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Crisis and Reform in the World's Economy*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 August 2009

Extract

There are several crucial reasons for the need to reform the world economy. First, the worldwide inflation, a terrible cancerous disease which, if uncontrolled, might destroy the roots of economic development. Second (a direct consequence of inflation), a sudden imbalance in our international monetary system: capital flight in monstrous dimensions, devaluation of important reserve currencies, the United States dollar, the English pound, followed by the Japanese yen and a number of European currencies. Third, growing unemployment all over the world, again as a consequence of inflation and of a worldwide lack of confidence. Finally, but not least, the growing conflict of the developing countries, mainly in the Southern Hemisphere, with the industrialized world mainly in the Northern. This north-south struggle, brewing for long years, has reached the dimensions of what we might call an “economic cold war” on a worldwide level. Thus far, efforts to find new solutions which would be satisfactory to both consumers and producers have failed.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © University of Notre Dame 1977

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References

1 Emminger, Otmar, On the Way to a New International Monetary Order, American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research (Washington, D.C., 1976), p. 2Google Scholar.

2 For more details see also Karasz, A., The Recent Washington Agreement (Rome, 1972)Google Scholar.

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4 The phrase is from Karl Blessing, former Governor of the Deutsche Bundesbank. Quoted by Emminger, , New International Money Order, p. 5Google Scholar.

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