Britannia Radio

EUSSR Funds for IRA Monument? Have They NO Shame?

http://rossrightangle.wordpress.com/2012/02/26/sf-seeks-eussr-funds-for-ira-monument-have-they-no-shame/ bretton woods I had reams of papers on Bretton Woods - are they in boxes in the garage ? Thrown out eventually for lack of space? Who knows. But I do remember the Americans had the upper hand and threw out most of Keynes recommendations that favoured UK and US equally. Excellent comments.....some of the best read after many an article.....this one was close to home for NZ. Claire "Ah yes Bretton Woods, the meeting at which Britains economic doom was sealed: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B... "Yet, U.S. officials were determined to open their access to the British empire. The combined value of British and U.S. trade was well over half of all the world's trade in goods. For the U.S. to open global markets, it first had to split the British (trade) empire. (Britain argued against the US insistence that it had to cut off its mutually beneficial trade with the Commonwealth (especially NZ - it devastated us at the time. C.) While Britain had economically dominated the 19th century, U.S. officials intended the second half of the 20th to be under U.S. hegemony. [6] A Senior Official of the Bank of England commented:One of the reasons Bretton Woods worked was that the US was clearly the most powerful country at the table and so ultimately was able to impose its will on the others, including an often-dismayed Britain. At the time, one senior official at the Bank of England described the deal reached at Bretton Woods as “the greatest blow to Britain next to the war”, largely because it underlined the way in which financial power had moved from the UK to the US. —[7] A devastated Britain had little choice. Two world wars had destroyed the country's principal industries that paid for the importation of half of the nation's food and nearly all its raw materials except coal. The British had no choice but to ask for aid. Not until the United States signed an agreement on December 6, 1945 to grant Britain aid of $4.4 billion did the British Parliament ratify the Bretton Woods Agreements (which occurred later in December 1945) ..[8]" http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance/jeremywarner/100015182/bretton-woods-uncovered-a-scoop-of-sorts/