Professor Wachtel of American University writes clearly and well about the breakdown of the system of semirigid exchange rates and the emergence of immense, largely uncontrolled money markets. He links both developments to almost every evil that has beset the American and international economies for the past decade on the grounds that "private supranationalism . . . has overwhelmed public institutions." To put things back in order he proposes shrinking the Eurocurrency markets through reserve requirements, creating a public agency to take over international debts, instituting tax laws that penalize wasteful takeovers, and continuing to pursue the ever elusive international coordination of national economic policies. One may quarrel with the program while agreeing that some major rethinking of the political economy of public and private issues is in order.
