and The Bank for International Settlements (precursor/current
component of the World Bank) were created; a key part of their functions were
to replace private finances with more reliable source of lending for
investment projects in developing postwar states.

The new exchange rate system allowed countries facing economic hardship to
devalue their currencies by up to 10% against the dollar (more if approved by
the IMF), thus preventing them from deflating their currencies to stay on the
gold standard. A system of capital controls was introduced to protect
countries from the damaging effects of capital flight and to allow countries
to pursue independent macroeconomic policies while still welcoming flows
intended for productive investment.

The system remained in place from 1945 to 1971 when the central role of the US
Dollar became a problem as the international demand for dollars eventually
forced the US to run a persistent trade deficit, which undermined confidence
in the dollar. This, together with the emergence of a parallel market for gold
where the price soared above the official US mandated price, led to
speculators running down the US gold reserves. Even when convertibility was
restricted to nations only, some (notably France) continued building up hoards
of gold at the expense of the US. Eventually these pressures caused President
Nixon to end all convertibility into gold on 15 August 1971. This event marked
the effective end of the Bretton Woods systems; attempts were made to find
other mechanisms to preserve the fixed exchange rates over the next few years,
but they were not successful, resulting in a system of floating exchange rates
which we (generally) have today._

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[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_monetary_systems#...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_monetary_systems#The_Bretton_Woods_Era:_1945.E2.80.931971)

