In 1971 America had a currency crisis. Other nations had stopped
accepting our paper dollars as payment for our debts and were
demanding gold instead. The problem was that America didn't have
enough gold to cover the massive debts being run up because of
the war in Vietnam. What did we do? We simply defaulted on our
debt by repudiating the promise to back our currency with gold.
The situation was epitomized by Nixon's Treasury Secretary John
Connally, when he responded to the complaints of 29 trading and
banking allies: “It may be our currency, but it's your problem.”
37 years of massive budget and trade deficits later it is still
our currency and it is still someone else's problem. However,
every game must someday end. Eventually the costs of playing the
game become so great that the benefits of not playing become
attractive. The world is now approaching a point where it is
being forced to make a choice. The Prisoner's dilemma is a
mathematical game theory developed in 1950 by Merrill Flood and
Melvin Dreshe