Business: Too Little, Too Late for the Dollar

German-American agreement falls flat on the exchanges

What mountains labored to bring forth such a ridiculous molehill!" complained Bonn's respected daily Die Welt. "A piecemeal approach that cannot work," sniffed the foreign currency chief of France's largest private bank. Such was the curt reaction in money centers last week to a widely ballyhooed U.S.-West German agreement that will give Washington more ammunition, in the form of borrowed deutsche marks, to use in defending the battered dollar. But unfortunately, the greenback fell once again in all major currency markets.

The disappointment was all the greater because hopes had been built high. Jimmy Carter...

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