The result was to send a shuddering shock through both the American and the global economies. The dollar surged, as did unemployment. Inflation collapsed from 14.8 percent in March 1980 to 3 percent by 1983. In Britain this was the crisis with which the Thatcher government began. In Germany it would contribute to Schmidt’s unseating and his replacement by the conservative government of Helmut Kohl.8 France’s Socialist government under President François Mitterrand would be forced into line in 1983.
