Or we could try a Tobin tax. This would slow down speculation while generating
income for "good works."
arthur
________________________________
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] on behalf of Darryl or Natalia
Sent: Sat 9/1/2007 3:10 PM
To: Ed Weick
Cc: futurework
Subject: Re: [Futurework] Fw: More on money, money, money!
Good point below about single currency reducing currency speculation. That
would scale back, in perpetuity, fictitious profits made from baseless profits.
Would definitely upset the wealth of the top .01% by $3-500 trillion annually.
Too good an idea, Ed.
Natalia
ED: "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."
Ed Weick wrote:
I meant the following to go to Futurework as well as Natalia.
Ed
----- Original Message -----
From: Ed Weick <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Darryl or Natalia <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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 <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: Ed Weick <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
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
________________________________
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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