The Big Float
When the US effectively floated the US dollar in 1971, many foresaw the end, or at least the beginning of the end, of the Bretton Woods system and, with it, American monetary and economic hegemony. Yet the dollar-based system survives – along with the same old criticisms of it.
José Antonio Ocampo, Resetting the International Monetary (Non)System (Oxford University Press, 2017).
BERKELEY – August 15 is not a red-letter day on most calendars. True, August 15, 1969, was the first day of the Woodstock music festival. And the Panama Canal opened to traffic on August 15, 1914. Mostly, though, mid-August finds officials and others on holiday.