ABSTRACT
A more moderate thesis is that although the Bretton Woods regime rendered good service, corresponding to the needs of a certain epoch, that epoch is over. The abuses of the gold exchange standard that occurred in the years up to 1971 were not consistent with the spirit of Bretton Woods. This chapter examines who were the "extreme creditors" up to 1971, how they behaved, and what may have been the wrongs they did to the international community as a whole. At the end of the war and during the immediately following years, the United States was the big "extreme creditor". This was a consequence both of the immense economic strength of the United States in a war-weakened world and of the stability of American prices at a time when inflation was widespread elsewhere. Both with Bonn and with Tokyo the American government used, or at least implied that it might use, various means of pressure that were at its command.
