What Happens When Harvard Can't Be Harvard

In 1965, then-French finance minister Valery Giscard d’Estaing came up with the "mot juste" for describing the way that the supremacy of the dollar provided the foundation for the financial supremacy of the US. The fact the dollar was so dominant in international transactions gave the US, d’Estaing said, an "exorbitant privilege." Because every country needed dollars to settle trade and backstop their own currencies, foreign countries had to buy up US debt, which in turn meant that the US paid less to borrow money and was able to run up trade and budget deficits without suffering the usual…

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