Talking Politics

David talks to Helen Thompson about the economic order that was created in the aftermath of the Second World War.  What was agreed at Bretton Woods, how did it work, why did it eventually fail, and can any of it be revived?Talking Points:The Bretton Woods system:Established a system of fixed exchange rates with the U.S. dollar as the international reserve currency (other currencies were pegged to the dollar, and the dollar was pegged to gold)Created the IMF and the World BankEstablished capital controlsOn the surface, Bretton Woods is a success story. The following three decades were a period of economic growth and relative stability. But there are other parts of that story too, such as low oil prices. The system had to be patched up many times from 1961 onward, in part because of the misaligned role of dollars and gold. Bretton Woods also created a problem for U.S. presidents who had to balance domestic and international pressures on the dollar. The election of Richard Nixon in 1968 marked the beginning