Η συσκεψη θα γίνει αλλα ουδεις θα επιστρέψει στο νομισμά του.
Το πιο πιθανό είναι η δημιουργία πάγκόσμιου νομίσματος απο τις πλέον υπερχεωμένας χώρες του πλανήτη (ΗΠΑ - ΕΕ- ΙΑΠΩΝΙΑ) και όχι το SDR που θέλουν οι αναδυόμενες.
Η ισοτιμία 1$=1ΕΥΡΩ=100 ΓΙΕΝ.
Καθώς θα είναι το παγκοσμιο αποθεματικό νόμισμα θα το πληθωρίσουν με φρενήρη ρυθμό. Η πλεονάζουσα ρευστότητα θα αναγκάσει την Κινα να αποσυνδεθεί
απο το $ (δικό μας νόμισμα δικό σας πρόβλημα).
Το παγκόσμιο νόμισμα είναι το πρώτο βήμα για την παγκόσμια κυβέρνηση. Η δημιουργία της οποιας προυποθέτει το αίσθημα μιας επερχόμενης παγκόσμιας απειλής.
Αυτό διάβασα και θυμήθηκα ένα άρθρο του Economist (Get Ready for the Phoenix -2018) το οποίο δημοσιευτηκε εν έτη 1988.
COVER: "GET READY FOR A WORLD CURRENCY"
Title of article: Get Ready for the Phoenix
Source: Economist; 01/9/88, Vol. 306, pp 9-10
THIRTY years from now, Americans, Japanese, Europeans, and people in many other rich countries, and some relatively poor ones will probably be paying for their shopping with the same currency. Prices will be quoted not in dollars, yen or D-marks but in, let's say, the phoenix. The phoenix will be favoured by companies and shoppers because it will be more convenient than today's national currencies, which by then will seem a quaint cause of much disruption to economic life in the last twentieth century.
At the beginning of 1988 this appears an outlandish prediction. Proposals for eventual monetary union proliferated five and ten years ago, but they hardly envisaged the setbacks of 1987. The governments of the big economies tried to move an inch or two towards a more managed system of exchange rates - a logical preliminary, it might seem, to radical monetary reform. For lack of co-operation in their underlying economic policies they bungled it horribly, and provoked the rise in interest rates that brought on the stock market crash of October. These events have chastened exchange-rate reformers. The market crash taught them that the pretence of policy co-operation can be worse than nothing, and that until real co-operation is feasible (i.e., until governments surrender some economic sovereignty) further attempts to peg currencies will flounder.
But in spite of all the trouble governments have in reaching and (harder still) sticking to international agreements about macroeconomic policy, the conviction is growing that exchange rates cannot be left to themselves. Remember that the Louvre accord and its predecessor, the Plaza agreement of September 1985, were emergency measures to deal with a crisis of currency instability. Between 1983 and 1985 the dollar rose by 34% against the currencies of America's trading partners; since then it has fallen by 42%. Such changes have skewed the pattern of international comparative advantage more drastically in four years than underlying economic forces might do in a whole generation.
In the past few days the world's main central banks, fearing another dollar collapse, have again jointly intervened in the currency markets (see page 62). Market-loving ministers such as Britain's Mr. Nigel Lawson have been converted to the cause of exchange-rate stability. Japanese officials take seriously he idea of EMS-like schemes for the main industrial economies. Regardless of the Louvre's embarrassing failure, the conviction remains that something must be done about exchange rates.
Something will be, almost certainly in the course of 1988. And not long after the next currency agreement is signed it will go the same way as the last one. It will collapse. Governments are far from ready to subordinate their domestic objectives to the goal of international stability. Several more big exchange-rate upsets, a few more stockmarket crashes and probably a slump or two will be needed before politicians are willing to face squarely up to that choice. This points to a muddled sequence of emergency followed by a patch-up followed by emergency, stretching out far beyond 2018 - except for two things. As time passes, the damage caused by currency instability is gradually going to mount; and the very tends that will make it mount are making the utopia of monetary union feasible.
The new world economy
The biggest change in the world economy since the early 1970's is that flows of money have replaced trade in goods as the force that drives exchange rates. as a result of the relentless integration of the world's financial markets, differences in national economic policies can disturb interest rates (or expectations of future interest rates) only slightly, yet still call forth huge transfers of financial assets from one country to another. These transfers swamp the flow of trade revenues in their effect on the demand and supply for different currencies, and hence in their effect on exchange rates. As telecommunications technology continues to advance, these transactions will be cheaper and faster still. With unco-ordinated economic policies, currencies can get only more volatile.
Alongside that trend is another - of ever-expanding opportunities for international trade. This too is the gift of advancing technology. Falling transport costs will make it easier for countries thousands of miles apart to compete in each others' markets. The law of one price (that a good should cost the same everywhere, once prices are converted into a single currency) will increasingly assert itself. Politicians permitting, national economies will follow their financial markets - becoming ever more open to the outside world. This will apply to labour as much as to goods, partly thorough migration but also through technology's ability to separate the worker form the point at which he delivers his labour. Indian computer operators will be processing New Yorkers' paychecks.
