I meant the following to go to Futurework as well as Natalia.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick
To: Darryl or Natalia
Sent: Friday, August 31, 2007 8:26 AM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More on money, money, money!
Good morning, Natalia
I believe one has to think of currency as something that facilitates the flow
of goods and services in an economy, nothing more. Life is ever so much easier
with it than without it. But to have it and use it means that you have to have
some very firm rules around it, such as rules that maintain its value relative
to goods and services and that ensure that its value does not change too
rapidly. To have such rules you need a stable and authoritative institutional
infrastructure, like a strong, well-staffed central bank and a set of laws
about what you can and can't do with money. You also need ways of avoiding and
handling whammo events like the sub-prime meltdown in the US. There could, I
suppose, be a single global currency system, but whether it worked or not would
depend greatly on whether there was global acceptance and agreement about its
rules and institutions. If Robert Magabwe didn't want to play by the rules, I
suppose it really wouldn't matter, but if China or the US decided not to, it
would matter greatly.
I'd have to think about it some more, but one law I might set if I were chief
global law-giver is that you cannot speculate on currency. Of course, if there
were a single currency you couldn't bet on its value against other currencies.
All you could bet on is whether is whether it's going to maintain its value
from day to day.
The euro is a good example of single currency used by a number of countries
over a wide geographic area, but bringing the euro into existence required a
lot of work and a lot of agreement by EU countries. It was not an easy job,
but it seems to have worked.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Darryl or Natalia
To: Ed Weick
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Thursday, August 30, 2007 1:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Futurework] More on money, money, money!
Hi Ed,
I wasn't sure whether you thought single currency was a good thing, or yet
another reason to acquire gold for fear it will come to pass.
McKenna's idealistic views would be worth thinking about if there were such a
thing as true global value or meaning to said standard currency. This
particular perspective reflects someone's ideal Western version of value, which
has no basis of fairness to it whatsoever, here or in Mauritius, but as history
has shown, a single currency ensures that those who have most of it benefit
from its sole distribution. Iraq tried the more beneficial Euro for oil
currency until Bush 43 declared the end of major combat in his takeover war,
and switched the oil currency back to the dollar because, thereby, imperial US
could indirectly continue to tax Iraq, just as Rome did all other nations in
its single currency conquered world.
Countless examples of fictional wealth tabulated by computers as money have
flooded the collective of recognized assets, but still maintain very
questionable value. The most outstanding example is, once again, that of
currency markets profits. Money made off of global gambling on various nations'
currency values have far exceeded in one day the sum total of the US annual
GDP. A loss of $3.3 trillion Defense budget to US taxpayers is not even
investigated. The money was either honestly made or not, and which designation
determines the value or loss? If it is ever recovered, would they ever
determine or admit to its origin, restore it to the budget, the taxed people or
to the covert group within the DOD? Corporate fraud of billions and trillions
today simply vanishes into the ether. Someone still has the money, and it is
laundered back into the faulty system. What extra effects, indirect taxation
and otherwise, would this kind of activity have on poor nations' economies,
where subsistence wage is deemed to be two bucks a day, and economies are most
often local for reasons of survival? If the US dollar collapses, or even drops
much further, where does that leave poor nations, let alone Canada? How will we
deal with the illegal wealth of poor nations when we can't reconcile with its
existence in our own wealthier nations? Yet, these illegal funds account for a
huge part of the system.
Single currency fever is being spread at a time when there is a push for the
rest of N. America to shore up the US dollar, 'cause it's goin' down. The
Security and Prosperity agreement is at work here, being peddled by the
floundering US government, looking for a way to keep up the illusion of
prosperity while taking over. It would be a disaster for Canada to join the
sinking ship that wants control. Helping them is dangerous enough, but adopting
their fears and unsustainable practices, and giving them the reins for the sake
of the illusion of security and prosperity is another.
The Federal Reserve is a "reluctant central bank"??? If they didn't wish to
have control, it never would have been formed in the first place! A burden
indeed.
