ABSTRACT
Rising competition within the capitalist bloc and the developing country debt crisis in the 1980s guaranteed that the US-dominated credit system would be rocked by periodic volatility. As Europe was regaining its economic strength and the United States was beginning to feel the costs of being a superpower, there was growing concern about the large amounts of US currency effectively outside of US monetary control. Despite the views of Servan-Schreiber and others, Europe's revival in the world of credit began in the 1960s, partially caused by actions in the United States. The descent towards the global debt crisis was in some ways best caught by Turkey's economic crisis in the late 1970s. Although US dominance was challenged by the Japanese in the 1980s, that threat receded drastically in the 1990s. In the 1990s, many of these European banks were actively competing with the US and Japanese institutions in everything from international equities and bonds to derivatives and tending.
