Posted on 03/11/2009 4:27:44 PM PDT by Tailgunner Joe
ASTANA, March 11 (Reuters) - Kazakhstan, abandoning its usual balancing act to keep good ties with both the United States and Russia, blamed the dollar's dominance for global economic problems and argued for a new international currency.
"The flaws of the existing global currency system lie at the heart of the current global crisis," said President Nursultan Nazarbayev, who last month proposed calling the new currency "acmetal", combining the words "acme" and "capital".
"Its players are forced to abide by rules imposed on them by others. They are set by a narrow circle and often violate the majority's interests," he told an economic forum on Wednesday, urging groups such as G20 to consider a new world currency.
"I believe a new global currency should serve as the foundation for a new harmonious system. The global currency market is not competitive. And that means it is not civilised."
His words echoed a statement made earlier in the day by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who said the world "capitalist economy" was close to collapse.
(Excerpt) Read more at reuters.com ...
a global currency? It’s called the dollar bub.
Actually, he doesn't refer to the dollar. He doesn't seem to be calling for a return to the ruble standard, or even the euro since the euro has tumbled faster than the dollar. And the tumbling of the dollar hasn't helped his oil income, which has tumbled way faster than the dollar.
But the current recession was caused by governments monkeying with the financial markets so I take his point. What he wants, without saying it, is a currency that is beyond the reach of individual governments. A "gold" or "silver" standard is what he is calling for, without putting it in words.
We've had a dollar that was very stable since the Reagan days, but those days are over. Stable growth, a stable economy, depends in part upon a known system of measure. Thats a gold standard, or some equivalent transparent standard. Maybe a basket of commodities, but it has to be a publicly known standard so that everyone can see when a currency has cut loose from it.
He’s just angry because he lost the horse vote and a man named Borat managed to carry Pamela Anderson an extra 25 feet further.
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