When 194 1 just entered the war, Americans began to conceive the future dollar era, and the confidence of the United States in winning the war is beyond doubt. Numerous academic discussions, policy consultations and congressional hearings have gradually formed America's postwar financial strategic planning, which is the Bretton Woods system established by 1944.
Simply put, the Bretton Woods system is: one center and two basic points.
One center is to establish a world monetary center, with gold as the weak subject and real power in the US dollar. The dollar is linked to gold, and the currencies of all countries are linked to the dollar, so everyone supports gold and is king of the world. Under this system, the US dollar and gold * * * are both used as currency reserves for countries to issue their own currencies, and the US dollar will be deeply embedded in the currency credit of various countries. As long as the world economy is developing, the demand for the US dollar will naturally increase, and the US dollar will reap the development achievements of various countries through currency issuance. This is just an upgraded version of 1922 gold exchange standard. The dollar has squeezed out the pound, and its scope of application has expanded to the whole world. If the problem of dual credit creation is not solved, it will inevitably lead to the flood of liquidity and a greater currency crisis will break out again on a global scale.
Since the national strength of the United States has accounted for half of the world economy after World War II, and its military strength is even more proud of the world, why didn't the United States directly establish a dollar dynasty, and why did it invite the abolished gold as a puppet emperor? Cao Cao never dared to usurp Han's independence. It is not that he is not strong enough, nor does he lack this ambition, but that the time is not yet ripe. First of all, he is worried that people in the world will not accept him. Second, they are worried that the princes will compete for the title of emperor, lose the orthodox appeal of the Han Dynasty, and increase the difficulty of unifying the whole country. The United States has similar concerns. The universal legitimacy of gold is still deeply supported by people all over the world and cannot be extinguished in the short term. World War II is not over yet, and post-war reconstruction needs to unite people. America is also a traditional isolationist country. For the first time, I entered the world hegemony stage as a protagonist, and I still lacked leadership experience. At this time, it will waste gold and stand on its own feet, for fear of self-defeating. The deeper worry is that the hidden danger of the pound separatist regime is no longer carved out at the root, but the power of the Soviet Union is expanding. If the dollar standard is imposed on the world at this time, it will not rule out the complicated situation that the pound is once again king, the ruble is divided and the franc is self-respecting.
If we support gold, the problem will be much simpler. On the one hand, it will not affect the monetary hegemony of the United States, on the other hand, it will show the selflessness of the United States and win the hearts of the world. The United States has 70% of the world's gold reserves after the war, and the reduction of gold will reduce the United States. The United States controls the real power of the world's currency, and Britain is deeply dependent on American debt, which naturally requires Britain to support gold. France's gold reserves are second only to the United States. In the 1920s, the franc zone was a trading system formed by a group of European countries and their colonies that loved gold, so France was bound to support gold. The Soviet ruble has always adopted the gold standard, and under the temptation of American aid, it sent a delegation to the Bretton Woods Conference. If you tell the Soviets directly that the future world will adopt the dollar standard, Stalin will immediately turn his face and leave, but gold can pull the Soviet Union into the US-led world monetary system. In this way, it is not difficult to unify the world of money. When the time is right, we will cut off the link between the dollar and gold. Countries around the world have long been used to the dollar, and the rebound will be much easier to control.
The dollar chose Cao Cao's idea, giving up the false name and only seeking truth and profit. Wait for the opportunity, waste money and stand on your own two feet!
The gold standard established by the Bretton Woods system is based on the gold standard and the dollar standard.
In addition to the monetary center of "gold comes to the DPRK and the dollar is regent", the first basic point is the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Americans' positioning of the IMF is a mechanism to stabilize the exchange rates of various countries. The "Three Musketeers" of the world currency in the 1920s-Strong of the Federal Reserve Bank of new york, Norman of the Bank of England, schacht of the Bundesbank and Morrow of the Bank of France later-were the core figures in stabilizing the exchange rates of various countries. In the form of private gatherings, they finalized the monetary value relationship between countries behind the scenes and then asked their respective governments to accept it. After World War II, the United States hoped that the role played by the IMF would be to replace the four major functions and achieve the stability of exchange rates in various countries with a more legal, standardized and standardized process.
