Many world economists see a time in the not so distant future when National Currencies are merged into one or a few. It makes sense considering the massive electronic flows of the money. Of course some nations are very concerned with this as no one wants to be on the losing end of the stick and get trapped with mass devaluation or hyper inflation after the switch-over.
When talking about One World Currency or the move closer towards that there are many things to consider indeed. Sure that makes sense eventually to have only a few or one currency in the long-term. For instance; maybe an Asian Dollar, Euro w/Australia/Japan/England joining in, US Dollar used throughout Western Hemisphere, Middle East-African Dollar. Then merge either Asian Currency with Euro or US with Asia, then when you have 3 merge them to one. Have supercomputers monitor the flow of money to insure stability?
This would be the best for humanity in the long run, although there are issues with a Global Currency Collapse in that case right? An "Earth Unit" or "Dollar" would make long-term sense. Earth Unit might even be better and more stable for an Earth Citizen, it also crosses cultural divides of what types of things people value. What are your thoughts on One-World Currency?
These are very tricky discussions when it comes to a nation's currency, as everyone wants control. However, with World Trade things are moving faster and closer together and the debt on the currency needs to be set to the flow of the currency and not specifically to the nation borrowing the money.
Otherwise we will have continuous mini-economic collapses of emerging nations and currency crashes of first world nations. That does not serve the people or the bankers and certainly adds to the changes of civilization collapse. In reality no one wishes to discuss this, but in the future something must be done to shore up the risks being created in the present period, abstractly thinking of course.
L. Winslow is a Economic Advisor to the Online Think Tank, a Futurist and retired entreprenuer. Currently he is planning a bicycle ride across the US to raise money for charity and is sponsored by http://www.calling-plans.com/ and all the proceeds will go to various charities who sign up.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Friday, August 31, 2007
What is the United States Dollar (USD)?
The United States dollar, denoted by USD or the symbol $, is the official currency used in the United States. Commonly referred to as the "American dollar," the currency is divided into 100 cents (symbol ¢). A further division includes 1,000 mills to a dollar, though this division is largely unknown to the general public and only sometimes used in matters of tax levies.
When currently issued in circulating form, denominations equal to or less than a dollar are emitted as U.S. coins while denominations equal to or greater than a dollar are emitted as Federal Reserve notes. (Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the note form is significantly more common.) In the past, paper money was occasionally issued in denominations less than a dollar and gold coins were issued for circulation up to the value of twenty dollars.
The United States Mint is in charge of producing the nation's coins, while the Bureau of Engraving has printed banknotes and Printing for the Federal Reserve since 1914. Note size used to be very large but switched over to a smaller size in 1928; reasons for this switch, however, are unknown.
The dollar is considered the standard unit of currency in commodity markets across the globe (namely gold and oil). At the present time, the U.S. dollar remains the world's foremost reserve currency, primarily held in $100 denominations. The majority of U.S. notes are actually held outside the United States. According to economist Paul Samuelson, the overseas demand for dollars allows the United States to maintain persistent trade deficits without causing the value of the currency to depreciate and the flow of trade to readjust. In 1995, over $380 billion (380 G$) in U.S. currency was in circulation, two-thirds of it overseas. As of April 2004, nearly $700 billion was in circulation, with an estimated half to two-thirds of it still being held overseas.
UsageA few nations besides the United States use the U.S. dollar as their official currency. Ecuador, El Salvador and East Timor all adopted the currency independently; former members of the US-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (namely Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands) decided that, despite their independence, they wanted to keep the U.S. dollar as their official currency. Additionally, local currencies of several states such as Bermuda, the Bahamas, Panama and a few other states can be freely exchanged at a 1:1 ratio for the U.S. dollar. Finally, a number of nations have tied their currencies to the U.S. dollar - including Argentina (1:1 fixed exchange rate from 1991 until 2002), Lebanon (one dollar = 1500 Lebanese pound), Hong Kong (one U.S. dollar = HK$ 7.8 since 1983), and several more. A significant recent development is the action of the People's Republic of China: the renminbi had once been informally and controversially pegged to the dollar (since the mid-1990s, at 1 U.S. dollar = 8.28 Y); however the peg was removed on July 21, 2005. Instead, China has a managed float against a basket of currencies.