Acquiring gold in this era, in my opinion, is still good advise, but potable
water and clean green land would be the better bet.
A single currency will work once we're all eating GM foods, have no unique
resources left in the world, and have resigned completely to a New World Order.
That, or the world simultaneously achieves peace, prosperity and well-being
throughout.
Cheers,
Natalia
Ed Weick wrote:
Worth thinking about.
Ed
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Globalization creating a 'deadly brew' for national currencies
BARRIE MCKENNA
Globe and Mail
July 17, 2007 at 8:46 AM EDT
WASHINGTON - Hardly a day goes by that someone, somewhere isn't griping
about currencies.
In Ontario, embattled Ontario manufacturers rail about the suddenly
airborne loonie. Members of the U.S. Congress want to bash China for fiddling
with the yuan. And ordinary Argentines would rather hold just about any
currency than their own.
So maybe it's time to rethink the whole idea of national currencies. That,
at least, is the provocative thesis of Benn Steil, director of international
economics at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.
In an article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Mr. Steil suggests that scores
of countries - from the Americas and Asia to Europe and the Middle East -
should simply give up on their own currencies and embrace one of the world's
global currencies, such as the euro or the U.S. dollar.
With the gold standard gone, marginal currencies simply can't survive
against the sheer weight of globalization. Inflation and high interest rates
are a constant threat.
"National currencies and global markets simply do not mix," Mr. Steil
argued. "Together they make a deadly brew of currency crises and geopolitical
tension and create ready pretexts for damaging protectionism."
Get rid of monetary nationalism, along with unloved currencies, and you'll
rid the system of a major source of instability, he concluded.
Mr. Steil points to Europe in the developed world and Ecuador (which uses
the U.S. dollar) in the developing world as shining examples of why fewer
currencies are a good thing.
"Europeans used to say that being a country required having a national
airline, a stock exchange, and a currency," he wrote. "Today, no European
country is any worse off without them. Even grumpy Italy has benefited
enormously from the lower interest rates and permanent end to lira speculation."
China, he suggested, would do well to give up the yuan in favour of a
"pan-Asian" currency that would rival the euro and the dollar, while allowing
the country to liberalize its financial and capital markets.
Just about every other country would be better off with the dollar or the
euro as they gradually integrate into global financial markets.
Even better, he suggested, would be a new gold-based international monetary
system, backed by private gold banks, rather than governments.
Where does that leave a country such as Canada? Its economy is puny
compared with the United States or Europe, and the bulk of its trade is with
its southern neighbour.
That can be a problem when the currency swings. The loonie's recent surge
(past 95 cents U.S.) is nice if you're vacationing in Maine this summer. But
it's pretty devastating if you're making auto parts and other manufactured
goods for the U.S. market.
The rest of the Canadian economy - oil, most other commodities and the
service sector - are humming along fine. The net result is an economy that
appears much stronger than the United States' (3.5-per-cent annualized
first-quarter growth vs. 0.7 per cent in the U.S.). But pockets of the
manufacturing heartland in Ontario and Quebec are hurting badly.
Wouldn't it be nice to have it both ways - stability for exporters and an
end to currency swings.
Mr. Steil seems to think so. In an interview, he said Canada isn't like
Brazil or Turkey, where the threat of a currency crisis is ever present.
"Canada can certainly sustain a national currency, because Canadians, as
well as foreigners, treat the currency as a reliable store of wealth," he said.
"Canada is at no significant risk of a currency crisis."
But that doesn't mean Canada couldn't do better. Mr. Steil argued that the
"economic arguments" for Canada-U.S. monetary integration are compelling.
The main impediments, he suggested, are political, not economic.
And that's part of the problem. The United States, and more specifically,
the U.S. Federal Reserve Board, has become a reluctant central bank for the
world. Its interest rate decisions affect borrowing costs and investment yields
everywhere.
As long as the United States acts responsibly, keeping inflation low and
steady, the rest of the world will be okay.
But if you suspect Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is drinking and driving at the
wheel of the global economy, you might want to stock up on some gold.
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