1933, Roosevelt once dismissed exchange rate stability. Why has it become a major problem that the United States must face now? In World War II, in order to support the costly war, the United States started the economic machine in an all-round way, basically achieved full employment, and got rid of the high unemployment rate during the Great Depression. When peace comes, the United States will have to face a huge overcapacity problem, and the war has made the United States rely heavily on foreign demand. Before the end of the war, the United States had realized that 60 million jobs must be maintained in order to achieve basic social employment. If there is no overseas market to absorb the huge domestic production capacity, the nightmare of high unemployment rate will come to the United States again. At this time, the recovery of international trade is of strategic significance to the United States.
In order to achieve a stable monetary system, it is necessary to determine the ratio relationship between national currencies and the US dollar, and the US dollar promises to exchange 35 US dollars for 1 ounce of gold, so that national currencies can indirectly achieve the locking relationship with the value of gold through the US dollar. The IMF is a kind of fund to ensure the stability of this currency price relationship. When a country's currency deviates too much from the set exchange rate, it can overdraw some funds from the fund according to its own quota to intervene in its currency so as to bring the exchange rate back to the specified range.
At the beginning of this fund, the United States naturally contributed a lot, with 2.8 billion dollars accounting for 27% and the British Empire as a whole accounting for 25%. Because all kinds of resolutions need 80% majority votes to pass, Britain and the United States have veto power. This is also the face that the United States gives Britain, and everyone rules the world monetary system together. However, the United States knows that it is impossible for Britain to concentrate all the voting rights of all the autonomous countries under the empire when voting. So the United States still has the final say.
At first, the British had their own considerations about the role of the IMF. As for the monetary standard, British negotiator Keynes suggested establishing an international monetary unit, Bancor, instead of dollars and gold, and everyone borrowed money and paid back the money in this world dollar. In addition, the IMF should be a world central bank and assume the role of lender of last resort, that is, it can create money indefinitely in times of crisis. The abacus in Britain is tinkling. Because Britain's debt is too heavy, it is in urgent need of funds, and it wants the IMF to be an overdraft ATM, but it is unwilling to owe a specific debt to a national currency, so it comes up with an ambiguous bank. It is obviously the United States, which has a large surplus, that pays for this vague monetary debt.
Americans think that this is daydreaming! No longer use dollars, then America has not been busy for so many years? Scraping gold? The dollar is not so bold. Does anyone believe in the "demigod" bank invented by Keynes? Want to fuck the world central bank? So the Fed is going to drink northwest wind? Want to use the IMF as an ATM, and Americans finally help pay the bill? This is too wishful thinking!
Americans rejected Keynes's proposal one by one, insisting that IMF is not a bank, but a fund. Everyone must pay the money first, borrow and adjust as needed, and then repay, otherwise the shares will be reduced accordingly. Britain had to accept the conditions of the United States, and the former money boss has now come to an end.
The second basic point of the Bretton Woods system is the World Bank. The original intention of the World Bank was to provide funds for post-war reconstruction, and later it also took into account the development of underdeveloped countries.
From a practical point of view, the United States regards the World Bank loan as a lollipop to reward countries. As long as it is willing to surrender to the Bretton Woods dynasty, give up the concept of self-sufficient economic development, cut tariffs and trade protection, and become a good citizen of the dollar empire, such a country can get financial support from the World Bank. Anyone who does not join this American-led global system is equivalent to choosing "self-exile" economically.
At this time, the United States has completed the transformation from a firm practitioner of trade protection to an active advocate of free trade. The fundamental temperament of the United States is a businessman. Businessmen value practicality, don't believe in so-called ism, resolutely use what is good for me, resolutely abandon what is bad for me, and despise everyone else's judgment! IMF, World Bank, and later General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (predecessor of WTO) all reflect the distinctive businessman temperament of the United States.