Political StructureThe United States government can be best described as a republic or liberal democracy. More specifically, the United States is a representative democracy with three levels of government all freely elected by the American people: federal, state and local.
When currently issued in circulating form, denominations equal to or less than a dollar are emitted as U.S. coins while denominations equal to or greater than a dollar are emitted as Federal Reserve notes. (Both one-dollar coins and notes are produced today, although the note form is significantly more common.) In the past, paper money was occasionally issued in denominations less than a dollar and gold coins were issued for circulation up to the value of twenty dollars.
The United States Mint is in charge of producing the nation's coins, while the Bureau of Engraving has printed banknotes and Printing for the Federal Reserve since 1914. Note size used to be very large but switched over to a smaller size in 1928; reasons for this switch, however, are unknown.
The dollar is considered the standard unit of currency in commodity markets across the globe (namely gold and oil). At the present time, the U.S. dollar remains the world's foremost reserve currency, primarily held in $100 denominations. The majority of U.S. notes are actually held outside the United States. According to economist Paul Samuelson, the overseas demand for dollars allows the United States to maintain persistent trade deficits without causing the value of the currency to depreciate and the flow of trade to readjust. In 1995, over $380 billion (380 G$) in U.S. currency was in circulation, two-thirds of it overseas. As of April 2004, nearly $700 billion was in circulation, with an estimated half to two-thirds of it still being held overseas.
UsageA few nations besides the United States use the U.S. dollar as their official currency. Ecuador, El Salvador and East Timor all adopted the currency independently; former members of the US-administered Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands (namely Palau, the Federated States of Micronesia and the Marshall Islands) decided that, despite their independence, they wanted to keep the U.S. dollar as their official currency. Additionally, local currencies of several states such as Bermuda, the Bahamas, Panama and a few other states can be freely exchanged at a 1:1 ratio for the U.S. dollar. Finally, a number of nations have tied their currencies to the U.S. dollar - including Argentina (1:1 fixed exchange rate from 1991 until 2002), Lebanon (one dollar = 1500 Lebanese pound), Hong Kong (one U.S. dollar = HK$ 7.8 since 1983), and several more. A significant recent development is the action of the People's Republic of China: the renminbi had once been informally and controversially pegged to the dollar (since the mid-1990s, at 1 U.S. dollar = 8.28 Y); however the peg was removed on July 21, 2005. Instead, China has a managed float against a basket of currencies.
Political StructureThe United States government can be best described as a republic or liberal democracy. More specifically, the United States is a representative democracy with three levels of government all freely elected by the American people: federal, state and local.
Monday, August 06, 2007
Electric Currency
Philip Diehl was director of the U.S. Mint in Washington, D.C., until March, when he became president of E-commerce jewelry company Zale.com. We asked him whether technology has put us on the verge of seeing coins and bills replaced by digital files.
There is a key obstacle to the sweeping use of electronic money in the new economy: people's keen desire for privacy. Privacy is one of the crucial unwritten rights in the Constitution. We have a natural concern about either big government or big business knowing too much about us as individuals. That concern is underappreciated as a constraint on the evolution of smart cards, E-cash on the Internet, and similar technologies. Cash is anonymous. And people have a great deal of confidence in its anonymity. That's a big hurdle for electronic forms of money to get over.
There already have been a number of experiments with electronic forms of cash in the United States, and they have not been well received. But entering the economy every year is a cadre of young people who are being trained to use smart cards. At many colleges and universities, the first day students walk onto campus, they are handed one, and they use them for four years. When they come out, they're primed. At some point that cadre of cohorts will hit critical mass, and someone will develop a product that penetrates that market.
The ultimate question is, When does that happen? The answer depends on whether a common standard can be agreed upon. It's sort of the Betamax-versus-VHS thing all over again. Since there is so much equipment that has to go into the U.S. economy to support such technologies, if there were multiple competing technologies and standards, it would be that much harder for the system to hit critical mass.
