Monday, November 7, 2011

Harold James - The Roman Predicament

How the rules of international order create the politics of empire
Harold James


pg.: 69-70

"...The person who really moved the debate about the dollar into a discussion of empire was General de Gaulle. In the early 1960s, he complained about how "Western Europe has become, without even being aware of it, a protectorate of the Americans..."

...


"...Georges Pompidou, inserted in hand a passage into Finance Minister Valery Giscard dÉstaing´s 19700 speech to the IMF Annual Meeting to make it clear that the dollar was the root of all evil: "It appears to me that it is necessary, without being aggressive, to show how unhealthy the role of the dollar is and how it is constantly losing its purchasing power. ...I remember that I said in New York that one could not eternally ask people to set their watches by defective clock"

...

"...in 1997-98 some Europeans joined Asian criticism of the U.S. approach to the Asian financial crisis. They also began to freat about the way in which major commodity prices, especially the politically vital petroleum, were set in dollars, and to demand a more international or less American alternative..."



Source: http://books.google.fi/books?id=qWeGrx8WO4QC&pg=PA68&dq=%22I+said+in+New+York+that+one+could+not+eternally+ask+people+to+set+their+watches+by+a+defective+clock%22&hl=fi&ei=DMi3Tr3ZKc2A-waZ95mFBg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=book-thumbnail&resnum=1&ved=0CC4Q6wEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22I%20said%20in%20New%20York%20that%20one%20could%20not%20eternally%20ask%20people%20to%20set%20their%20watches%20by%20a%20defective%20clock%22&f=false

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