It is precisely because the rise of the United States depends on trade protection that the United States is particularly afraid that other countries will return to their old ways. It was Song Like Mao and Zhao Kuangyin who ascended the throne of the emperor in yellow robes. Whoever wants to hang around in front of him in a yellow robe must have made his big taboo.
Although the United States has completed the great cause of regency, the hidden danger of the pound separatist regime has not been cut off. The great cause of vassal separatism has not been completed, and the dollar still needs to work hard.
It hurts the pound, and the dollar is not poisonous.
What makes people angry is that we lost a quarter of our national wealth in the great cause of anti-fascism, but in return, we paid tribute to those countries that have become rich because of the war for half a century. [ 15]
-British economist
The huge colonial system of the British Empire provided Britain with almost unlimited credit overdraft power during the war. Colonies and Commonwealth countries provided various resources, food and raw materials for the British army, including the cost of British troops fighting in Egypt and India, and even the local cost of American troops was counted on Britain, as well as the cost of Indian troops assisting British troops in overseas operations. They subscribed for British government bonds and accumulated a large amount of pound reserves, which is also an important reason why Britain can survive the war consumption and finally win. Britain's colonial system and other trading partners provided Britain with materials in exchange for British pound reserves, while Britain and its allies consumed US dollar reserves to buy arms from the United States. As a result, the total size of the pound in the national reserve after the war was twice that of the dollar reserve. On the surface, the pound is larger than the dollar reserve and remains the most important currency in the world, but two-thirds of these reserves are concentrated in the pound area and are in a highly unstable state.
Countries in the pound area have accumulated a lot of pounds, not because they are more valuable, but because Britain froze their choice to exchange pounds for other currencies during the war. Because of the existence of the dollar, the pound is always threatened by the countries in the pound area. Before the First World War, Britain's overseas assets were far higher than its liabilities, so there is no doubt about the stability of the value of the pound. But now Britain's net foreign debt has reached $654.38+05 billion, which is six times of its gold and foreign exchange reserves! If the pound thaws, countries will scramble to convert their reserves into dollars, and the pound will immediately face a catastrophic avalanche of value.
Britain should continue to freeze its foreign exchange reserves of British pounds, and then gradually repay these foreign debts with British domestic exports. This will not only boost British employment, get rid of the shadow of post-war recession, but also stabilize the value of the pound. The most important thing is to maintain the existence of the pound area. As long as there is this economic foundation, it is not impossible to rise again in the future. If the freeze is lifted, the pound zone will take refuge in the US dollar, which will not only help the United States to expand its exports and strengthen the sphere of influence of the US dollar zone, but will also fundamentally fall into a state of collapse and extinction.
Just after World War II, Keynes, as the core think tank of British economy, went to the United States to negotiate post-war loans on behalf of Britain. However, he seriously misjudged this big issue concerning the life and death of the pound area and fell into the trap set by the United States, thus personally ruining the hegemony of the pound for 200 years.
Americans proposed to Keynes that the United States could provide a credit line of $3.75 billion to Britain, plus $654.38+$25 million that Canada could provide, making a total of $5 billion. But the condition is: Britain must unfreeze the foreign exchange pound reserve before1July 947 15!
Keynes, who is super conceited, thinks that the United States and Britain are both allies and brothers linked by blood, and the United States will generously relax the loan conditions. He himself prepared a grand plan to talk to the Americans about the brilliant idea of Britain and the United States dominating the world in the future, but he didn't realize that the United States had put forward such a condition of "why are you in such a hurry?" Keynes really didn't understand American political intrigue, and he actually agreed!
