Pictures tell a great story

[Michael Larson]

liberals and hypocrisy on the environment





Apparently, Obama supporters trashed the Mall during the Inauguration (hat tip: Mike's America).

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by gbeaumont

Funny you should ask Brian



In the fore front is the Mount Washington Hotel

This was where the IMF was developed just after the war

I'm sure I have some information on that agreement if you like

Gerry

Very Pretty Gerry

[Michael Larson]

Originally Posted by bkelly2

Very Pretty Gerry

Don't let teh LWNJ any were close to it.

[gbeaumont]

Originally Posted by bkelly2

Very Pretty Gerry

I thought you'd like that Brian

Here's more info, the behind the scenes tour here is very interesting they still have thier own electric generating plant

The Mount Washington Hotel opened in 1902 near Mount Washington, in the town of Carroll, New Hampshire. The area is better known as Bretton Woods, and includes the Bretton Woods ski resort nearby.
The hotel was constructed by the railroad tycoon Joseph Stickney at a cost of 1.7 million dollars. Construction on the hotel started in 1900 and the hotel opened to the public in 1902. Mr. Stickney brought in 250 Italian artisans to help in the construction.
In this hotel the Bretton Woods monetary conference took place in 1944, establishing, among other things, the World Bank. The Mount Washington Hotel and Resort is one of the last surviving, of only an original handful, of New Hampshire's grand hotels, and includes an 18-hole Donald Ross-designed golf course as well as a 9-hole course on its facilities.
It was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1986.[2][3]
The hotel is located at the northern end of Crawford Notch, 6 miles (9.7 km) east of the village of Twin Mountain, New Hampshire, along U.S. Route 302.
The hotel was featured in an episode of the television series Ghost Hunters, when it was searched by the TAPS paranormal investigation team on February 6, 2008.
In January 2009 the Mount Washington Resort completed a 50,000 square feet (4,600 m2) addition that includes a 25,000 square foot spa and a 25,000 square foot conference center.

[edit] References

1. <LI id=cite_note-nris-0>^ "National Register Information System". National Register of Historic Places. National Park Service. 2007-01-23. http://www.nr.nps.gov/. <LI id=cite_note-nhlsum-1>^ a b "Mount Washington Hotel". National Historic Landmark summary listing. National Park Service. http://tps.cr.nps.gov/nhl/detail.cfm?ResourceId=1739&ResourceType=Building. Retrieved 2007-10-22.
2. ^ Carolyn Pitts (June, 1985), National Register of Historic Places Inventory-Nomination: Mount Washington Hotel, National Park Service, http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/NHLS/Text/78000213.pdf and Accompanying 9 photos, exterior and interior, from 1980, 1988, and undated.PDF (2.84 MB)

[edit] External links

• Mount Washington Hotel
• NHPTV— Secrets of the Mount Washington Hotel
• Bretton Woods Conference Resort— a commercial page, but with some good photographs
• Virtual Tour of the Mount Washington Hotel Commercial page with lots of photographs of hotel.

[hide]

v • d • e

U.S. National Register of Historic PlacesKeeper of the Register · History of the National Register of Historic Places · Property types · Historic district ·

[Michael Larson]

I can see why you guys would want to garbage this thread up.

Reality is hard to face sometimes.

[gbeaumont]

Mike I can see your posting, but as both Brian and I have you on ignore, we haven't a clue as to your inane ramblings, were having a nice chat about Mount Washington, aren't we Brian

Gerry

[gbeaumont]

Anyway Brian as i was saying before we were so rudely interupted, the Bretton Woods conference basically founded what is now the IMF:

The United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference, commonly known as Bretton Woods conference, was a gathering of 730 delegates from all 40 Allied nations at the Mount Washington Hotel, situated in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to regulate the international monetary and financial order after the conclusion of World War II.[1]
The conference was held from 1 July to 22 July 1944 in July, when the agreements were signed to set up the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
As a result of the conference, the Bretton Woods system of exchange rate management was set up, which remained in place until the early 1970s.
Contents

[hide]

• <LI class=toclevel-1>1 Purposes and goals <LI class=toclevel-1>2 Encouraging open markets <LI class=toclevel-1>3 The Bank of International Settlements controversy <LI class=toclevel-1>4 Monetary order in a post-war world <LI class=toclevel-1>5 Failed proposals
  • <LI class=toclevel-2>5.1 International Trade Organization
  • 5.2 International Clearing Union
  <LI class=toclevel-1>6 Negotiators <LI class=toclevel-1>7 Quotes <LI class=toclevel-1>8 References
• 9 See also

