Tag Archives: International Monetary System
Allan Meltzer’s plan for world monetary reform
Professor Meltzer’s proposal can be compared with that advocated in “The Money Trap”. Both authors agree on the need for reform of the international monetary system; they agree this must entail discipline on fiscal and monetary policies of member countries and they also agre that any viable scheme should rest on the voluntary consent of…
» Continue Reading
Mark Carney tries on his new hats
As predicted in The Money Trap, central banks are in process of ditching inflation targeting as a monetary rule. Needless to say, this is not how they see it. At the Bank of England, Mark Carney thinks he looks fancy wearing the new hats George Osborne has given him. He tried them on…
» Continue Reading
Adair Turner (1): Right on the case for radical reform
One person who fully grasps the urgent need for more radical reforms is Lord (Adair) Turner, former head of Britain Financial Services Authority. He also specifies what reforms he feels are needed and makes an eloquent plea for them. These two features set his contributions apart from 90% of writings on the topic. Here I…
» Continue Reading
The bare bones of a new policy regime
As argued in the post “Regime Uncertainty Undermines Confidence”, only a new policy regime, not changes to individual policy areas (such as regulatory policy) will reduce the existential angst that is crippling business and over-shadowing the recovery. New money….. It should establish a global currency standard. The standard should be sufficiently attractive that countries…
» Continue Reading
Eurozone makes progress
The eurozone is widely viewed as a failure, held together only for political reasons. This, it is said, has been proved by the financial crisis and the failure to manage the debt problems of governments in southern Europe. At least, that is the dominant view among the Anglo-Saxons; one searches far and…
» Continue Reading
German power needs global fetters
One side-effect of the comic opera that is the Hollande presidency of France is to knock it out, at least temporarily, as a serious counterpart to German strength in Europe. That is a coming challenge for the whole international community, not just for the European Community. Germany is always portrayed as the…
» Continue Reading
How vulnerable is the dollar?
There is no point dreaming about a new monetary order when the dollar remains dominant and is here to stay. At least, for all practical purposes. That is the bottom line of most commentaries on proposals to reform the international monetary system, such as that advanced in The Money Trap. Indeed, the…
» Continue Reading
Beijing sets out its stall
Although the gloss has worn off the market’s initial enthusiastic endorsement of Beijing’s ambitious reform plans unveiled last month, there is little doubt they represent a major further move towards freeing financial markets – and promoting the international role of the RMB. In addition to changes in how companies file for stock market…
» Continue Reading
The Ikon – towards a new currency unit
The global monetary unit woud be defined by international treaty. The value of the unit is defined by a basket of diversified global equity shares, represented by an index (see W Engels, 1981). An international currency board would be tasked to hold the value of the monetary unit constant against the basket (index). I…
» Continue Reading
When international monetary reform will be politically attractive
A common criticism of proposals for reform of the international monetary system is that they are not politically possible. Of course, there are other grounds on which they can be and are criticised – especially when they call for a return to stable exchange rates, a howl goes up that this would sacrifice the domestic…
» Continue Reading