Triffin's suggested solution was to create an artificial reserve asset, tied to a basket of commodities.

ECONOMIST: Is there a better way to organise the world��s currencies?

And if countries held their reserves in SDRs, they would escape the Triffin dilemma.

ECONOMIST: Is there a better way to organise the world��s currencies?

Robert Triffin was reacting to some genuine problems in the Bretton Woods system.

FORBES: Mind-Bending Idiocy Is The Reason We Don't Have A Gold Standard Today

When the world relies on a single reserve currency, Triffin argued, that currency's home country must issue lots of assets (usually government bonds) to lubricate global commerce and meet the demand for reserves.

ECONOMIST: Is there a better way to organise the world��s currencies?

Consider, for instance, the tension between emerging economies' demand for reserves and their fear that the main reserve currency, the dollar, may lose value a dilemma first noted in 1947 by Robert Triffin, a Belgian economist.

ECONOMIST: Is there a better way to organise the world��s currencies?

Much the same thing was happening in the U.S. While Robert Triffin was wailing about the supposedly inevitable and horribly destructive U.S. current account deficit, the U.S. was actually running a persistent current account surplus.

FORBES: Mind-Bending Idiocy Is The Reason We Don't Have A Gold Standard Today

Triffin's was also ignored for 20 years.

ECONOMIST: Is there a better way to organise the world��s currencies?