by Petrodollar » Thu 11 May 2006, 09:30:54
This thread re petrocurrencys reminds of a white paper I read a couple of months ago. In early 2006, William White, the leading economist and head of monetary policy for the prestigious Bank for International Settlements (BIS), suggested that the current system of numerous floating currencies should be replaced with three or four regional currency blocks in a new Bretton Woods agreement. White also expressed concern about the reduction in household savings in English-speaking countries (the US, the UK, Australia and New Zealand), and suggested several reforms to the global monetary system,
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '').First, consideration should be given to going back to a more rule-based [monetary] system…realistically, one might recommend a small number of more formally-based currency blocks (say, based on the dollar, euro and renminbi/yen)…Second, consideration could be given to a system more like that of Bretton Woods, but with the IMF accorded substantially more power to force both creditors and debtors to play their appropriate role in the international adjustment process…Third, consideration could be given to informal cooperative solutions, based on the mutual recognition of interdependencies and the need to avoid circumstances that could lead to systemic disruptions. At the very least, this would require representatives of large creditor countries to share views with debtors as to whether problems were emerging and, if so, what policies might help to resolve them.
William R. White, “Procyclicality in the financial system: do we need a new macrofinancial stabilisation framework,” Bank for International Settlements, BIS working paper No 193, January 2006,
http://www.bis.org/publ/work193.pdf
White seems to be advocating an issue outlined in my book: the need for global monetary reform revolving basically three "reserve currency" blocs in an effort to begin rebalancing the global economy. Of course, to accomplish these difficult but necessary reforms, the US would need engage in
multilateral negotiations with the other industrialized states. Tragically, that is not going to happen under the neoconservatives whose entire stated geopolitical platform is based on maintaining US
economic and military supremacy as "far into the future as possible."
Anyhow, it appears that the Iranian bourse is slated to open up sometime in July (or sooner?), and
if the Russians can get their act together this year, perhaps they'll open up an oil exchange in 2007 (but I would guess 2008 is a more realistic date). May has been a strange month this far....very high gold prices and surprising petrocurrency developments.