The British economist hit the nail on the head when commenting on Keynes's loan: "Not many people in this country will believe the theory of producers, that is, destroying Britain and everything that Britain stands for in the world is a premeditated and conscious purpose of American policy. However, the current evidence can be interpreted as: if every aid is attached with conditions, Britain will fall into an unavoidable necessity, that is, it will have to ask for more aid again, and these assistance can only be obtained through further self-depreciation and self-weakening of Britain. Then, the result is obviously what the industrialists speculated. " [ 16]
Sure enough, on July 5, 1947, the dominance of the pound completely collapsed [17]. After the war, Britain had hoped to rely on the pound area to rise again, but Americans would not give the British empire a chance to revive.
Germany's powerful pound hegemony, which was hard to shake in both world wars, was easily destroyed by the United States with a loan of only $3.75 billion.
In the currency cold war, rejecting the dollar is rejecting peace.
The Soviet Union's rejection of the Bretton Woods system was not the result of the Cold War, but the cause of it.
Since 1933 took office, Roosevelt has been fighting the economic crisis for most of his term. His most painful feelings are the 12 great depression in the United States and the unemployment nightmare of 10 million people. World War II destroyed the European economy, but at the same time, the American economy soared by 90%. In the future, the fate of America's surplus production capacity and huge employment population will depend on the prosperity of world trade after the war. To this end, he is determined to break all trade barriers in the world, completely eradicate the divided currency area, liberate the colonial raw material bases under the control of Britain and France, connect the resources and labor supply of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, attract Asian countries such as China and Japan to enter the world market, and establish a "permanent peace under the United States" with the United States as the core of political power, the US dollar as the monetary and financial basis and the goal of unifying the world market.
Roosevelt firmly believed that the British empire waiting for a comeback was the main obstacle to American strategy, while the Soviet Union, whose economy was almost completely destroyed by war, was completely different from Britain. The Soviet Union has no overseas colonial system, and its industry is far from enough to compete with the United States. Agriculture is a huge market for American agricultural products, and the Soviet Union does not pose any threat to foreign investment. After running in the war, Roosevelt thought Stalin was a trustworthy world-class leader and had no impulse to subvert the world capitalist system immediately. On the contrary, Roosevelt was not interested in Churchill's narrow attitude and frequent little tricks. Therefore, it is in line with the ultimate strategic goal of the United States to make necessary political compromise and economic assistance to the Soviet Union and bring it into the world system of the United States.
American bankers believe that the United States and the Soviet Union occupy vast continents at both ends of the earth and control huge resources in non-competitive areas. This phenomenon must be regarded as the leading and dominant force in the future historical process. Both the Soviet government and American financiers have a lasting interest in maintaining the managed gold standard, because both the United States and the Soviet Union have the largest gold reserves and are both potential largest gold producers. Although the economy of the Soviet Union is controlled by the state, it is not an expansionist. Compared with Britain, the Soviet Union will never threaten American export and international investment plans. The huge domestic demand of the Soviet Union will cause its resources to be mainly used to meet domestic demand, rather than to penetrate other countries economically [4].
But Kennan and most American politicians are far from Roosevelt's strategic vision and boldness of vision. Roosevelt died on the eve of the victory of the war in April 1945, which interrupted the established strategic planning of the United States. Vice President Truman, who has been living in the shadow of the president, has finally been "righted". He is sensitive and suspicious, especially afraid of being compared with Roosevelt by others. He wants to show his decisiveness and confidence very strongly. Truman not only replaced all the inside of the White House that made him feel that Roosevelt existed, but also replaced the officials who insisted on Roosevelt's strategy.
Kennan couldn't understand why, in the highest decision-making circle of European allies, Americans always kept a deep guard against the British and were more friendly to the Soviets. Why is General Patton, the most radical anti-Soviet, repeatedly excluded by the top of the US military?
