Which brought its own source of troubles during the 70's, when the US faced its economic troubles and Asia was taken along for the ride, especially when Carter tried to shift the Fed's money policy. That was far from popular, if I've heard anything close to the truth.True enough. Quite a few countries in Asia have adopted the US dollar following Japan's example.
Which brought its own source of troubles during the 70's, when the US faced its economic troubles and Asia was taken along for the ride, especially when Carter tried to shift the Fed's money policy. That was far from popular, if I've heard anything close to the truth.
The 70's had their own effects, of course. The Dollar Zone had to be re-make the old Fed with a multi-member international board to help manage dollar reserves, and that ended up giving our other allies more influence than many Americans like over the dollar. On the other hand, it also set solid rules and support structures for all of the Dollar zone, so for example the housing crisis would be a lot worse had Asian Dollar-Zone banks not supported banks on this side of the ocean.
Any thoughts of whether Chile and Argentina would join the Dollar Zone when they did? I mean, they are closer to the US than Japan, and influence is inversely proportional to (land) distance in this day and age...
If Japan didn't adopt US dollar, Japan is a poor country; at that time, Japanese yen is almost worthless due to the destruction of some major Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
It's been argued that the adoption of the American dollar in Japan was enough of a psychological blow that it was the main reason why other proposals in Japan, such as the elimination of the use of Chinese characters (kanji in Japanese parlance), were rejected- not for logical reasons but because they wanted to hold onto some shred of "national pride". So perhaps Japanese would be easier to read in TTL?
I doubt the economy would have grown as fast, adopting the US dollar did a lot I believe to increase trade, which is why several other nations like most recently Australia have done it.
OOC: I know that... don't necessarily take DBWI comments as being someone's actual opinion.OOC: They dont use kanji just because it's traditional, kanji is much easier to read than a long string of hiragana, and it's not that difficult to learn.
Yeah, but that doesn't matter much when the Canadian dollar has been something like 1.07-1 for the last twenty five years. It's not like the Canadian dollar is an international titan of finance either.I doubt it, Canada hasn't joined either so far, despite the recent free trade agreement.
Japan, a manufacturing economy? Have you forgotten the minor detail that Japan is an island? Not only would Japan have to import masses of materials in order to grease the wheels of production, but it would have to ship everything back out. There's only so much shipping can economically carry, especially when compared to the trans-Eurasion railroads through India, Tibet, Central Asia, and Russia.I disagree. If the Japanese had kept the yen I think the low exchange rate would have helped them heavily in the export market. We might have seen a country where it was worthwhile to keep the heavy industry the West began abandoning in the '80s.
That would have had interesting consequences on the present economic situation where the dollar zone's orientation towards service industry & the financial sector are becoming a major problem with unsafe banks.
What's wrong with debt in the hands of China? It may not be a liberal democracy, but it's far from communist Greater Manchuria. It's not like we (as in the US/dollar zone) have any potential cassus belli with China anyway.Perhaps instead of the oil rich countries + China holding the American debt much of it would have been in the friendlier hands of the Japanese. Simply from national security perspective such a thing would have been welcome.
Which brought its own source of troubles during the 70's, when the US faced its economic troubles and Asia was taken along for the ride, especially when Carter tried to shift the Fed's money policy. That was far from popular, if I've heard anything close to the truth.
The 70's had their own effects, of course. The Dollar Zone had to be re-make the old Fed with a multi-member international board to help manage dollar reserves, and that ended up giving our other allies more influence than many Americans like over the dollar. On the other hand, it also set solid rules and support structures for all of the Dollar zone, so for example the housing crisis would be a lot worse had Asian Dollar-Zone banks not supported banks on this side of the ocean.
Any thoughts of whether Chile and Argentina would join the Dollar Zone when they did? I mean, they are closer to the US than Japan, and influence is inversely proportional to (land) distance in this day and age...
OOC: Carter would be butterflied away.
Or, he would be butterflied into a successful two-term president. The butterfly effect works both ways, and Carter wasn't a political outsider, he could well be more successful in TTL.
Also, wooo necromancy!
Carter wouldn't be Carter we know of if the timeline was changed that much! There would be someone named Jimmy Carter but he would be changed so much by the alternate timeline he wouldn't be recognizible.
Jimmy Carter was born in 1929, a great many years before the POD. By 1945 he'd've already lived through the majority of his formative experiences.
Yes, his later life would make him different, but he'd still be recognisable.