Greece's economic and political unraveling could not be coming at a worse moment for President Obama. The crisis has the potential to send shock waves not simply through Europe but also through global financial markets on the very eve of the U.S. presidential election.

Can the current post-Bretton Woods international monetary system prevent a return to the beggar-thy-neighbor policies and competitive devaluations that so harmed international prosperity in the 1930s? What are the system's flaws? Can they be corrected, and if so, how? An expert panel will address these and related issues.

The relationship between the U.S. and the People's Republic of China is multifaceted and goes well beyond economic relations, but questions of macroeconomic imbalances have remained at the heart of bilateral discussions between the two.

Attempts at austerity and deleveraging in Europe have converted an economic problem into a political dilemma, with leftist governments rising against Germany's austerity-laced rescue packages. Germany now faces a tough economic decision that will involve choosing between a breakup of the current euro system and a movement toward a common fiscal policy in Europe.

China's new leadership is threatening to stay content with slower economic growth, and the country's manufacturing, housing, and export sectors are experiencing problems. Nonetheless, China has an opportunity to influence economic growth in 2012 through stimulus measures to its own economy.

Had European policymakers not been overly complacent over the past decade, they might have learned a lot from Latin America's sad past experience with misguided macroeconomic policies, especially under fixed exchange rate regimes. This might have helped them to avoid their present sovereign debt crisis. Now that they are neck-deep in the mess, it is too late for those lessons.

China and Russia have decided to renounce the U.S. dollar and want to use their own currencies for bilateral trade in an attempt to lodge a complaint about its mismanagement.

The United States needed to address its persistent current account deficits and excessive consumption; China needed to address its ballooning foreign exchange reserves and excessive dependence on exports.