Brian Domitrovic reviews The Battle of Bretton Woods in our Books section this week, and alerts us to a side of Keynes you may not have seen before. Domitrovic notes as well that the strength of the IMF only grows with each international financial crisis. The IMF never lets a crisis go to waste. Mark Tushnet at Balkinization tells us with regard to the Obamacare employer mandate delay that there is no dispensing power violation contra Michael McConnell's claim. Tushnet says it's just really complicated, the IRS issued an order for "transition relief" that most folks don't know about. Comforting. Bradley Smith:…
Crisis and Leviathan: IMF Edition
Why do we still have the International Monetary Fund? It began life in 1944 with one rather specific purpose, to make sure that currencies traded at fixed rates of exchange. Since at least 1973, few currency issuers (brave exceptions include China and Panama) have shown the slightest interest in fixed exchange rates. Shouldn’t the IMF have folded a long time ago? What happened was mission creep. For about thirty years, from 1944 to 1973, the IMF did in fact supervise a world generally on fixed exchange rates. These were the “thirty glorious years” in France; the time of the “economic miracle”…
