From 1945 to early 1970, the intervention framework of monetary policy was largely determined by the rules established in the famous conference of Bretton Woods in 1944. Each country committed to maintain a fixed parity between its currency and the U.S. Dollar, the latter engaging in the same time ensuring the convertibility into gold.

However, the excessive growth of monetary base in dollars generated by policies increasingly expansive related to public expenditure - the Vietnam War in particular - have shattered this stability. This resulted in an inconvertible dollar, inflation rampant and finally a general floating currencies. Hence the collapse of Bretton Woods in the mid 70s.

But the government did

The year 2009 began with the spectacular inauguration of President Barack Obama. The image projected by the new president and his family, hope and renewal that his election had cherished so captivated the imagination of Americans that his swearing-January 20 had been followed by the media and the public as never before. Must say that the United States, and this has all industrialized countries were plunged into a severe economic and financial crisis. This is when things are worse than the one desperate cry for change. (more...)