Word: bretton
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...since John Maynard Keynes, Dean Acheson, Henry Morgenthau and politico-economic experts from 45 other countries huddled in the little New Hampshire resort town of Bretton Woods in 1944 has there been a monetary meeting like the one convening in Washington this week. John Connally, the tough but still charming Texan, will be there as the chief attraction, if one can put it that way. So will assorted treasury chiefs, finance ministers and central bankers-France's Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, Germany's Karl Schiller, Italy's Guido Carli. Like their predecessors at Bretton...
...delegates cannot merely patch up the Bretton Woods system of fixed prices for every currency, based on a fixed relationship between the dollar and gold. President Nixon shattered that illusion on Aug. 15, when he announced that the U.S. would stop selling gold to redeem foreign-held dollars. The "Nixon Shock" has already moved moneymen into discussions that would have sounded like sheer fantasy a few months ago. American officials who once proclaimed the majesty of the dollar now cheer declines in its price on newly freed money markets, because they hold the potential for helping the U.S. balance...
These plans at least point to the chief weakness of the Bretton Woods system: its overwhelming dependence on the dollar. Under the old system, the dollar was supposed to be freely convertible into gold. Other nations came to use dollars to pay their trade bills and to hold dollars in the reserves that back the values of their own currencies. That dollar dominance has been weakened by years of American balance of payments deficits and gold losses, and lately by rapid U.S. inflation...
...Japanese announcement, which came within hours of the close of business Friday, was a mixture of surprise and bewilderment. In West Germany the dollar had not declined in early trading. But as the week progressed, rumors began to circulate that the International Monetary Fund, the clearinghouse established at Bretton Woods in 1944, would eventually ask for a 13% to 14% revaluation of the Deutsche Mark against the dollar. Naturally, the dollar thereupon began to drift downward. Then came Sato's surprise announcement. In a seesaw effect, the dollar began to move back up, reflecting a feeling among investors that...
Constellation of Currencies. Washington cut the dollar's tie to gold by serving notice that it will no longer cash in foreign-held dollars for gold bullion held at Fort Knox. Ever since 1944, when the present monetary system was devised at Bretton Woods, N.H., the dollar has had a special and internationally unique relationship to gold. Technically, gold is the asset by which nations pay their debts to one another. But practically, under the rules of the 118-nation International Monetary Fund, which evolved from the Bretton Woods conference, dollars are actually the medium of exchange through which...