The Next Age of Railroading Pt. 2
In my last article, “The Next Age of Railroading,” I highlighted some of the of the big moves in the forex, commodity, and bond markets and what that might mean for freight flows in the future.
You can look at this at through the lens of both short and long-term phases. After WW2, the US remade the world order in its image: pro-democracy, capitalism, and shared “American values” only counteracted by the Soviet Union and its allies. The US Navy, the physical arm of our power projection, patrolled the seas ensuring safe passage of commerce and (relatively) free international trade. With Bretton Woods in 1945, the US dollar became the world’s currency and the US provided the liquidity necessary for the global markets to run efficiently. The World Bank, the IMF, the United Nations, and NATO were all global or regional organizations created to unify many disparate countries and create frameworks for stabilizing markets and settling disputes.