The Future Of The International Monetary System
Digging deeper than most, this volume includes several long analyses of the debt problem and good statements of the case for an international monetary system based on paper, commodities, gold, purchasing power parity and modified Bretton Woods principles, among other things. Younger experts appear along with such veterans as Edward Bernstein, Albert Gailord Hart and Robert Triffin. More than one is, as Robert Solomon calls himself, "a reformed international monetary reformer." Naturally there is no consensus but many are attracted by that elusive pimpernel, the coordination of macroeconomic policies.
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Before the end of this year, the Special Drawing Rights machinery of the International Monetary Fund should come into operation, ushering in a new era of multilaterally created international reserves. This is no small matter. The international community has not heretofore created anything so deadly serious as money.
The crises of globalization will be solved by neither a super-IMF nor an unfettered market. Herewith, a third way.
The global financial crisis of 1997-98 was neither the first of its kind nor the last. But this time, even the virtuous were not immune. The stricken countries desperately need a plan for protection in the future. The IMF is too strapped and its program too flawed to serve as an effective international lender of last resort. Instead, emerging markets must learn to inoculate themselves against future currency attacks by increasing liquidity, such as foreign currency reserves, so they can fight back the powerful forces of market speculation on their own. While self-help is expensive, it is far less painful than the turmoil of currency crises. Emerging markets must take their fate into their own hands.

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