Robert Triffin
Essay
Winter
1978
All Americans are alarmed at the shrinking value of the dollar in their neighborhood supermarkets - by close to one-half in the last ten years. With the President's announcement in early November ordering a series of dramatic actions to shore up the value of the dollar abroad, more and more Americans have also become conscious of the dollar's declining value in terms of major foreign currencies over the same period - by more than one-half against the West German mark and the Japanese yen, and by nearly two-thirds vis-à-vis the Swiss franc.
Essay
Apr
1969
Is our international monetary system heading toward a sudden collapse as in 1931, or toward the fundamental reforms needed to cure its most glaring and universally recognized shortcomings? Or will it continue to drift precariously from crisis to crisis, each one dealt with by belated rescue operations and the spread of restrictions and currency devaluations? Judging from past history, official statements and even intentions are unlikely to provide reliable answers to these questions, for they are more often designed to reassure than to enlighten. The Governor of the Bank of England, Sir Leslie O'Brien, candidly confessed to a Cambridge audience last spring: "I am rapidly qualifying as an instructor on how to exude confidence without positively lying." Another reason is that major changes in the international monetary system have rarely been the result of conscious planning. They have most often been the by-products of broad historical forces or accidents, defying contemporary forecasts and official intentions.
