"post world war two institutions"? Banks, Credit cards and the Stock market? Definitely should have mentioned that yesterday in his press conference.
Bretton Woods 2 and the rigged economy. Its going away. Good riddance.
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"Bretton Woods 2" is not an officially dated event like the original Bretton Woods Conference, which took place from July 1 to July 22, 1944. Instead, it’s a term coined by economists Michael Dooley, David Folkerts-Landau, and Peter Garber in a series of papers starting in 2003 to describe an informal, evolved version of the international monetary system that emerged after the collapse of the original Bretton Woods system in 1971.
The original Bretton Woods system, established in 1944, was based on fixed exchange rates with currencies pegged to the U.S. dollar, which was itself convertible to gold. It effectively ended on August 15, 1971, when U.S. President Richard Nixon suspended the dollar’s convertibility into gold, leading to a shift to floating exchange rates by 1973.
Bretton Woods 2, as a concept, refers to a period starting roughly in the late 1990s or early 2000s when several emerging economies, particularly China and other Asian countries, began pegging their currencies to the U.S. dollar (either explicitly or implicitly) to support export-led growth. These countries accumulated large reserves of U.S. dollars, often by running trade surpluses with the United States, which in turn financed U.S. current account deficits. This arrangement echoed aspects of the original Bretton Woods system, hence the name, but it lacked a formal agreement or gold backing.
There’s no single start date for Bretton Woods 2, but it’s often associated with China’s economic rise and its entry into the World Trade Organization in December 2001, which accelerated its export-driven strategy. The system is generally considered to have been prominent through the early 2000s and into the 2010s. Its "end" is debated—some point to the 2008 global financial crisis as a turning point due to shifts in global economic dynamics, while others argue it persisted longer or evolved further. No consensus exists on a precise end date, as it was never a formalized system with a clear beginning or conclusion.
So, Bretton Woods 2 is typically understood to span roughly from the early 2000s (with roots in the late 1990s) to at least the late 2000s, with its relevance fading or transforming in the years following the 2008 crisis.