Counterfactual essays on the moments financial history nearly turned the other way. Each piece picks one decision date, one actual path, and one path not taken.
By summer 1981 the Federal Funds Rate was near 20 percent, unemployment was climbing, and Congress was openly threatening Paul Volcker's job. He held the line. The harder counterfactual is the one where he did not.
By August 1971 foreign dollar holdings were roughly four times US gold reserves. A run on Fort Knox was a credible scenario by year end. Nixon's Sunday-night announcement was the politically loud way to break the system. The quieter path would have broken something larger.
On September 23, 1998, William McDonough locked fourteen bank CEOs in a room at the New York Fed and did not let them leave until they had agreed to recapitalize a failing hedge fund. The case for letting it die instead is stronger than the rescue's defenders admit.