Exorbitant Privilege Quotes

“American consumers and investors could acquire foreign goods and companies without their government having to worry that the dollars used in their purchases would be presented for conversion into gold. Instead those dollars were hoarded by central banks, for which they were the only significant source of additional international reserves. America was able to run a balance-of-payments deficit “without tears,” in the words of the French economist Jacques Rueff. This ability to purchase foreign goods and companies using resources conjured out of thin air was the exorbitant privilege of which French Finance Minister Valéry Giscard d’Estaing so vociferously complained.”
― Barry Eichengreen, Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System

“the Bank of England, chartered in 1694 to raise money for war with France,”
― Barry Eichengreen, Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar