The U.S. dollar, tied to gold, was to become the world’s reserve currency. The pound, the franc and other currencies were to be tied to the dollar at fixed rates of exchange. An International Monetary Fund was established to lend to nations with balance of payments problems. An International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (World Bank) was created to provide loans for rebuilding war-torn Europe.
America provided most of the financing for the new institutions and assumed the lion’s share of control. Though the most famous economist of the age, J.M. Keynes, led the British delegation, his ideas — for a new world central bank and new world currency — were brushed aside by Harry White and the Americans.
The Bretton Woods system endured until Richard Nixon. With his country hemorrhaging gold in 1971, Nixon slammed the gold window shut, cut the dollar loose and let it float against other currencies.
Nixon’s was an act of necessity. The Europeans, with more dollars than they needed or wanted, were coming to cash them in and clean out Fort Knox.
To suggest that Europeans possess anything like the hegemonic power of America in 1944 is delusion.
……
I now officially pronounce the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party as dead as its namesake, the late Gov. Nelson Rockefeller of New York, who assumed room temperature nearly 30 years ago.
This is a good thing – a very hopeful, even promising, eventuality for a potential rebirth of the Republican Party as a party of ideas.
It had to happen. As the first Republican president told us, “A house divided cannot stand.” Neither can a party – at least not when it is divided the way the Rockefeller Republicans divided the GOP.
But, why do I proclaim the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party dead?
Because, John McCain was the personification of that wing – at least in the last 10 years.
He got the nomination. He did it his way, as Frank Sinatra would say. And he got beat by a guy three years out of the Illinois Legislature, a radical with tempestuous associations, no executive experience, little experience with elective office of any kind and little professional experience of any kind.
McCain got his butt kicked. He not only lost his bid for the White House, but he also lost many Republican seats once thought safe in Congress.
McCain may still be the titular head of his party as the presidential nominee, but his influence on its future will be considerably diminished as a result of his utter failure. McCain is not considered even a remote possibility for another bid at the big prize.
He’s done, finished, over, completed.
