Replacing the Dollar as Reserve Currency: European Central Bankers Seek World Currency; Medvedev Shows Off Sample Coin of New ‘World Currency’ at G-8

President Dmitry Medvedev Showing Reporters a Sample Gold Coin of a Possible Global Currency

July 10, 2009

Moscow Times - After months of pushing for a new world currency, President Dmitry Medvedev had more than an idea to tout at his G8 news conference. He had the real thing.

With a broad grin, Medvedev held aloft a shiny gold coin Friday that he said represented a “symbol of unity” and a possible “future world currency.”



“I have some supranational currency in my pocket that I got as a souvenir. This is a test sample of a currency unit under the Unity in Diversity motto,” Medvedev said, holding the coin between two fingers.

“It is called the United Future World Currency. It can already be seen and touched,” he said, according to a transcript posted on the Kremlin’s web site.

Examples of the coin, worth $3,900 and produced by the United Future World Currency, a group backing the idea of a global currency, was presented to all world leaders attending the Group of Eight summit in L’Aquila, Italy.

The coin was made by Belgian Luc Luycx, who also designed one side of the Euro coins, and are called “eurodollars” in a symbolic call for a common currency to unite Europe and the United States.

Medvedev pulled out his coin when reporters asked him about new reserve currencies at the news conference that closed the three-day summit. “This is a symbol of our unity and our desire to solve such issues,” Medvedev said.

Russia and China have called for a “super currency” to replace the U.S. dollar as a reserve currency, and French President Nicolas Sarkozy said at the summit that the dollar’s supremacy as a reserve currency is outdated.

“This has become a regular theme now,” Medvedev said Friday. “We are discussing the creation or, to be more correct, the appearance of new reserve currencies, including the possibility of making the Russian ruble such a currency unit.”

Medvedev Shows Off Sample Coin of New ‘World Currency’ at G-8

July 10, 2009

Bloomberg - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev illustrated his call for a supranational currency to replace the dollar by pulling from his pocket a sample coin of a “united future world currency.”

“Here it is,” Medvedev told reporters today in L’Aquila, Italy, after a summit of the Group of Eight nations. “You can see it and touch it.”



The coin, which bears the words “unity in diversity,” was minted in Belgium and presented to the heads of G-8 delegations, Medvedev said.

The question of a supranational currency “concerns everyone now, even the mints,” Medvedev said. The test coin “means they’re getting ready. I think it’s a good sign that we understand how interdependent we are.”

Medvedev has repeatedly called for creating a mix of regional reserve currencies as part of the drive to address the global financial crisis, while questioning the U.S. dollar’s future as a global reserve currency. Russia’s proposals for the G-20 meeting in London in April included the creation of a supranational currency.

Replacing the Dollar as Reserve Currency

July 8, 2009

Reuters - The U.S. dollar is in the line of fire as leaders from the largest developed and developing countries gather in Italy for talks, as China pushes for debate on an eventual shift to a new global reserve currency.

Sources have said the dollar's role probably will not be included in the final communique of a G8 meeting. Even if it does rate a mention, the language used would likely be extremely general to avoid destabilizing financial markets.

Still, the symbolic importance would be immense, as it would underscore the determination of emerging economies, who will also be present in Italy for the talks, to win greater say in the global financial system and, over time, to reduce their dependence on the U.S. currency.

China and other emerging market heavyweights such as Russia and Brazil, are among the biggest holders of dollar assets, mostly in the form of U.S. Treasury debt. Indeed, China has the biggest stockpile of foreign reserves in the world.

Yet for most of this decade, the United States has struggled to maintain the dollar's value. Against major currencies, the dollar has lost 33 percent in value since 2002.

And with the financial crisis prompting the United States to commit trillions of dollars to rescue the economy, these countries fear inflation will further debase the dollar. China, which is thought to hold some 70 percent of its massive $1.9 trillion FX reserves in dollars, is especially vulnerable.

