Word: dollar
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...decisive action would do: "Upon Volcker's return to Washington, following a brief appearance at an International Monetary Fund conference in Belgrade, he immediately instructed his staff to draw up a list of options open to the Fed. The short-term goal would be to prevent a further dollar slide abroad, but long term the objective would be to puncture the inflation psychology of the nation as a whole. As many as 20 staffers were ultimately involved in the brain-storming sessions, and economists from the Fed's New York operations were shuttling in and out daily for consultations...
...change of strategy had been in the works since Sept. 29. On that date, Volcker and Treasury Secretary Miller met with their West German counterparts and Chancellor Helmut Schmidt in Hamburg as part of a series of continuing huddles that grew out of the now faltering dollar-rescue package of November 1978. The West Germans told the new Fed chief that any sort of Son of Rescue plan would now be simply unacceptable. If Washington wanted anything more than disdainful sympathy for its economic malaise, the Germans indicated, it would have to stage a sustained assault on inflation itself...
...dazzling promotions continued. Volcker rose to Deputy Under Secretary for Monetary Affairs, took time out for four years as a Chase vice president, then neared the summit of global finance when President Richard Nixon brought him back to Treasury to defend the dollar against attacks from abroad. Volcker did all he could, at one point flying 31,000 miles in five days. But the pressure on the dollar was too great: twice Volcker had to preside over the humiliation of the dollar being devalued...
...experience strengthened his view that the Federal Reserve had to take strong action to fight inflation and thus defend the dollar overseas. For a year, Volcker was a senior fellow at Princeton, but in 1975 he returned to the New York Fed as its president. In the past year Volcker voted at Federal Reserve meetings for tighter money and was consistently outvoted by his colleagues. Then he got the top job and, with the economy in dire trouble, finally won unanimous support for the measures that caused last week's furor...
...Instead of flying a regularly scheduled airline and getting a first-class seat so he can stretch his long legs, Volcker doggedly queues up to ride the cramped shuttle flight between Washington and New York, where his wife, who suffers from arthritis, still lives. A month ago, when the dollar was under attack, Volcker found himself marooned for six hours at New York's La Guardia Airport waiting for a place on the shuttle. Says one aide with a grin: "Perhaps he now realizes that with his current responsibilities, that's taking unpretentiousness...