Sept. 7 (Bloomberg) -- The dollar’s role in international trade should be reduced by establishing a new currency to protect emerging markets from the “confidence game” of financial speculation, the United Nations said.
UN countries should agree on the creation of a global reserve bank to issue the currency and to monitor the national exchange rates of its members, the Geneva-based UN Conference on Trade and Development said today in a report.
China, India, Brazil and Russia this year called for a replacement to the dollar as the main reserve currency after the financial crisis sparked by the collapse of the U.S. mortgage market led to the worst global recession since World War II. China, the world’s largest holder of dollar reserves, said a supranational currency such as the International Monetary Fund’s special drawing rights, or SDRs, may add stability.
“There’s a much better chance of achieving a stable pattern of exchange rates in a multilaterally-agreed framework for exchange-rate management,” Heiner Flassbeck, co-author of the report and a UNCTAD director, said in an interview from Geneva. “An initiative equivalent to Bretton Woods or the European Monetary System is needed.”
Considering both China and India have questioned the dollar, we are starting to witness significant players coming to the same conclusions. Does this mean the dollar is gone tomorrow? Of course not, but this deserves watching and I could think of 9 trillion reasons this might become a reality.
I'm not into "global" anything, especially currency. But I confess ignorance on the domestic effect there would be if the dollar ceased to be the global reserve. Would this be a big deal or a REALLY big deal?
ReplyDeletewe would sertainly see a good chunk of soverignty loss where global interests would try to interfere and predict the markets, instead of US people trying to manage markets...
ReplyDeleteY cant we allow the market to set the interest rates?
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ReplyDeleteHow about a headline like this?...
ReplyDeleteUS tax Dollar will no longer fund UN operations!
I like the sound of it.
nick
ReplyDeletecall it a start.
innominatus,
ReplyDeleteworse case scenario is the dollar loses value at a significant clip, and that can get ugly quick. As for how big a deal, it would depend.