I don't expect coins and paper currency to disappear anytime soon. Coins have been around for 3,000 years. I don't know that they'll be around 3,000 years from now, but I'm pretty certain they'll be here 30 years from now or 100 years from now. How long have we been talking about the paperless office? Thirty years? And today I have every bit as much paper as, if not more than, I've ever had before.
We've been talking about a cashless society for a long time, too. We've had this proliferation of different forms of payment, from checks to credit cards to E-cash on the Internet. And through it all, the demand for coinage has gone up. We set a record last year by putting more than 20 billion coins into the U.S. economy. This year we'll top that record by almost 50%, with 29 billion. The popularity of the 50 state quarters program and the new golden dollar raises questions about the so-called death of coinage.
That being said, E-commerce could change how people view physical money. It used to be there had to be precious metals -- gold and silver, typically -- in the coins for us to have confidence in them, but increasingly we've gotten away from that.
In reality, money has value based on a cultural consensus. That consensus might be in the form of a common view of the value of gold or silver, or it could be in the form of the full faith and credit of a government. Or in the form of electrons.
Looking ahead, I don't expect the U.S. Mint to jump into the business of supplying electronic money anytime soon. The private sector is very active in this market. And there's a very broad consensus -- I think it's an appropriate consensus -- that when the private sector basically owns a sector of the economy and it's working, you let it work.
My read of the culture is that we all believe anybody can be wealthy. I think that has the potential of being very healthy. The problem comes when we don't want to work for it. We think that either we're entitled to it or we can get it on the cheap.
The media do a great job of elevating people who get it on the cheap: those who win the lottery; those who strike oil; or those who morph their dot-com companies into gold mines. In 1849 it was the gold rush. And now it's the dot-com rush. -- From an interview with Roger Fillion.
By: Philip Diehl
There is a key obstacle to the sweeping use of electronic money in the new economy: people's keen desire for privacy. Privacy is one of the crucial unwritten rights in the Constitution. We have a natural concern about either big government or big business knowing too much about us as individuals. That concern is underappreciated as a constraint on the evolution of smart cards, E-cash on the Internet, and similar technologies. Cash is anonymous. And people have a great deal of confidence in its anonymity. That's a big hurdle for electronic forms of money to get over.
There already have been a number of experiments with electronic forms of cash in the United States, and they have not been well received. But entering the economy every year is a cadre of young people who are being trained to use smart cards. At many colleges and universities, the first day students walk onto campus, they are handed one, and they use them for four years. When they come out, they're primed. At some point that cadre of cohorts will hit critical mass, and someone will develop a product that penetrates that market.
The ultimate question is, When does that happen? The answer depends on whether a common standard can be agreed upon. It's sort of the Betamax-versus-VHS thing all over again. Since there is so much equipment that has to go into the U.S. economy to support such technologies, if there were multiple competing technologies and standards, it would be that much harder for the system to hit critical mass.
I don't expect coins and paper currency to disappear anytime soon. Coins have been around for 3,000 years. I don't know that they'll be around 3,000 years from now, but I'm pretty certain they'll be here 30 years from now or 100 years from now. How long have we been talking about the paperless office? Thirty years? And today I have every bit as much paper as, if not more than, I've ever had before.
We've been talking about a cashless society for a long time, too. We've had this proliferation of different forms of payment, from checks to credit cards to E-cash on the Internet. And through it all, the demand for coinage has gone up. We set a record last year by putting more than 20 billion coins into the U.S. economy. This year we'll top that record by almost 50%, with 29 billion. The popularity of the 50 state quarters program and the new golden dollar raises questions about the so-called death of coinage.
That being said, E-commerce could change how people view physical money. It used to be there had to be precious metals -- gold and silver, typically -- in the coins for us to have confidence in them, but increasingly we've gotten away from that.
In reality, money has value based on a cultural consensus. That consensus might be in the form of a common view of the value of gold or silver, or it could be in the form of the full faith and credit of a government. Or in the form of electrons.