[edit] Purposes and goals

The Bretton Woods Conference took place in July 1944, but did not become operative until 1959, when all the European currencies became convertible. Under this system, the IMF and the IBRD were established. The IMF was developed as a permanent international body. The summary of agreements states, "The nations should consult and agree on international monetary changes which affect each other. They should outlaw practices which are agreed to be harmful to world prosperity, and they should assist each other to overcome short-term exchange difficulties." The IBRD was created to speed up post-war reconstruction, to aid political stability, and to foster peace. This was to be fulfilled through the establishment of programs for reconstruction and development.
The main terms of this agreement were:

1. Formation of the IMF and the IBRD (presently part of the World Bank).
2. Adjustably pegged foreign exchange market rate system: The exchange rates were fixed, with the provision of changing them if necessary.
3. Currencies were required to be convertible for trade related and other current account transactions. The governments, however, had the power to regulate ostentatious capital flows.
4. As it was possible that exchange rates thus established might not be favourable to a country's balance of payments position, the governments had the power to revise them by up to 10%.
5. All member countries were required to subscribe to the IMF's capital.

[edit] Encouraging open markets

The seminal idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was the notion of open markets. In Henry Morgenthau's farewell remarks at the conference, he stated that the establishment of the IMF and the World Bank marked the end of economic nationalism. This meant countries would maintain their national interest, but trade blocks and economic spheres of influence would no longer be their means. The second idea behind the Bretton Woods Conference was joint management of the Western political-economic order. Meaning that the foremost industrial democratic nations must lower barriers to trade and the movement of capital, in addition to their responsibility to govern the system.

[edit] The Bank of International Settlements controversy

In the last stages of the Second World War, in 1944 at the Bretton Woods Conference The Bank of International Settlements became the crux in a fight that broke out, when the Norwegian delegation put forth evidence that the BIS was guilty in war crimes and put forth a move to dissolve the bank, which the Americans, specifically President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau supported, resulting in a fight between on one side several European nations, the American and the Norwegian delegation, led by Henry Morgenthau and Harry Dexter White, and on the other side the British delegation, headed by John Maynard Keynes and Chase Bank representative Dean Atcheson who tried to veto the dissolution of the bank.
The problem was that the BIS, formed in 1930, and its main proponents of its establishment, were the then Governor of The Bank of England, Montague Norman and his colleague Hjalmar Schacht, later Adolf Hitlers finance minister. The Bank was originally intended to facilitate money transfers arising from settling an obligation arising from a peace treaty. After World War I, the need for the bank was suggested in 1929 by the Young Committee, as a means of transfer for German reparations payments - see Treaty of Versailles. The plan was agreed in August of that year at a conference at the Hague, and a charter for the bank was drafted at the International Bankers Conference at Baden Baden in November. The charter was adopted at a second Hague Conference on January 20, 1930.The Original board of directors of the BIS included two appointees of Hitler, Walter Funk and Emil Puhl, as well as Herman Schmitz the director of IG Farben and Baron von Schroeder the owner of the J.H.Stein Bank, the bank that held the deposits of the Gestapo.
As a result of allegations that the BIS had helped the Germans loot assets from occupied countries during World War II, the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference recommended the "liquidation of the Bank for International Settlements at the earliest possible moment." [2] This task, which was originally proposed by Norway and supported by other European delegates, as well as the United States and Morgenthau and Harry Dexter White, was never undertaken. [3]
In July 1944 Dean Atcheson interrupted Keynes in a meeting fearing that the BIS would be dissolved by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Keynes went to Henry Morgenthau to prevent the dissolution of the BIS, or have it postponed, but the next day the dissolution of the BIS was approved. The British delegation did not give up and the dissolution of the bank was held up just long enough until after Roosevelt had died, in April of 1945 the British and Harry S. Truman stopped the dissolution of the BIS.

[edit] Monetary order in a post-war world

The need for postwar Western economic order was resolved with the agreements made on monetary order and open system of trade at the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference which allowed for the synthesis of Britain's desire for full employment and economic stability and the United States' desire for free trade.

[edit] Failed proposals


[edit] International Trade Organization

The Conference also proposed the creation of an International Trade Organization (ITO) to establish rules and regulations for international trade. The ITO would have complemented the other two Bretton Woods proposed international bodies: the IMF and the World Bank.
The ITO charter was agreed on at the U.N. Conference on Trade and Employment (held in Havana, Cuba, in March 194, but was not ratified by the U.S. Senate. As a result, the ITO never came into existence.
However, in 1995, the Uruguay Round of GATT negotiations established the World Trade Organization (WTO) as the replacement body for GATT. The GATT principles and agreements were adopted by the WTO, which was charged with administering and extending them.

[edit] International Clearing Union

Main article: International Clearing Union

John Maynard Keynes (right) represented the UK at the conference, and Harry Dexter White represented the US.


