On the other side of that velvet rope is the room in which arguably the most important economic event in 1944 took place: the signing of the agreements establishing the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the International Monetary Fund, and the entire post-War economic order, with the United States clearly in the position of world's dominant economy and the U.S. dollar as the world's reserve currency. Even today, with the “Bretton Woods system” of fixed currency exchange rates pegged to the dollar long overtaken by events, the institutions (in the form of the World Bank and the IMF) are still with us, and commodity markets the world around still trade in dollars. (For how much longer this can last is an open question, with every two economists expressing at least three opinions on the matter.)
Copyright 2006, Garrett Wollman. All rights reserved. Photograph taken 2006-06-27.