Looking ahead, I don't expect the U.S. Mint to jump into the business of supplying electronic money anytime soon. The private sector is very active in this market. And there's a very broad consensus -- I think it's an appropriate consensus -- that when the private sector basically owns a sector of the economy and it's working, you let it work.
My read of the culture is that we all believe anybody can be wealthy. I think that has the potential of being very healthy. The problem comes when we don't want to work for it. We think that either we're entitled to it or we can get it on the cheap.
The media do a great job of elevating people who get it on the cheap: those who win the lottery; those who strike oil; or those who morph their dot-com companies into gold mines. In 1849 it was the gold rush. And now it's the dot-com rush. -- From an interview with Roger Fillion.
By: Philip Diehl
Monday, July 16, 2007
Dollar Continues Drop Against Euro
FRANKFURT, Germany - The dollar continued its descent into record low territory against the euro Wednesday amid fears about the health of the U.S. economy.
The 13-nation currency traded as high as $1.3784 overnight before settling back to $1.3767 by afternoon in Europe. That compared with the $1.3729 it bought in New York late Tuesday.
The British pound hit a new 26-year high against the dollar, rising to $2.0322 , its highest level since June 1981 , from the $2.0267 it bought late Tuesday.
"Currency markets have arguably been left focusing on just one point at the moment and that's concern over the possible collapse of the U.S. subprime lending market," said David Jones, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in London.
"The result has been to put the dollar under some sustained pressure through the overnight session."
The subprime market refers to loans, such as mortgages, given to borrowers with spotty credit histories that tend to have higher interest rates. Subprime borrowers have missed a lot more payments on loans amid higher interest rates and a slowdown in the U.S. economy.
A higher euro makes goods from the 13-nation currency zone more expensive for customers abroad and cuts into manufacturers' profits if they try to keep the U.S. dollar price of products constant.
However, European Central Bank executive board member Juergen Stark downplayed those concerns earlier this week. He said more than 50 percent of euro-zone countries' exports go to other euro-zone members, which makes them less vulnerable to currency fluctuations.
On Tuesday night, he noted that "the improvements in economic fundamentals are being reflected in exchange rates."
Along with the rise in the pound, the stronger euro also makes visits to much of Europe more expensive for travelers from elsewhere and makes shopping trips to the U.S. more appealing to Europeans.
"I said to my friend 'Thank goodness we bought all our gifts before we got to Brussels last week,'" Susan Chorney, a middle school teacher from Greenwich, Connecticut, said in Berlin.
"I know we'll slow down on buying things to take home. We're more thoughtful about spending small dollars right now."
The euro started surging against the dollar on Tuesday, breaking through the $1.37 mark for the first time since it started trading in 1999, as concerns about the U.S. economy were fueled by discouraging growth forecasts from key retailers and homebuilders.
The dollar got no boost from a speech by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that offered little insight into the central bank's next move and focused instead on how the bank makes its inflation-fighting decisions.
The Fed has left its benchmark rate unchanged at 5.25 percent for a year following two years of steady increases.
That contrasts with the ECB, which has raised rates steadily and is expected to do so again to 4.25 percent in September; and the Bank of England, which last week increased its benchmark rate to 5.75 percent, a six-year high.
Higher interest rates, a weapon against inflation, can bolster a currency by giving better returns on fixed-income investments.
The dollar fell to 121.48 yen from 122.03 yen after the Japanese government said the country's current account surplus expanded for the fifth straight month in May, auguring well for economic growth in the second quarter.
MATT MOORE
The Associated Press
The 13-nation currency traded as high as $1.3784 overnight before settling back to $1.3767 by afternoon in Europe. That compared with the $1.3729 it bought in New York late Tuesday.
The British pound hit a new 26-year high against the dollar, rising to $2.0322 , its highest level since June 1981 , from the $2.0267 it bought late Tuesday.
"Currency markets have arguably been left focusing on just one point at the moment and that's concern over the possible collapse of the U.S. subprime lending market," said David Jones, chief market analyst at CMC Markets in London.
"The result has been to put the dollar under some sustained pressure through the overnight session."
