Current Events

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

wilderness — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 15:12:10 GMT

the IMF currency basket is already being used, as I mentioned, but they want to expand it's influence with other tools as the news articles I linked point out:

"Initially, the value of the SDR was defined in terms of one US-$, which in turn was defined in terms of an ounce of gold: $35/oz until 18-Dec-1971; $38/oz between 18-Dec-1971 and 11-Feb-1973; $42.22/oz between 12-Feb-1973 and 30-Jun-1974. Since July 1974 the SDR has been defined in terms of a basket of currencies. This basket consisted initially of 16 currencies and was reduced to 5 in 1981. Every five years the IMF determines which five currencies will enter the basket, and which weight will be applied to each currency. The exchange rates used by the IMF to calculate the official SDR are the noon rates in the London foreign exchange market. When the London market is closed, noon rates in the New York market are used, and Frankfurt fixing rates are employed when the New York market is also closed."

good quotes from the UN. yeah, they've been doing this for a long time and are trying to centralize it more and more. By the way, the U.S. postal service uses SDR's to operate now.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

Graham Wright — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:42:27 GMT

I think this is a very real possibility. Although the Ron Paul-inspired part of the "end the Fed" movement is attacking the concept of central banking, the larger part of the movement (IMO) is just angry because "private bankers have taken over our government" or because "private bankers kept the bailout money for themselves". If the audit takes place, they will find some relatively minor wrongdoings and recommend that "government take back the function of creating money". This will seem like the solution to those who think the problem is that central bankers are "private".

I think most people are gullible enough to accept a global central bank (and global government). It would be easy to convince people that freely-fluctuating exchange rates are a major cause of the crisis, and thus recommend one global currency as the solution. The recent UN Trade and Development Report took exactly this line.

UN Trade and Development Report 2009, p123:
A step that would go much further than the introduction of a substitution account would be to enable a new “Global Reserve Bank” or a reformed IMF to issue an “artificial” reserve currency, such as the “bancor” suggested by Keynes in his Bretton Woods proposals for an International Clearing Union. The new global reserve system could be built on the existing system of SDRs (Akyüz, 2009). One possibility is for countries to agree to exchange their own currencies for the new currency, so that the global currency would be backed by a basket of currencies of all the members. But other variants are also discussed in the Commission’s report. The new system could contain penalties against countries that maintain deficits, and equally against countries that maintain surpluses. A variable charge would be levied depending on the size of the surpluses or deficits.

The Report goes on to say that "Management of the nominal exchange rate [between national/regional currencies and the global currency] is therefore required to maintain stability in the RER [Real Exchange Rates]"...

UN Trade and Development Report 2009, p128:
An internationally agreed exchange-rate system based on the principle of constant and sustainable RERs of all countries would go a long way towards reducing the scope for speculative capital flows, which generate volatility in the international financial system and distort the pattern of exchange rates. Since the RER is defined as the nominal exchange rate adjusted by the inflation differentials between countries, a constant RER results from nominal exchange rates strictly following inflation differentials.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

wilderness — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:09:43 GMT

Jonathan M. F. Catalán:

If there was one global currency, who would be in charge of printing said currency? Would governments be able to create this currency, at will? I'm not sure any government would surrender its ability to inflate the money supply to pay for its wars.

they've been talking about using a currency basket. I believe the IMF has been using this to a certain extent already (backing the current SDR's), but some IMF advocates are pushing for this to become part of a much broader plan. So what it will do is involve the individual countries own currency to be put in a IMF basket by IMF centralized actions that will back up all global trade. The sum value of all those currencies will provide the value of the global exchange market during trading. This, as they note, will avoid for instance one countries currency becoming devalued and effecting global markets. The IMF can stabilize this one currency contagion on the world markets by filling the IMF basket with more of the other valued currencies at such a time to off-set the devaluing caused by the individual currency of a single country. Centralized juggling.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

wilderness — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:00:38 GMT

Daniel:

Perhaps they would make the argument that the global economic crisis is a result there not being a central authority to regulate the interest rate or the currency.

they have already been arguing that to a certain extent.

speaking of the IMF:

1. Gold is worth something (we know that and they know that too)

2. Notice where the gold is being held

From Feb. 2009:

"1. United States 8,133.5

2. Germany 3,412.6

3. IMF 3,217.3

4. France 2,508.8

5. Italy 2,451.8

6. ETFs 1,190

7. Switzerland 1,040.1

(SPDR ETF 795.25)

8. Japan 765.2"

----

that article points out that the SPDR ETF has been rising a lot. They are private investors in general and how much private investors have of gold. The private sector has a lot of gold.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

Jonathan M. F. Catalán — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:25:53 GMT

If there was one global currency, who would be in charge of printing said currency? Would governments be able to create this currency, at will? I'm not sure any government would surrender its ability to inflate the money supply to pay for its wars.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

DanielMuff — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 06:06:48 GMT

Perhaps they would make the argument that the global economic crisis is a result there not being a central authority to regulate the interest rate or the currency.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

Daniel James Sanchez — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:22:28 GMT

Daniel:

It's happening with government. The government screws up education, the people want more government funding of education! The government screws up healthcare, the people want more government funding for healthcare!

Good point.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

Stranger — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 05:15:20 GMT

That's what the IMF was originally supposed to be. Doubtful that anyone trusts anyone enough to put that back together.

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

DanielMuff — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:41:13 GMT

It's happening with government. The government screws up education, the people want more government funding of education! The government screws up healthcare, the people want more government funding for healthcare!

Re: The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

Daniel James Sanchez — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:28:31 GMT

Even if that were true it may backfire on them. If the Fed were discredited by its audit, that would do a great deal to discredit central banking altogether, not just one institution. It would be a tough sell to tell the public, "Yes, this hydra of corruption let us down miserably, but only because it wasn't big enough!"

The End of the Dollar and the Federal Reserve

DanielMuff — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 04:16:31 GMT

I can't help but to think that the MSM and Congress are finally moving against the Federal Reserve so as to allow for a global currency. Perhaps the central banks of the world will become regional members of aglobal central bank, perhaps the IMF. What does everyone else think?