THE so-called crisis in the international payments mechanism has been upon us for quite some time. When the oil-producing Arab world raised petroleum prices by 400 per cent at one stroke, the already failing international monetary system founded at Bretton Woods seemed to have received an almost mortal blow. The international 'aidocracy' and 'tredocracy' rushed in to draw a picture of impending disaster and then proceeded to conjure up one ameliorative plan after another: the oil facility Mark I, 1974, and then the oil facility Mark II, 1975, to be supplemented by the 'safety net for the affluent industrial countries.
