ABSTRACT
The past world-economic decade opened with a strike of lightning, and goes out with thunder that has not yet stopped ringing in our ears. In between, it was characterized by a deepening and acceleration of Bretton Woods II, the floating dollar standard that had emerged after the collapse of Bretton Woods. The strike of lightning, of course, is the Asian crisis of 1997/98, and the thunder today only part of the ongoing global financial (and, in consequence, real) disaster. How are these events related?