The subprime market refers to loans, such as mortgages, given to borrowers with spotty credit histories that tend to have higher interest rates. Subprime borrowers have missed a lot more payments on loans amid higher interest rates and a slowdown in the U.S. economy.
A higher euro makes goods from the 13-nation currency zone more expensive for customers abroad and cuts into manufacturers' profits if they try to keep the U.S. dollar price of products constant.
However, European Central Bank executive board member Juergen Stark downplayed those concerns earlier this week. He said more than 50 percent of euro-zone countries' exports go to other euro-zone members, which makes them less vulnerable to currency fluctuations.
On Tuesday night, he noted that "the improvements in economic fundamentals are being reflected in exchange rates."
Along with the rise in the pound, the stronger euro also makes visits to much of Europe more expensive for travelers from elsewhere and makes shopping trips to the U.S. more appealing to Europeans.
"I said to my friend 'Thank goodness we bought all our gifts before we got to Brussels last week,'" Susan Chorney, a middle school teacher from Greenwich, Connecticut, said in Berlin.
"I know we'll slow down on buying things to take home. We're more thoughtful about spending small dollars right now."
The euro started surging against the dollar on Tuesday, breaking through the $1.37 mark for the first time since it started trading in 1999, as concerns about the U.S. economy were fueled by discouraging growth forecasts from key retailers and homebuilders.
The dollar got no boost from a speech by U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke that offered little insight into the central bank's next move and focused instead on how the bank makes its inflation-fighting decisions.
The Fed has left its benchmark rate unchanged at 5.25 percent for a year following two years of steady increases.
That contrasts with the ECB, which has raised rates steadily and is expected to do so again to 4.25 percent in September; and the Bank of England, which last week increased its benchmark rate to 5.75 percent, a six-year high.
Higher interest rates, a weapon against inflation, can bolster a currency by giving better returns on fixed-income investments.
The dollar fell to 121.48 yen from 122.03 yen after the Japanese government said the country's current account surplus expanded for the fifth straight month in May, auguring well for economic growth in the second quarter.
MATT MOORE
The Associated Press
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Losing Currency
Today's young could be the last generation that deals in cash, or writes cheques. With the growth of electronic money, a revolution is underway. Plastic cards and electronic money transfers are about to supplant the paper tokens that we are used to as instruments of trade, whether in the form of currency notes or cheques. The US, for example, is a $13 trillion economy, but only $400 billion circulates within it in the form of currency. Americans hold an average of seven credit or debit cards for everybody over the age of 15. No more counting out the change; no more rushing to the nearest bank or ATM. Its sheer convenience is making electronic money burgeon across the world, crowding out cash transactions. Although we are accustomed to dealing in paper money, let's not forget it has a short history. The 20th century was the only period to be dominated by it. It was invented by the Chinese around 650 CE, but came to Europe as late as the 17th century with the Swedes being the first Europeans to adopt it. Muhammad bin Tughlaq, in a typical fit of visionary insanity, tried to introduce paper money to India but failed. India's revolution in paper money had to await another revolution: the decline of the Mughal empire and the advent of the British. For those disconcerted by the shift to electronic money, a paper currency note worth Rs 500 too is an abstraction. It is actually a promissory note. Pink Floyd sang “Money, it's a gas” — long before credit cards or electronic transfers came into vogue. Many countries have introduced plastic in place of paper bills, in order to reduce replacement costs. Why not go the whole hog then and have a piece of plastic represent a variable rather than a fixed amount of money? Credit, of course, is the lubricant of modern economies, just as paper money lubricates trade. While convenient, the introduction of paper money had political implications. It could be printed without limit, which could induce hyper inflation. But it could be printed freely by governments in times of need for better management of monetary policy. Switching to electronic money, too, is going to shake up politics, since electronic transfers are instantaneous and global. New thinking will be required to understand and manage money supply before cash transforms totally into credit and electronic transfers. Perhaps one's neighbourhood hawala consultant will suggest innovative options.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Losing_Currency/articleshow/2159081.cms
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Opinion/Editorial/Losing_Currency/articleshow/2159081.cms
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