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Bretton Woods and Rebuilding Global Finance
After World War II, the world faced a choice: return to the pre-war gold standard that had constrained economies, or create a new international monetary system. This episode examines the Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, where American and British negotiators designed a system that pegged currencies to the dollar and the dollar to gold, creating fixed exchange rates that aimed to prevent competitive devaluations. We analyze how this system enabled post-war reconstruction and trade growth, while examining the inherent contradictions that eventually led to its collapse. The episode traces the…
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