Bretton Woods Agreement

For a quarter of a century, the Bretton Woods system imposed some order -- to the benefit of a few countries -- on the world economy through the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade. (GATT is history, the World Bank and the IMF still hang on).

This August marks the 25th year since the first nail was knocked in the coffin of the Bretton Woods Agreement. In 1971, the Nixon administration decided the U.S. no longer would buy gold at a fixed rate. Coming August, I will write a letter to mark the beginning of the end of the Bretton Woods Agreement. I would suggest The Jakarta Post runs a piece on this issue.

OSVALDO COELHO

Bandung, West Java