In 1975, C. Fred Bergsten, an expert on international finance, wrote The Dilemmas of the Dollar. Bergsten discussed the post-1945 monetary system and floating exchange rates, but he focused on the weak dollar, which was contributing to inflation and a poor economy. Economic policy failure by Presidents Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Gerald Ford, as well as the Federal Reserve, had caused a collapse in the dollar.

By the early 1980s, after Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had raised interest rates sharply in order to crush inflation, the dollar was again strong against a basket of currencies. Because of interest rate differentials, U.S. rates were higher than the rates of its principal trading partners, and because of restored confidence in the U.S. economic and political outlook, the dollar surged. There are clear parallels between the early 1980s and today.