Word: pound
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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...press took off after Harold Wilson's scalp. "This is D-day for Britain without the flags," said the Sunday Mirror. "The 'D' this time stands for disaster and disillusion as well as for devaluation." Since Wilson had consistently denied that he would ever devalue the pound, many Britons felt betrayed as well as disheartened. "I am quite shocked," said Sir Patrick Hennessy, chairman of Ford Motor Co. "I have personally told my business friends abroad that it would not happen. I could not believe that the government would go back on its statements...
...Monetary Fund (to which it already owes $1.4 billion) to ask for a fresh drawing of $1.4 billion, but also had to arrange a multinational loan of $1.6 billion from its partners, thus creating a new $3 billion support package in order to prevent the total collapse of the pound. To back up its action, the government raised the interest rate from 61% to 8% in order to attract foreign deposits, ordered British banks to limit their loans to priority borrowers, issued restrictions on installment buying and credit and announced plans to cut $240 million from Britain...
Cheaper Exports. When Clement Attlee's Labor government last devalued the pound in 1949 (from $4.03 to $2.80), 23 nations followed by devaluing their own currencies. This time, several countries-Ireland, Denmark, and Israel-almost immediately followed Britain's move by devaluing, and others are sure to follow this week, particularly within the British Commonwealth. The Common Market countries immediately decided not to follow Britain's lead, and the U.S. lost no time in announcing that it has no intention of devaluing the dollar. In a White House statement, President Johnson said that he could "reaffirm unequivocally...
Devaluation will make Britain's exports cheaper and more attractive abroad, thus helping to lessen its huge balance-of-payments deficit, one of the chief causes of the pound's trouble. In the arcane, gentlemanly confines of the world's money managers, Britain has long been considered a naughty boy. In such circles, a nation's currency is its honor, and Britain's has been constantly imperiled by the country's inability to earn its own way in the world. The decision of the major powers not to devalue works to make the British...
...pretensions to playing the role of a great power added to her trade-imbalance difficulties. She still keeps fairly large worldwide defense commitments, last year gave $630 million in foreign aid. For most countries, their money is their own, to use as they wish abroad. But the British pound, as a reserve currency, is used much like an international money by traders and central banks the world over. The U.S. can afford to let its money be used by others; Britain, needing every penny it mints, no longer can, but has long insisted on continuing to try. The result...