In all these ways national economic boundaries are slowly dissolving. As the trend continues, the appeal of a currency union across at least the main industrial countries will seem irresistible to everybody except foreign-exchange traders and governments. In the phoenix zone, economic adjustment to shifts in relative prices would happen smoothly and automatically, rather as it does today between different regions within large economies (a brief on pages 74-75 explains how.) The absence of all currency risk would spur trade, investment and employment.
The phoenix zone would impose tight constraints on national governments. There would be no such thing, for instance, as a national monetary policy. The world phoenix supply would be fixed by a new central bank, descended perhaps from the IMF. The world inflation rate - and hence, within narrow margins, each national inflation rate- would be in its charge. Each country could use taxes and public spending to offset temporary falls in demand, but it would have to borrow rather than print money to finance its budget deficit. With no recourse to the inflation tax, governments and their creditors would be forced to judge their borrowing and lending plans more carefully than they do today. This means a big loss of economic sovereignty, but the trends that make the phoenix so appealing are taking that sovereignty away in any case. Even in a world of more-or-less floating exchange rates, individual governments have seen their policy independence checked by an unfriendly outside world.
As the next century approaches, the natural forces that are pushing the world towards economic integration will offer governments a broad choice. They can go with the flow, or they can build barricades. Preparing the way for the phoenix will mean fewer pretended agreements on policy and more real ones. It will mean allowing and then actively promoting the private-sector use of an international money alongside existing national monies. That would let people vote with their wallets for the eventual move to full currency union. The phoenix would probably start as a cocktail of national currencies, just as the Special Drawing Right is today. In time, though, its value against national currencies would cease to matter, because people would choose it for its convenience and the stability of its purchasing power.
The alternative - to preserve policymaking autonomy- would involve a new proliferation of truly draconian controls on trade and capital flows. This course offers governments a splendid time. They could manage exchange-rate movements, deploy monetary and fiscal policy without inhibition, and tackle the resulting bursts of inflation with prices and incomes polices. It is a growth-crippling prospect. Pencil in the phoenix for around 2018, and welcome it when it comes.
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Zhou Xiaochuan: Reform the international monetary system
Essay by Dr Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China, 23 March 2009.
* * *
The outbreak of the current crisis and its spillover in the world have confronted us with a
long-existing but still unanswered question, i.e., what kind of international reserve currency
do we need to secure global financial stability and facilitate world economic growth, which
was one of the purposes for establishing the IMF? There were various institutional
arrangements in an attempt to find a solution, including the Silver Standard, the Gold
Standard, the Gold Exchange Standard and the Bretton Woods system. The above question,
however, as the ongoing financial crisis demonstrates, is far from being solved, and has
become even more severe due to the inherent weaknesses of the current international
monetary system.
Theoretically, an international reserve currency should first be anchored to a stable
benchmark and issued according to a clear set of rules, therefore to ensure orderly supply;
second, its supply should be flexible enough to allow timely adjustment according to the
changing demand; third, such adjustments should be disconnected from economic conditions
and sovereign interests of any single country. The acceptance of credit-based national
currencies as major international reserve currencies, as is the case in the current system, is
a rare special case in history. The crisis again calls for creative reform of the existing
international monetary system towards an international reserve currency with a stable value,
rule-based issuance and manageable supply, so as to achieve the objective of safeguarding
global economic and financial stability.
I. The outbreak of the crisis and its spillover to the entire world reflect the
inherent vulnerabilities and systemic risks in the existing international
monetary system.
Issuing countries of reserve currencies are constantly confronted with the dilemma between
achieving their domestic monetary policy goals and meeting other countries’ demand for
reserve currencies. On the one hand, the monetary authorities cannot simply focus on
domestic goals without carrying out their international responsibilities; on the other hand,
they cannot pursue different domestic and international objectives at the same time. They
may either fail to adequately meet the demand of a growing global economy for liquidity as
they try to ease inflation pressures at home, or create excess liquidity in the global markets
by overly stimulating domestic demand. The Triffin Dilemma, i.e., the issuing countries of
reserve currencies cannot maintain the value of the reserve currencies while providing
liquidity to the world, still exists.
When a national currency is used in pricing primary commodities, trade settlements and is
adopted as a reserve currency globally, efforts of the monetary authority issuing such a
currency to address its economic imbalances by adjusting exchange rate would be made in
vain, as its currency serves as a benchmark for many other currencies. While benefiting from
a widely accepted reserve currency, the globalization also suffers from the flaws of such a
system. The frequency and increasing intensity of financial crises following the collapse of
the Bretton Woods system suggests the costs of such a system to the world may have
exceeded its benefits. The price is becoming increasingly higher, not only for the users, but
also for the issuers of the reserve currencies. Although crisis may not necessarily be an
intended result of the issuing authorities, it is an inevitable outcome of the institutional flaws.
