Monday, 24 March 2008

A solution to currency crisis and financial instability

The US dollar has plummeted against all major world currencies. The South African rand has fallen against the weak dollar. These are cause of concern to the financial stability of the world.

A single global currency could be the answer. The success of the Euro in the EU has proven that a common currency can and does work within member states, and it helps to promote financial stability.

Imagine being able to use the same currency in every corner of the globe! Imagine current account or balance of payment problems becoming a thing of the past. It is possible. In a recent article, Global Finance magazine examined the possibility and benefits of a single currency. Worth a look.

Below is a fact sheet from the Single Global Currency Association.


A Single Global Currency - Common Cents for the World
P.O. Box 390, Newcastle, ME 04553, USA 207-586-6078
www.singleglobalcurrency.org morrison@singleglobalcurrency.org
"A global economy requires a global currency."
(Paul Volcker, former U.S. Federal Reserve Chair.)

FACT SHEET

PROBLEM: The world's complex multicurrency foreign exchange system is a costly and destabilizing burden to the world's economy. The exchanging of $3.2 trillion daily among 141 currencies costs the world approximately $400 billion dollars in transaction costs and $trillions in the undervaluation of assets. The multicurrency monetary system is an “absurd system,” according to Nobel Prize winning economist, Robert Mundell, and should be replaced.

SOLUTION: A Single Global Currency managed by a Global Central Bank, within a Global Monetary Union as early as 2024, the 80th anniversary of the 1944 Bretton Woods Conference.

BENEFITS (from the back cover of the book, The Single Global Currency - Common Cents for the World)
- Annual transaction costs of $400 billion will be eliminated.
- Global currency imbalances, including all balance of payment issues, will be eliminated.
- Currency crises will be prevented.
- Currency fluctuations will be eliminated, as will be the opportunity for speculation.
- International trade will increase.
- Worldwide interest rates will be reduced due to the elimination of currency risk.
- Worldwide asset values will increase by about $36 trillion.
- Worldwide GDP will increase by about $9 trillion.
- The need for foreign exchange reserves (currently about $6 trillion) will be eliminated.

Such gains are realistic and attainable if the world decides to pursue them. The monetary unions of Europe, the Caribbean, Africa and Brunei/Singapore have shown the way.

THE ROUTES TO IMPLEMENTATION:
- Continue to expand the scope of existing monetary unions, especially the euro.
- Create new monetary unions, e.g. Gulf Cooperation Council, West Africa Monetary Zone.
- "Ize" national currencies to any major currency, as in "dollarize","euroize" or "yenize".
- Create a prototype Global Central Bank as an affiliate of an existing international financial
organization, such as the IMF, World Bank or Bank for International Settlements and invite
countries to "ize" their currencies to the currency issued by that Central Bank. Participating
countries would then form the prototype Global Monetary Union, which would then expand
and merge with other monetary unions.
- Convene international monetary conferences for nations, people and organizations to plan for the
implementation of the Single Global Currency and the structure of the Global Central Bank.
- Encourage economic research and writing about the Single Global Currency.
- Increase worldwide public awareness of the Single Global Currency as the only
long-term solution to the problems of the obsolete multi-currency monetary system(s).
- Establish sound, stable money as a fundamental human right as is the right to own property.

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