What makes Kennan even more indignant is that American aid to the Soviet Union is far better than that to Britain. Just before the end of the war in August 13, the US military stopped sending munitions to Britain without waiting for the president's order. On the day when Japan announced its surrender, it unilaterally terminated its assistance to Britain under the Lending Act without prior consultation with Britain, and began liquidation. The materials left in Britain were converted into debts of $532 million, and the materials still on the road made the British owe more1.1.80 billion yuan. Britain immediately needs to repay more American loan debts than Britain's foreign exchange reserves, forcing Britain to fall into a severe situation immediately. On the other hand, the United States is very tolerant of the Soviet Union. By the end of 10, the war had already ended, and the United States still provided up to $250 million in aid to the Soviet Union.
What Kennan dislikes most is the pro-Soviet policy of the US Treasury. 1June, 943, the U.S. Treasury Department proposed to the Soviet Union to give the Soviet Union a share of 763 million dollars in the future International Monetary Fund (IMF), and later talked about 65,438.02 billion dollars. The United States started with a share of 2.5 billion, Britain was about half, and the Soviet Union and China ranked third and fourth respectively. Morgenthau, the finance minister, proposed to Roosevelt that the post-war aid loan to the Soviet Union was as high as $6 billion, with a repayment period of 30 years and an interest rate of only 2.5%, which was much better than Keynes's $3.75 billion aid loan. Later, White, an American negotiator of the Bretton Woods Program in morgenthau, suggested in a memorandum to Roosevelt that the United States should provide the Soviet Union with an aid loan of $654.38+000 billion, with a repayment period of 35 years and interest reduced to 2%.
Just because he couldn't figure out the pro-Soviet tendency of the American government, Kennan wrote many articles, complaining that he couldn't pin his hopes on the Soviet Union, and came to the conclusion that the essence of the Soviet Union must be expansionary. But during Roosevelt's administration, Kennan's opinion was synonymous with shortsightedness and superficiality, and of course it would not be taken seriously.
However, the change of international strategic thought in Truman era brought Kennan a historic opportunity to make a fortune.
1945 In February, in the Yalta system established by Roosevelt, Stalin and Churchill, Stalin proposed to bring Eastern Europe into the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union, and Churchill went to Moscow to make a deal with Stalin, that is, Britain recognized the sphere of influence of the Soviet Union in Romania and Bulgaria, while the Soviet Union recognized Britain's privileges in Greece, because the Mediterranean Sea was the lifeline of the British Empire and Eastern Europe was the security buffer zone of the Soviet Union. Roosevelt was shocked when he heard the news. Obviously, Britain did this to safeguard the huge system of the British Empire, and the Soviet Union put Eastern Europe under protection, which will form another separatist force. In this way, isn't Roosevelt's ideal of destroying the monetary regime and establishing a unified world market ruined? The focus of the contradiction is Poland. Britain and the United States certainly hoped that Poland would be ruled by a pro-Western government, but the Soviet Union liberated and occupied Poland, and Stalin demanded that the Polish government must obey the Soviet Union. The final compromise between the two sides was that Stalin promised to insert some pro-Western officials in the Polish government to represent the voice of the West. Although Roosevelt was dissatisfied, he could only reluctantly accept it. After all, there is a difference between ideal and reality. As long as the Soviet Union enters the Bretton Woods system, the United States will be the ultimate winner. So we have to make some partial compromises.
The problem is that after Roosevelt died, Truman wanted to reverse his conviction. Without Roosevelt's prestige impact, voices against the United States' "appeasement policy" toward the Soviet Union began to appear. Truman definitely didn't want to be the second Chamberlain. He decided to be tough on the Soviet Union. Harriman, the American ambassador to the Soviet Union, began to spread the news, linking economic aid to the Soviet Union with Polish and Eastern European issues. Stalin became wary. Isn't this a renege? Will Roosevelt's death change American policy? Stalin rejected Truman and pointed out that the American demand violated the spirit of the Yalta resolution. Of course, Stalin didn't want to make the problem stiff, and finally suggested adding a few more pro-Western officials in Poland. Truman reluctantly agreed.
