(9/21/2015) Exactly 30 years ago, on September 22, 1985, ministers of the Group of Five countries met at the Plaza Hotel in New York and agreed on a successful initiative to reverse what had been a dangerously overvalued dollar.
(4/28/2015) Two hostesses are rivals in a popularity contest throughout the social season. When they hold soirees on the same night invitees must choose which one to go to. The hostesses guard their social ranking jealously, and may even punish a guest who goes to the rival’s party by withholding an invitation next time.
To read about the roles of China and the US over the last month, one would think that Asia/Pacific relations are a zero-sum game like that of these two hostesses in some fictional time and place.
(3/23/2015) We are at the 30th anniversary of the 1985 Plaza Accord. It was the most dramatic intervention in the foreign exchange market since Nixon originally floated the US currency. At the end of February 1985 the dollar reached dizzying heights, which remain a record to this day. Then it began a long depreciation, encouraged by a shift in policy under the new Treasury Secretary, James Baker, and pushed down by G-5 foreign exchange intervention. People remember only the September 1985 meeting at the Plaza Hotel in New York City that ratified the policy shift; so celebrations of the 30th anniversary will wait until this coming fall.