That is one of the recommendations from a European Think Tank “LEAPE20/20” in an open letter published last week. (hattip: The Oil Drum).
Your next summit takes place in a few days in London; but are you aware that you have less than a semester to prevent the world from plunging into a crisis that will take at least a decade to resolve, accompanied by a whole series of tragedies and ferment? Therefore, this open letter by LEAP/E2020, who saw the arrival of a « global systemic crisis » as early as three years ago, intends to briefly explain why it happened and how to limit further damage.
Until now you have merely been concerned with the symptoms and secondary effects of this crisis because, unfortunately, nothing prepared you to face a crisis of such an historic scale. You thought that adding more oil to the global engine would be enough, unaware of the fact that the engine was broken, with no hope of repair. In fact, a new engine must be built, and time is running out, as the international system deteriorates further each month.
LEAP’S THREE STRATEGIC RECOMMENDATIONS
1. The key to solving the crisis lies in creating a new international reserve currency!
2. Set up bank control schemes as soon as possible!
3. Get the IMF to assess the US, UK and Swiss financial systems!
Basically they’re telling the G20 to dump the US Dollar as the defacto reserve currency… which it has been since the gold standard was dropped in the 60s/70s.
There is no doubt this recommendation is as much a way to limit exposure to rising crude oil prices as well… because if the US Dollar goes into hyper-inflation due to the trillions of dollars spent bailing out the financial mess, then so will the price of crude, and the world will spin into an even deeper depression.
The US Dollar and economy are no longer capable of supporting the current global economic, financial and monetary order. As long as this strategic problem is not directly addressed and solved, the crisis will grow. Indeed it is at the heart of the crises of derivative financial products, banks, energy prices…
he solution to this problem is well-known, it is about creating an international reserve
currency (which could be called the « Global ») based on a basket of currencies corresponding to the world’s largest economies, i.e. US dollar, Euro, Yen, Yuan, Khaleeji (common currency of oil-producing Gulf states, to be launched in January 2010), Ruble, Real…, managed by a « World Monetary Institute » whose Board will reflect the respective weight of the economies whose currencies comprise the « Global ».
Would it help? Maybe…
Likely to happen? I certainly don’t think so.
For all of the good and proactiveness of President Obama in some respect… overall, he is still the cut from the same cloth as every other politician. He is a reactionary. Change like this will not happen on a global level until the we all have suffered immensely and there really is no other choice.
That is why it is so important for us, as citizens, to make these types of changes in resiliency *locally*. *We* must set the example for our governments to follow. www.transitiontowns.org