Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Seeking Alpha: Is the world conspiring against the US Dollar?

http://seekingalpha.com/article/165092-is-the-world-conspiring-against-the-u-s-dollar It is not unusual to see the U.S. dollar down against the Canadian dollar, and other currencies, on a day when stock market indexes are rallying. In the old days of this stock market recovery, this action would be attributed to investors leaving the safety of U.S. Treasuries and embracing risk overseas.

However, on Tuesday, the U.S. dollar's downturn is being blamed on something a little scarier: The Independent newspaper has a scoop whose headline says it all: "The demise of the dollar."

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.e272eaa74dccc30f21c6ff7638b0f37b.461&show_article=1

The United Nations called on Tuesday for a new global reserve currency to end dollar supremacy which has allowed the United States the "privilege" of building a huge trade deficit.

"Important progress in managing imbalances can be made by reducing the reserve currency country?s 'privilege' to run external deficits in order to provide international liquidity," UN undersecretary-general for economic and social affairs, Sha Zukang, said.

Speaking at the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Istanbul, he said: "It is timely to emphasise that such a system also creates a more equitable method of sharing the seigniorage derived from providing global liquidity."

He said: "Greater use of a truly global reserve currency, such as the IMF?s special drawing rights (SDRs), enables the seigniorage gained to be deployed for development purposes," he said.

The SDRs are the asset used in IMF transactions and are based on a basket of four currencies -- the dollar, euro, yen and pound -- which is calculated daily.

China had called in March for a new dominant world reserve currency instead of the dollar, in a system within the framework of the Washington-based IMF.