World Bank President Robert Zoellnick has dropped an economic bombshell. While the story is being swept under the rug in the US media, it's made quite a stir in the foreign press: Zoellnick has, in his own words, "nothing less than the return of the gold standard."
A closet Ron Paul supporter in the UN?
The controversial part of Zoellnick's proposal is that the World Bank would set up a gold reserve and issue a global currency based on that standard. This has a significant pro/con argument:
Pro: if Zoellnick is serious about this, the world economy would take probably its greatest advance towards worldwide libertarianism in history. (I may have the source wrong, but I think the Mises Institute made a similar proposal a few years ago). This would smash most trade and immigration barriers among other positive steps.
Con: It would mean the end of national economic sovereignty and depend on far we could trust the World Bank to manage such a currency.
It would be great to get some feedback on the rest of the list on this one. Is it worth the risk?
Unfortunately....politicians and government bankers are liars..the bigger and powerful they are, the worse they are. So the more local the money, the better. One can already buy commodities if they distrust the currency as a store of value. Why get all excited because an international banker proposes the idea?
Our household subscribes to the Financial Times, and on Monday 8th there was a front page article entitled "Zoellick seeks gold standard debate." As I recall, the article indicated that Zoellick wants to open discussion on the need to implement a Bretton Woods-type of gold standard to which all the world currencies would be pegged. Using the dollar as a "global currency" is getting curioser and curioser right about now. The other options, Euro or even "Petrodollars" (remember them?) are not much of an improvement. Will a return to a global gold standard occur? A few countries would have to hit total bankruptcy first before politicians give up their ability to print fiat money?
That's a good point on that I missed in the last post. Zoellnick is not exactly a character without a decidedly shady history. The real barometer of whether this is for real or not will be to watch Bernancke and the Wall Street pirates' reactions. If they seem all for it, then some red flags are definately going to be raised.
Yes, like Mike mentioned, there is a suspicious element in all of this. I think it's a 'stay tuned and wait' issue at this point; but the concept does have some interesting potential. If a genuine world currency, backed by gold, was introduced, it would really mean the end of a lot of government/corporate power. Which, like Mike pointed out, makes it suspicious that these same elites would be floating the idea without an ulterior motive.
I still do not see in the article I read that Zoellnick wants a world currency. Seemed to me he wants the several currencies in the world to be backed by gold. If my view of Zoellnick's article is correct, then this IS the time to support folks like Ron Paul and his long-time campaign against fiat money.
I read a different article than yours, but after I checked out the one you mentioned, it does look more like Zoellnick wants to back all the currencies with gold. You're right, it's definately time to get behind Ron Paul's campaigns against fiat money, because that seems to be the motive behind Zoellnick's proposal.
The fiat money situation in the US will implode the economy if not reversed soon, and other countries realize it. As early as 2007, Putin was trying to organize alternatives to OPEC and other economic blocks, without US participation. Most countries know how unstable our dollar is.
If this really is another attempt by foreign governments to make an end-run around the dollar, the fiat money needs to go sooner rather than later! Our economy is already built on a house of cards; and with currency devaluation, hyperinflation, and insurmountable deficits, foreign governments rejecting the dollar will push us into national insolvency, no doubt about it!