Robert Triffin’s dilemma was born from the Bretton Woods system in 1944, which set the value of gold at $35.00 dollars per ounce. This also stuck other currencies to the American dollar at a fixed rate, thus creating many of the economic problems we’re facing today.
A country that wanted to devalue (for example, the U.K. in 1967) first had to consult with the International Monetary Fund, IMF. The IMF would typically recommend structural changes, to fiscal policy, tax policy and other areas designed to cure the trade deficit.
The IMF also stood ready to offer bridge loans of hard currency to help the deficit-hit country withstand temporary stresses while the structural changes were implemented. Only if the structural changes failed and the trade deficits were persistent would the IMF allow devaluation.
That was the process for countries other than the U.S. As far as the U.S. was concerned, the link between gold and the dollar was fixed for all time and could never be changed. The dollar/gold link was the anchor of the entire system.
This fixed link between the dollar and gold made the dollar the most prized reserve currency in the world. That was the hidden agenda of Bretton Woods. With the dollar as the main reserve currency, U.K. pounds sterling, a competing reserve currency, would eventually fall by the wayside.
The U.K. relied on Imperial Preference among its trading partners in the British Commonwealth to gain trade surpluses, and also relied on the willingness of those Commonwealth partners to hold sterling in their reserves. The Bank of England assumed Commonwealth members would not ask to convert the sterling to gold. Imperial Preference came under attack by the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the GATT, which was also part of Bretton Woods. (Today, GATT is known as the World Trade Organization, WTO.)
Bretton Woods was a one-two combination punch designed by the U.S. to destroy the British empire. GATT undermined Imperial Preference. The dollar-gold link undermined sterling. It worked. The U.K.’s trade deficits persisted, and the Commonwealth partners demanded their gold.
Eventually, the pound sterling was devalued, and the empire dissolved. It was replaced by a new age of U.S. empire and King Dollar.
There was only one problem, and Robert Triffin pointed this out. If the dollar was the lead reserve currency, then the entire world needed dollars to finance world trade. In order to supply these dollars, the U.S. had to run trade deficits.
The U.S. sold a lot of goods abroad, but Americans quickly developed an appetite for Japanese electronics, German cars, French vacations and other foreign goods and services. Today, China has replaced Japan as the main source of exports to the U.S.; still, Americans have not lost their appetite for imports financed by printing dollars.
With so much relying on the American dollar, it puts the world’s economy in a rather fragile state. As it turns out, Triffin’s dilemma is solved by simply ignoring the problem, which seems to already be happening. Things only stand to get worse from here.
Source: investmentwatchblog.com
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Amy Nelson tinder.com
Agree
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Chris Miles
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Trump
Why was he alone?
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