 Good afternoon, welcome to plenary session five. I'm John Lipsky from the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington. And I have the honor of moderating this panel on the politicization of the international system of payments and the future of the international monetary system, a small topic. But happily, we have a truly all-star panel of experts in this field. And I'm sure we're going to have illuminating interesting discussions. They hardly need any introduction. And since we're running late, I don't want to spend too much time other than you can read along with me. Geoffrey Frieden, the government professor from Harvard, Akinari Hori, who was a now special advisor and member of the Board of Directors of the Cannon Institute for Global Studies, but long stalwart of the Bank of Japan, Professor Helen Ray, Professor of Economics at London's Business School, and of course, well-known in international economic circles for her important work in this area. Sergei Sarchak, Deputy Finance Minister of Russia, and a long veteran of G20 meetings, and where these issues have been discussed. And of course, last and definitely not least, Jean-Claude Trichet, who definitely needs no introduction in this venue. So let me just begin by giving a few basic facts that set the stage for this issue of the future of the international monetary system. One is, of course, the dominance of the US dollar in the US system. A few factoids, global GDP in 2019 at market rates about what in America we'd say $88 trillion, or $88,000 billion, I guess, in European parlance. International reserves that are often focused on in this context actually only represent less than $12 trillion, or $12,000 billion. In other words, a small percentage of the global GDP. Daily turnover in the forex market this year was estimated by the Bank for International Settlements at $6.6 trillion every day. In other words, a vastly larger sum than GDP and an incredibly larger sum than international reserves. And according to the BIS, of the daily turnover, 88% of all transactions have the dollar, at least on one side. The euro, 32%. The yen, 17%. And a number that may surprise you, China's RMB, 4%. So let me just give a quick potted history of how we got here. The dollar's dominance in the international system began with the end of World War I, but it was formalized in the Bretton Woods system agreed at the end of World War II. That system, a dollar exchange standard, had the dollar at its center. It was intended to be a global system, but the Soviet Union declined, although they participated in the negotiations, declined to participate in the system, instead formed a competing system, Comic-Con. The dollar's dominance survived the end of the formal Bretton Woods system in the sense of move to floating exchange rates, survived the oil shock, survived the Latin debt crisis, and in 1990, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the entry of China and India into the global trading system began the period of what I call true globalization, and the dollar remained dominant again. Subsequently came the Tequila crisis, the Latin debt crisis, the mid-'90s, the Asian currency crisis of the late-'90s, the dot-com recession, the bursty of the dot-com bubble, and eventually the global financial crisis of 2007-89. One of the constants of this period was that the US GDP throughout this period was declining as a percent of global GDP, and yet the dollar remained dominant. Two other factors are important here, especially in the context of our theme of the politicization of the system was the beginning of the use of widespread and often broadly sanctioned sanctions. First, I think in this context, what we call fat-off, but here is called the group d'action financier, to combat money laundering and the financing of terrorism, began an effort to put roadblocks that are essentially for political goals as well as economic policy goals that have now been ramped up in a unilateral way by the US. So what we look at is trade conflict that the Bass panel just dealt with. Also encompassed the use by the US of selective payment sanctions for political reasons, taking advantage of the centrality of the US financial system and the dollar-based system and the US banking system in that context. There was an interesting speech at the Federal Reserve's Jackson Hole Gathering Symposium this year by Mark Carney, the governor of the Bank of England. He said the old consensus was that flexible inflation targeting and floating exchange rates were the best way to conduct policies. And in that context that there were modest gains for international policy cooperation. However, a rethinking of the current circumstance focuses on dominant currency pricing that reduces the impact. If everything's priced off of dollars, it reduces the impact of domestic monetary policies and reduces the ability of exchange rates to act as shock absorbers. All of this despite, again, the trend decline of US GDP as a percent of the total. So we now have a much more integrated global rate setting as has become very clear in the last few years and a sense of reduced monetary independence on the part of central banks. And a concern that has been quite heightened by the recent economic developments in that the US economy has seemed out of sync with other advanced economies. Growth has been stronger. And hence, if the dollar centrality has been increased in many ways in its impact on the effectiveness of monetary policy elsewhere, the question remains, is this advisable? Mark Carney suggested that in the long run we would want and need a multipolar international system. He suggested the creation, in fact, of something quite speculative, a synthetic hegemonic currency, which is quite a step. So let me now turn to the panel and ask them to comment as they wish on three broad themes, one or as they wish, but suggest three broad themes. One, what are the elements that have explained the dollar's continued dominance in the context of the US economy shrinking, not absolutely, but in relative terms relative to the rest of the economy? Is it should we expect, as a matter of course, that eventually that shrinkage, relative shrinkage will tend to diminish the dollar's dominance? And where is the system likely to go, and where should it go?