What do you think of the upcoming “Bretton Woods II” meeting coming up on Nov. 15?
Is there a chance that the dollar will be removed as the world’s reserve currency, thereby collapsing its value overnight?
Is everyone buying gold and foreign stocks and currencies?
Support your argument. What meeting and when is it taking place???
It is sometime in November, hosted by Bush and the “president-elect” will also be invited.
Maybe they will discuss how to finance the next big WAR???
Why would anyone think the dollar is going to zero because the government decides to abandon it?
Well, its amazing (to me) that this topic receives zero attention. It may well be an event far more important economically than the US elections.
On Nov 15, there will be a meeting in the Washington of representatives of 20 “leading” countries to discuss the future of world financial system.
I suppose the goal of US would be to push for bigger IMF and World Bank (where, I think, US has control). The ultimate goal is to defend dollar as global trade currency.
Others (I think) will try to push for a tighter and more evenly controlled international trade currency. This can be: dollar, but with checks guaranteed by IMF or some other international body. Another extreme would be complete departure from dollar: use national currencies, or gold. This is the case where dollar fall is likely.
Again, I can be completely off the marks here, as I yet have to find the factual information about this event. If anyone has information or pointers, please share.
-Mike
Right. Is the US not at the mercy of the rest of the world in terms of their privileged position as the world’s reserve currency? What does it take to change that structure? Are there rules in place about how many votes it takes to change it? Or can other nations simply decide to no longer accept dollars in foreign transactions unilaterally?
Would that not devastate the value of the dollar?
There must be something about this that I don’t understand because no one seems interested in it.
We will resume this conversation on Nov 16.
Well, it is not as bad as it could be. Everything is delayed for another few months.
Here is my take on the G20 statement:
Expected: keep, and “strengthen” Bretton Woods. Literally means the continuation of US control over world finance. There are some indications that others want a bigger say in this, but this sentiment is downplayed - it seems that no one wants to break out of this system.
Useful: call for an international accounting standard.
Useful: call for international bankruptcy procedure, to deal with entities that span the borders.
Scary: threat to deal with uncooperative counties via sanctions.
Scary: call for global tax reporting.
Expected: more regulation. Depending on implementation can mean either nothing, or more bureaucracy. Funny, they hope to create regulatory procedures that will detect and prevent booms.
Funny: “regulation” is listed among attributes of “free market”, see the very first paragraph. He-he.
-Mike
Thanks for the report, mike.
All in all the result as I hoped and expected. No big changes, just little tinkering with the system. Hardly Bretton Woods II.
No new deal. Basically the top 20 just came to confirm their alliance.
I think that was actually their purpose. Just to have a first among a series of meetings. The good news is that the member countries are far more representative of the world’s population and economy than the previous G-7 or G-8.