Yet free prices, free exchange rates, free trade, free labour markets and privatisation have proved a colossal success.

ECONOMIST: The world after 1989

In other words, free-floating exchange rates are probably not the best option.

ECONOMIST: Getting out of a fix

Now given we live in a globalised financial market, with free-floating exchange rates and no capital controls, how would you "do" financial repression?

BBC: Business

Free capital movement and pegged exchange rates are a dangerous mix (unless the currency is fixed under a currency-board arrangement as in Hong Kong, where all local currency must be fully backed by American dollars).

ECONOMIST: Keeping the hot money out

Regulators, politicians and industry groups are now poring over ways to improve the calculation of such rates (see Free Exchange).

ECONOMIST: Interest rates

But there is little appetite to abandon the world of floating exchange rates, while free trade talks, also encouraged at Bretton Woods, have stalled.

BBC: Q&A: The G20 summit

For both foreign and domestic carmakers, the U.S. has become a more attractive place to assemble vehicles for sale in other countries for multiple reasons: currency exchange rates that effectively lowered U.S. labor costs, new free-trade pacts, high quality and available plant capacity.

FORBES: Foreign Carmakers Ship More Made-In-USA Cars Overseas