Critics also say the benefits the United States enjoys as printer of the premier reserve currency promotes imbalances in the world financial system, leaving Washington to run deficits as it supplies the world with a steady supply of dollars.

The accumulation of excessively large dollar reserves can then lead to asset bubbles. Some economists contend China's recycling of reserves into U.S. Treasury debt kept U.S. interest rates low and contributed to the housing bubble behind the global downturn...

Pope Calls for “World Political Authority”

July 7, 2009

Reuters - Pope Benedict on Tuesday called for a "world political authority" to manage the global economy and for more government regulation of national economies to pull the world out of the current crisis and avoid a repeat.

The pope's call for a re-think of the way the world economy is run came in new encyclical which touched on a number of social issues but whose main connecting thread was how the current crisis has affected both rich and poor nations.

Called "Charity in Truth," parts of the encyclical appeared bound to upset conservatives because of its underlying rejection of unbridled capitalism and unregulated market forces, which he said had led to "thoroughly destructive" abuse of the system.

The pope said every economic decision has a moral consequence and called for "forms of redistribution" of wealth overseen by governments to help those most affected by crises.

Benedict said "there is an urgent need of a true world political authority" whose task would be "to manage the global economy; to revive economies hit by the crisis; to avoid any deterioration of the present crisis and the greater imbalances that would result."

Such an authority would have to be "regulated by law" and "would need to be universally recognized and to be vested with the effective power to ensure security for all, regard for justice, and respect for rights."

"Obviously it would have to have the authority to ensure compliance with its decisions from all parties, and also with the co-ordinated measures adopted in various international forums," he said.

The United Nations, economic institutions and international finance all had to be reformed "even in the midst of a global recession," he said in the encyclical, a booklet of 141 pages.

An encyclical is the highest form of papal writing and gives the clearest indication to the world's 1.1 billion Catholics as well as non-Catholics of what the pope and the Vatican think about specific social and moral issues.

It was addressed to all Catholics as well as "all people of good will" and was released on the eve of the start of the G8 Summit in Italy and three days before the pope is due to discuss the global downturn with U.S. President Barack Obama.

In several sections of the encyclical, Benedict made it clear he had great reservations about a totally free market.

"The conviction that the economy must be autonomous, that it must be shielded from 'influences' of a moral character, has led man to abuse the economic process in a thoroughly destructive way," he said.

"In the long term, these convictions have led to economic, social and political systems that trample upon personal and social freedom, and are therefore unable to deliver the justice that they promise," he added.

Profit was useful only if it served as a means to a brighter future for all humanity. "Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty," he said. He said the current economic crisis was "clear proof" of what he branded as "pernicious effects of sin" in the economy. "The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics whatsoever, but an ethics which is people-centred," he said. "Financiers must rediscover the genuinely ethical foundation of their activity . . . right intention, transparency, and the search for positive results are mutually compatible and must never be detached from one another," he said.

The pope appeared to back government intervention "in correcting errors and malfunctions" in the economy, saying "one could foresee an increase in the new forms of political participation, nationally and internationally."

"Today's international economic scene, marked by grave deviations and failures, requires a profoundly new way of understanding business enterprise," he said.

European Central Banksters Seek World Currency, Total Control

July 6, 2009

Infowars - On June 23, 2009, Lorenzo Bini Smaghi of the European Central Bank gave a speech at the Aspen Institute Italia called ‘The world after the crisis: Designing the future. A monetary order for the XXI century.’

‘(…) We have been searching for a new monetary order since the fall of the Bretton Woods agreement in the summer of 1971, and even that order was not so orderly, after all.’

In his speech, Smaghi concludes that the IMF/Worldbank has taken its rightful place as head honcho of the ‘international monetary order,’ undermining the autonomy of nation-states as it proceeds with its long-term plan of a global government and a single world currency.

