Word: pounding
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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After a down-to-the-hearthside preamble explaining Britain's economic plight, Sir Stafford came to the sensational core of his message: Britain was devaluing the pound from $4.03 to $2.80. Even to those experts who were dead sure that devaluation was coming, the size of the cut (31%) was breathtaking...
...internal value" of the pound would be untouched-it would buy just as much as before of products made at home, or of imports from sterling areas. Imports from dollar areas would cost more-most importantly, wheat from North America. Since the British government could afford no added food subsidies, consumers would pay the difference. Within a fortnight the price of bread would go up from 4? pence to sixpence. Experts predicted that the British cost of living would rise 5% in a few months...
Freer Trade? All the dislocation and hullabaloo would be amply balanced if devaluation accomplished its immediate purpose: a breathing spell for Britain. Beyond that lay an even more important goal: freeing trade from phony exchange rates. The $4.03 pound was phony because a pound would not buy in Britain as much as $4.03 would...
...pound might work no miracles; but at least it was honest. If honesty was still the best policy, Cripps had moved his country toward recovery-even though it might have to travel through more austerity to get there...
After Cripps went home to devalue the pound, Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin stayed on in Washington. He had a meal with Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Vice President Barkley and Senator Tom Connally. Then Bevin and Acheson settled down with platoons of experts to compare their views of the world. They discussed...