Asia Times Online :: Asian news and current affairs

The Wizard of Bubbleland: "Until the late 1950s, a currency's money market was based in the issuing nation's financial center: US dollars in New York, sterling in London, yen in Tokyo, Swiss francs in Zurich, etc. The Bretton Woods monetary regime of fixed exchange rates built around a gold-backed dollar did not consider unrestricted cross-border flow of funds desirable or necessary for facilitating international trade"