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[...] unlike in the late 1960s, German inflation was less of at threat with Volcker on the loose. The American vacuum cleaner, powered by Volcker's high interest rates, could now be counted upon to suck the fresh Deutsche Marks in, preventing them from making their way immediately from France back …

[...] if 'the weak suffer what they must', their very capacity, let alone willingness, to reproduce the power of the strong declines precipitiously.

[...] combining high returns to financial capital (requiring high interest rates) with high profit rates for American businesses (requiring low interest rates) was never going to be easy, and Volcker knew this. It was a combination that could only come about if another way of providing that profit …

The only way the Franc's Deutsche Mark value could be kept constant was, indeed, for the Bundesbank to keep doing the one thing it detested: incessantly buy francs using freshly printed Deutsche Marks. Were these marks to remain stashed in the vaults of the French central bank--or anywhere else for…

[...] nations in deficit could not sustain fixed exchange rates with the rest, especially in times of crisis. To remain within Europe's monetary snake, a country with a trade deficit, France for example, urgently needed to attract foreign money to finance its net imports. Foreign money is attracted…