‘The fact that the crisis has restored the IMF to its place at the heart of the international financial system should provide some hope in this respect. (…) Most of the IMF’s shareholders seem to favour making IMF financing easier. (…) In sum, a new world monetary order (…) requires a mechanism to keep imbalances in check. Key elements of such a mechanism include a prominent role for the IMF in two essential areas: strong and effective surveillance in crisis prevention and responsible lending, with appropriate limits and conditionality, to countries in need.’

Here it is. Surrendering national and even regional economic power to a world body, a world bank, is the main goal of the transnationalists. And all this in the name of ‘preventing’ crises--for which, by the way, the central bankers are more often than not responsible in the first place.

In a speech delivered in 2000, member of the executive board of the ECB, Sirkka Hämäläinen stated:

‘In conclusion, I should like to come back to Paul Volcker’s prophecy. He might be right, and we might one day have a single world currency. Maybe European integration, in the same way as any other regional integration, could be seen as a step towards the ideal situation of a fully integrated world. If and when this world will see the light of day is impossible to say. However, what I can say is that this vision seems as impossible now to most of us as a European monetary union seemed 50 years ago, when the process of European integration started.’

The prophecy by long-term chairman of the Fed, Paul Volcker, the speaker is referring to went as follows:

‘If we are to have a truly global economy, a single world currency makes sense.’

But, as it turns out, 50 years ago this process she talks about was far from impossible to imagine. In fact, as the Bilderberg memos of 1955 reveal, plans for a world government were well beyond the stage of wishful thinking or geopolitical daydreaming fifty years ago. It is, after all, a much older plan envisioned way back and pursued by the same nobility responsible for centuries of oppression in Europe. Their feudal model has been passed on from generation to generation, like the blueblood racing through their veins.

On another occasion, Hämäläinen repeated her wish for a global economic integration:

‘As a longer-term vision, one should see European integration as a step towards improving global co-operation and securing peaceful and balanced development in the whole world.’

Meaning of course, global government must replace the sovereignty of nation states. The word ‘peaceful’ translates to the absence of war--for once potentials rivals are eliminated, there is no longer conflict. A consolidation of power, in other words, by the central banks of the world.

Jurgen Stark, at the international conference of central bankers and economic educators in 2006, presses the point that only an independent central bank should be given the instruments of setting interest rates, maintaining price stability and overseeing the economy as a whole:

‘Central Bank independence is nowadays enshrined in many central bank laws and statutes around the world. In order to ensure that this achievement also prevails in the future, broad public awareness of the benefits of central bank independence is essential. Fostering and preserving such awareness requires, in particular, that the independence of a central bank, once granted, is respected by the government in question and not undermined by political interference.’

Stark describes this effort of guaranteeing the omnipotence of central banks by propagandizing people and elected governments as improving ‘economic literacy.’ In reality it is a synchronized effort by the central banks to consolidate power and qualifying anyone who criticizes their monopoly as economically illiterate. Stark:

‘Furthermore, to underpin its institutional independence, a central bank also needs to be given functional, personal and financial independence. Functional independence implies that the central bank can apply its own judgement in the conduct of monetary policy with the aim of achieving the objective specified in its mandate. A key element of a central bank’s functional independence is its lasting control over the money base and its ability to freely choose the instruments which it uses to implement its policies.’

Both the European Central Bank and the Federal Reserve have claimed that political oversight and transparency will be somehow disastrous for their operations and, subsequently, the world economy. They want it all, it seems, and they want it now.
The rational behind all these outrageous preconditions can be summed up with the words of Jean-Claude Trichet, president of the ECB, in 2005:

‘We Europeans know that we can deliver structural reforms: we have done that efficiently in the past. The new state of the world is only adding new reasons to proceed in a direction which has been the European strategy since the late ‘50s, and has contributed, over almost half a century, to productivity progress, prosperity and jobs.’

The economic crisis of the last year has added to a sense of urgency--with everyone having a stake in this new world order screaming for one world government at the top of their lungs.

One currency to rule them all, one currency to find them, one currency to bring them all and in the darkness bind them--one could say, superimposing Tolkien’s Ring-mantra over the objectives of the world’s central banksters.