BIS Review 41/2009 1
II. The desirable goal of reforming the international monetary system, therefore,
is to create an international reserve currency that is disconnected from
individual nations and is able to remain stable in the long run, thus removing
the inherent deficiencies caused by using credit-based national currencies.
1. Though the super-sovereign reserve currency has long since been proposed, yet no
substantive progress has been achieved to date. Back in the 1940s, Keynes had
already proposed to introduce an international currency unit named “Bancor”, based
on the value of 30 representative commodities. Unfortunately, the proposal was not
accepted. The collapse of the Bretton Woods system, which was based on the
White approach, indicates that the Keynesian approach may have been more
farsighted. The IMF also created the SDR in 1969, when the defects of the Bretton
Woods system initially emerged, to mitigate the inherent risks sovereign reserve
currencies caused. Yet, the role of the SDR has not been put into full play due to
limitations on its allocation and the scope of its uses. However, it serves as the light
in the tunnel for the reform of the international monetary system.
2. A super-sovereign reserve currency not only eliminates the inherent risks of creditbased
sovereign currency, but also makes it possible to manage global liquidity. A
super-sovereign reserve currency managed by a global institution could be used to
both create and control the global liquidity. And when a country’s currency is no
longer used as the yardstick for global trade and as the benchmark for other
currencies, the exchange rate policy of the country would be far more effective in
adjusting economic imbalances. This will significantly reduce the risks of a future
crisis and enhance crisis management capability.
III. The reform should be guided by a grand vision and begin with specific
deliverables. It should be a gradual process that yields win-win results for all
The reestablishment of a new and widely accepted reserve currency with a stable valuation
benchmark may take a long time. The creation of an international currency unit, based on the
Keynesian proposal, is a bold initiative that requires extraordinary political vision and
courage. In the short run, the international community, particularly the IMF, should at least
recognize and face up to the risks resulting from the existing system, conduct regular
monitoring and assessment and issue timely early warnings.
Special consideration should be given to giving the SDR a greater role. The SDR has the
features and potential to act as a super-sovereign reserve currency. Moreover, an increase
in SDR allocation would help the Fund address its resources problem and the difficulties in
the voice and representation reform. Therefore, efforts should be made to push forward a
SDR allocation. This will require political cooperation among member countries. Specifically,
the Fourth Amendment to the Articles of Agreement and relevant resolution on SDR
allocation proposed in 1997 should be approved as soon as possible so that members joined
the Fund after 1981 could also share the benefits of the SDR. On the basis of this,
considerations could be given to further increase SDR allocation.
The scope of using the SDR should be broadened, so as to enable it to fully satisfy the
member countries’ demand for a reserve currency.
Set up a settlement system between the SDR and other currencies. Therefore, the SDR,
which is now only used between governments and international institutions, could become a
widely accepted means of payment in international trade and financial transactions.
Actively promote the use of the SDR in international trade, commodities pricing, investment
and corporate book-keeping. This will help enhance the role of the SDR, and will effectively
reduce the fluctuation of prices of assets denominated in national currencies and related
risks.
2 BIS Review 41/2009
Create financial assets denominated in the SDR to increase its appeal. The introduction of
SDR-denominated securities, which is being studied by the IMF, will be a good start.
Further improve the valuation and allocation of the SDR. The basket of currencies forming
the basis for SDR valuation should be expanded to include currencies of all major
economies, and the GDP may also be included as a weight. The allocation of the SDR can
be shifted from a purely calculation-based system to a system backed by real assets, such
as a reserve pool, to further boost market confidence in its value.
IV. Entrusting part of the member countries’ reserve to the centralized
management of the IMF will not only enhance the international community’s
ability to address the crisis and maintain the stability of the international
monetary and financial system, but also significantly strengthen the role of
the SDR.
1. Compared with separate management of reserves by individual countries, the
centralized management of part of the global reserve by a trustworthy international
institution with a reasonable return to encourage participation will be more effective
in deterring speculation and stabilizing financial markets. The participating countries
can also save some reserve for domestic development and economic growth. With
its universal membership, its unique mandate of maintaining monetary and financial
stability, and as an international “supervisor” on the macroeconomic policies of its
member countries, the IMF, equipped with its expertise, is endowed with a natural
advantage to act as the manager of its member countries’ reserves.
2. The centralized management of its member countries’ reserves by the Fund will be
an effective measure to promote a greater role of the SDR as a reserve currency. To
achieve this, the IMF can set up an open-ended SDR-denominated fund based on
the market practice, allowing subscription and redemption in the existing reserve
currencies by various investors as desired. This arrangement will not only promote
the development of SDR-denominated assets, but will also partially allow
management of the liquidity in the form of the existing reserve currencies.
It can
even lay a foundation for increasing SDR allocation to gradually replace existing
reserve currencies with the SDR. Δεν είναι ορατοί οι σύνδεσμοι (links).
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