However, the subsequent disputes between the Soviet Union and the United States over Turkey, Iran and other issues made Stalin deeply doubt the ultimate intention of the United States. The Soviet Union's initial doubts about the Bretton Woods system are now fermenting again. "In the discussion of the Bretton Woods Agreement, the Soviets expressed their worries about the White Plan, which allegedly proposed to lift all restrictions on trade and currency in the near future. In their view, it is very obvious that such a road is impossible for many countries under the conditions of contemporary capitalism, especially after the war. Because if no national adjustment measures are taken, their economic independence will be seriously threatened. " The representative of the Soviet Union made it clear: "The reason why they participated in the most cruel war in history was not to make the world's exports to the United States and Britain safer." Stalin finally saw that the ultimate goal of the pressure exerted by the United States to promote free trade was to seize the economic control of Eastern Europe and even the Soviet Union into the hands of the United States. The Soviet Union did not refuse to join the International Monetary Fund. "It just wants to tell American officials that Moscow needs more time to consider the terms of the agreement." .
The Soviet Union is watching the attitude of the United States.
On February 22nd, the US Treasury sent a telegram to Kennan, hoping to know the real motive of the Soviet Union's delay in joining the IMF [5]. Kennan, on the other hand, took this opportunity to write an 8000-word telegram magnificently, raising his personal negative judgment on the Soviet Union for many years to the theoretical height of "two thieves contending", providing ideological ammunition for Truman's urgent political stance of refusing to be "Chamberlain's second" and winning applause in the abrupt political atmosphere in Washington. Kennan also became an instant hit and was called "the originator of the Cold War" by later generations.
In the following months, the Soviet Union did not see American aid loans, but waited for Churchill's "Iron Curtain Speech". Disappointed, the Soviet Union announced its refusal to join the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and parted ways with the Bretton Woods system.
The dream that the United States tried to bring the Soviet Union into the dollar empire through monetary and trade means was finally shattered. A cold war that lasted for more than 40 years, cost 8 trillion dollars, claimed hundreds of thousands of lives and separated millions of families began.
Since then, the Soviet Union has chosen to compete with the dollar dynasty and set out to build its own ruble empire.
Roosevelt's fear of the pound's comeback in World War II was far greater than that of the ruble's inflation. In order to create the most favorable international environment for the postwar United States, Roosevelt was determined to break all the trade barriers in the world, completely eradicate the divided currency area, liberate the colonial raw material bases under the control of Britain and France, connect the resources and labor supply of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, and attract Asian countries such as China and Japan to enter the world market, thus establishing a "permanent peace under the United States" with the United States as the core of political power, the US dollar as the monetary and financial basis, and the goal of unifying the world market. After Roosevelt's death, the founders of the American Cold War overthrew his major policies, pressing hard step by step, forcing Stalin to finally reject the Bretton Woods system and establish his own ruble empire, thus opening the prelude to the Cold War.
In Lenin's new economic era, the ruble established the gold exchange standard system, which was called the golden ruble. In Stalin's era, the ruble evolved into a "planned standard system", which was no longer a medium to actively participate in commodity trading, but a passive measure of the turnover of "barter exchange" under the planned economy.
Stalin's 10 plan to catch up with western industrial powers in 1930s is just like China's 156 key industrial project aided by the Soviet Union in 1950s. Without the large-scale technology diffusion and primitive accumulation provided by the countryside, it is impossible to succeed. At that time, the only country that could provide western technology diffusion was Germany, which was defeated in World War I. In fact, it was with the support and funding of the German military that the Soviet Union was able to learn and draw lessons from modern advanced industrial technology.
After the war, the Soviet Union, with its strong military and national strength, launched a fierce currency circulation war with the US dollar on a global scale. Until the mid-1960s, due to the stagnation of the Soviet Union's own economy, the ruble gradually formed a long-term confrontation with the US dollar.
The oil crisis in the 1970s made the United States discover a powerful economic weapon, that is, oil trade. It was in the mid-1980s that the United States effectively used the deadly oil "dollar dagger" and inserted it into the heart of the ruble empire.