Keynesian balance

Larry Elliott ( US closer to nuclear option in the currency war , 11 October) didn't explain what Keynes suggested at Bretton Woods in 1944 to cope with global payments imbalances and to induce symmetrical adjustment of surplus and deficit countries. Surplus countries would have been penalised with ever higher interest rates on their surpluses with his proposed International Clearing Union in excess of their quotas. Why is the International Monetary Fund not now considering a similar scheme of charging interest on countries' surpluses in excess of their quotas with the IMF, to discourage large supluses and provide resources for greater lending to poor deficit countries? That would be a sensible way forward without relying on nominal currency realignments which, in any case, haven't been noticeably successful in rectifying payments imbalances in the past. Professor Tony Thirlwall University of Kent