Seventy-five years ago this month, the foremost economic and policy minds of their generation gathered in a sleepy mountain town in New England. While World War II still raged, they envisioned a new international monetary system with rules, procedures, and institutions—including the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank—to promote recovery and stability in a war-ravaged world. Today we gather in Paris, the City of Light, to recognize their vision. The Bretton Woods institutions played a pivotal role after the war in rebuilding economies and in facilitating the international economic relations that are essential to prosperity. Generations later, the World Bank and the IMF continue to play important roles in fostering global monetary cooperation, financial stability, and international trade, as well as in promoting sustainable economic growth and reducing poverty. In 1944, those who sat around the table at the Mount Washington Hotel knew that the trauma and tragedy of the war and the Great Depression had fundamentally altered the economic systems that preceded them. For us, around our dinner tables tonight, a decade has passed since the Global Financial Crisis. Although in no way comparable to the devastating events of the 1930s and 1940s, the crisis represents the deepest and broadest financial upheaval s tweet at 1:01pm: POWELL: MANY COUNTRIES, INCLUDING U.S., FACE LOWER RATES OF INTEREST, GROWTH AND INFLATION tweet at 1:01pm: POWELL: PROXIMITY TO ZERO INTEREST RATES POSES NEW COMPLICATIONS FOR CENTRAL BANKERS tweet at 1:02pm: Fed's Powell: Overall US growth appears to have moderated in 2nd quarter $FED $MACROPowell says ‘uncertainties’ have increased chances of a rate cut Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell repeated his pledge to “act as appropriate” to keep the economic expansion going as his fellow central bankers move toward an expected interest rate cut later this month. In speech delivered Tuesday in Paris, the central bank chief detailed misgivings among Fed officials over trade developments and global growth that have caused “uncertainties” over the outlook to increase. In addition, he said there is concern over negotiations regarding the federal debt ceiling, Brexit and “a more prolonged shortfall” in inflation below the Fed’s 2% goal. “Many FOMC participants judged at the time of our most recent meeting in June that the combination of these factors strengthens the case for a somewhat more accommodative stance of policy,” Powell said in prepared remarks. “We are carefully monitoring these developments and assessing their implications for the U.S economic outlook and inflation, and will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion, with a stron