“There are serious concerns about how the unwinding of global financial imbalances might affect the external financing conditions in which emerging market economies operate.” Louis Kasekende, African Development Bank
“It is only when we find ourselves in a real systemic crisis that we tend to move towards global solutions. This implies that the longer the global imbalances continue in a benign way, the more complacent we are likely to be.” Brian Kahn, South African Reserve Bank
“Perhaps the most important message of these earlier thinkers is that policymakers should try to avoid the build-up of dangerous economic imbalances in the first place.” William White, Bank for International Settlements
“The IMF should assume a central role in the resolution of global imbalances.” Ariel Buira, G-24 and Martín Abeles, CEFID-Argentina
“The need for the power to change the availability of liquidity at the global level has been increasingly evident throughout the post-Bretton Woods era as crisis after crisis has underscored the inadequacy of the current institutional framework.” Jane D’Arista, Financial Markets Center
Acmetal
Here is the proposed name for a universal world currency advocated by the president of Kazakhstan.
Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently called for the introduction of a new global currency – the “acmetal” – to counter the financial crisis. Agence France-Press reported:
“In our view, we must create a single world currency under the aegis of the United Nations,” Mr. Nazarbayev said … “We must make a transition to an absolutely new global currency system based on legitimacy and, in view of all countries, one single monetary system.”
The A.P. said:
Nazarbayev’s proposal has raised eyebrows in some quarters, but the idea was embraced Wednesday by Robert Mundell, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 1999 for helping lay the theoretical groundwork for Europe’s single currency. “It would be a very good idea if the G-20 took that idea up in London,” Mundell said.
Acmetal, or Akmetal as some report it, is a portmanteau of the Greek word “acme” – the highest point or zenith – and “capital.” Boldly, President Nazarbayev suggested that the term capitalism might, in time, be replaced with “acmetalism.”
The world should be grateful to China and the U.N. Panel led by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz for leading the way to a Single Global Currency, which will be managed by a Global Central Bank within a Global Monetary Union. Their interim proposals for a new "reserve currency" is only a first step toward long term global monetary stability.
ReplyDeleteAs China requests, this next global currency will not be the responsibility of just one country. What is needed now is international
recognition of those goals, and research and planning to achieve them.
The success of the euro shows that monetary union is the best way to ensure monetary stability. The primary problem with the euro and
currencies of other monetary unions is that they still must co-exist within the international multi-currency system itself where the value of
those common currencies must still fluctuate in value against each other.
If 16 countries can use the same currency, why not 192?
In addition to eliminating currency risk, the use of a Single Global Currency would eliminate the current foreign exchange trading expense of $400 billion annually, eliminate current account imbalances, eliminate the need for foreign exchange reserves (now totaling more than $3 trillion); and bring other benefits worth trillions.
The Single Global Currency Assn. (www.singleglobalcurrency.org)
promotes the implementation of a Single Global Currency by 2024, the 80th
anniversary of the 1944 conference. That's only 15 years away.
The world is moving toward a Single Global Currency through the creation, expansion and merger of regional monetary unions. Another
route is through international monetary conferences proposals and agreements, such as were seen at Bretton Woods in 1944.
The challenge now is to reach that goal deliberately, as soon as possible with as little cost and as few crises as possible.
See the book, "The Single Global Currency - Common Cents for the World."
Morrison Bonpasse
Single Global Currency Assn.
Newcastle, Maine, United States