Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

70 страница из 137

Via the transmission mechanisms of international trade and investment, economic problems in one country spread to others and prosperity declined globally. Even countries that had run large trade surpluses suffered. France had maintained strong exports by keeping the franc undervalued, but the Banque de France incurred huge losses on its sterling balances when Britain was forced to devalue the pound in 1931.

Keynes was convinced that the global monetary order needed to be radically reformed. Instead of society adjusting to the requirements of the gold standard, he believed that it was monetary policy that needed to adapt to the natural tendencies of society. In his vision, there needed to be a more flexible mechanism of international exchange rates to allow for periodic adjustments in response to imbalances in trade or capital flows, and the role of the barbarous relic in monetary policy needed to be gradually phased out. And this is precisely the plan that he drew up.