John Maynard Keynes proposed the ICU as a way to regulate the balance of trade. His concern was that countries with a trade deficit would be unable to climb out of it, paying ever more interest to service their ever greater debt, and therefore stifling global growth. The ICU would effectively be a bank with its own currency (the "bancor"), exchangeable with national currencies at a fixed rate. Nations would be the unit for accounting between nations, so their trade deficits or surpluses could be measured by it. On top of that, each country would have an overdraft facility in its "bancor" account with the ICU. Keynes proposed having a maximum overdraft of half the average trade size over five years. If a country went over that, it would be charged interest, obliging a country to reduce its currency value and prevent capital exports. But countries with trade surpluses would also be charged interest at 10% if their surplus was more than half the size of their permitted overdraft, obliging them to increase their currency values and export more capital. If, at the year's end, their credit exceeded the maximum (half the size of the overdraft in surplus) the surplus would be confiscated.
Lionel Robbins reported that "it would be difficult to exaggerate the electrifying effect on thought throughout the whole relevant apparatus of government ... nothing so imaginative and so ambitious had ever been discussed". However, Harry Dexter White, representing America which was the world's biggest creditor said "We have been perfectly adamant on that point. We have taken the position of absolutely no." Instead he proposed an International Stabilisation Fund (now the IMF), which would place the burden of maintaining the balance of trade on the deficit nations, and imposing no limit on the surplus that rich countries could accumulate. White also proposed creation of the IBRD (now part of the World Bank) which would provide capital for economic reconstruction after the war.
White managed to ensure that the US had special veto powers over any major decision made by the IMF or the World Bank, meaning effectively that their "conditionalities" in the way of strict institutional reforms are never imposed. Furthermore, the IMF insists that the foreign exchange reserves maintained by other nations are held in the form of dollars, so no matter how much debt the US accumulates, its economy will not collapse.

[edit] Negotiators

• The USA was represented at the conference by Harry Dexter White
• The UK was represented at the conference by John Maynard Keynes

[edit] Quotes

• "The economic health of every country is a proper matter of concern to all its neighbors, near and far."

— U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt at the opening of Bretton Woods

[Brian E. Kelly]

Wow that is very interesting, thank you for sharing

[Peter C. Russell]

I remember taking the cog railway up the mountain when I was a kid, holy sh!t that was scary!!! Now I'm really getting motivated to go up, might just take the day off tomorrow and do it.

Last week the weather turned up there and it was about 30 degrees and started to sleet, many visitors got caught in the bad weather due to the fact it was nice at the bottom of the mountain.

Thanks for the info. Gerry, even though I live so close to it I sometimes forget how beautiful it is up there.

[Peter C. Russell]

MOUNT WASHINGTON, N.H. -- The temperature in Manchester, N.H., climbed to a pleasant 70 degrees on Monday, but at the summit of Mount Washington, it only hit 37 degrees -- a sign that summer is nearing an end.

Some forecasters are already predicting a cold winter ahead, but others can't decide how cold it will get.

The wind at the top of Mount Washington on Monday was brutal, and definitely not what Jim Sheehan and his granddaughter, Molly, expected.

"I'm glad there's no snow," he said.

Visitors to the Northeast's highest peak bundled up against a wind chill that made it feel like 25 degrees. Observers said there was ice on the mountain overnight.

Forecasters at the observatory said the upcoming winter could be a little colder than usual. Brian Clark of the Mount Washington Observatory said he's following research on long-term predictions.

"Some of the experts are pointing to the fact that it's been a cold summer and have looked to other summers that have been similarly cold and have seen that the following winter tends to be a cold and snowy winter," Clark said.

Forecasters also said there has been a decrease in the number of solar flares, which tend to warm the Earth. It's also possible that ash from recent volcanic eruptions could keep temperatures cold by letting a little less light through the atmosphere.

But others haven't made up their minds. A researcher with the National Weather Service Climate Prediction Center said it's too early to tell whether the region will get biting cold this year. He said warming water in the Pacific Ocean could actually trigger warm spells.

As is often the case in New England, it looks like the weather won't be known until it arrives.
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[Peter C. Russell]

Check this out, you guys can see whats going on up there. I better take my winter clothes if I take the Harley.

www.mountwashington.org

[Brian E. Kelly]

Originally Posted by prussell

Check this out, you guys can see whats going on up there. I better take my winter clothes if I take the Harley.

www.mountwashington.org

Woo Peter cool link. We are going back into Spring here.

[Michael Larson]

[Joseph Burkeson, CMI]

Originally Posted by mlarson

It could always be worse...

We might have had Sarah Palin with her trigger finger just one heartbeat away from the button.

[Kenneth A. Townsend]

Originally Posted by kleonard

I'll be really surprised if the people of South Carolina don't throw his lying cheating *ss in jail. I'm certain you do realize he was stealing from you, your family & all residents of South Carolina while having a good old time with his soul mate in another country.

Hummmm.... sounds like some of our presidents