Wars, Rumors Of Wars, Skyrocketing Oil Prices And Global Economic Chaos – Why Is All Of This Happening?

March 3, 2011
Did anyone out there anticipate that 2011 would be such a wild year?  The year is barely over two months old and we have already seen multiple civil wars erupt, rumors of more wars all over the mainstream media (potentially even including the United States), riots and revolutions breaking out all over the globe, oil prices soaring into the stratosphere and chaos on global financial markets.  So why is all of this happening?  Is all of this one big coincidence or is there a reason why we are witnessing such global chaos right now?  Is it just coincidence that revolutions have broken out in over a dozen countries in the Middle East all at the same time?  Is it just a coincidence that global prices for oil, food and precious metals are all skyrocketing?  Is it just a coincidence that world financial markets suddenly seem more vulnerable than at any time since 2008?  Looking at what is going on in the world right now, it is very tempting to use the phrase “a perfect storm” to describe it.  Unfortunately, this “perfect storm” is very likely to plunge the global economy into yet another financial collapse if it continues to get even worse.
After decades of relative stability, the Middle East has erupted in chaos in 2011.  In the post-World War 2 era, we have never seen a time when there have been so many major internal revolutions all at once.  All of these simultaneous revolutions are driving the price of oil rapidly upwards.
The price of West Texas crude is now over $102 a barrel and the price of Brent crude is now over $116 a barrel and if the chaos in the Middle East continues those numbers are likely to go a lot higher.
Meanwhile, gold has set a new all-time record this week and the price of silver is absolutely exploding.
In fact, just about every kind of “hard asset” that you can possibly name is going up in price.  Investors don’t like all of this instability and they are looking for safe places to put their money.
Unfortunately, the global situation looks like it may become even more heated.
The calls for military action against Libya are rapidly reaching a crescendo.
The U.S. Senate has unanimously passed a resolution calling for the UN Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya, and many members of Congress are openly declaring that the U.S. and NATO should take unilateral action no matter what the UN ultimately decides.
But implementing a no-fly zone is not a simple thing.  It is not just a matter of telling Libya not to fly their planes.  Rather, imposing a no-fly zone over Libya would constitute a major military operation.
U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is even admitting that enforcing a no-fly zone over Libya would begin with a huge military strike…..

“Let’s just call a spade a spade. A no-fly zone begins with an attack on Libya to destroy the air defenses … and then you can fly planes around the country and not worry about our guys being shot down.”

U.S. commander General James Mattis made a similar comment on Tuesday….

You would have to remove the air defense capability in order to establish the no-fly zone so it – no illusions here, it would be a military operation.

Essentially, imposing a no-fly zone over Libya would be an act of war.
Most of our representatives in Washington D.C. seem to be quite ready to go to war in Libya, but it is another story entirely when it comes to the American people.  A recent Rasmussen poll found that a whopping 67 percent of Americans do not want the U.S. to get more involved in the unrest going on in Arab countries and only 17 percent of Americans do want the U.S. to get more directly involved.
But the American people don’t get to decide whether we go to war or not.  Our leaders in Washington D.C. do.  The USS Enterprise and other major warships are on their way to Libya, and U.S. forces throughout the Mediterranean are on high alert.
So could the U.S. really get involved in another war in the Middle East?
Well, if the U.S. and NATO choose to get involved they will do it without the approval of the rest of the world.
On Wednesday, the Arab League issued a statement which specifically rejected “any foreign interference within Libya on behalf of the opposition”.
Not only that, but any military action by the UN will most likely be blocked by both China and Russia.
Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, says that any military action against Libya without UN approval would be a violation of international law….

“If someone in Washington is seeking a blitzkrieg in Libya, it is a serious mistake because any use of military force outside the NATO responsibility zone will be considered a violation of international law.”

But Libya is far from the only crisis point in the Middle East.
In fact, a much larger problem may be brewing in Saudi Arabia.
On Facebook, a “Day of Rage” is being hyped for March 11th.  Other dates being promoted for “revolution” in Saudi Arabia include March 20th and March 21st.
But if Saudi Arabia sees the same kind of chaos that we have seen in other countries in the Middle East there is no telling how high the price of oil could go.
Could we see $125 oil?
Could we see $150 oil?
Could we see $200 oil?
Saudi Arabia exports more oil than anyone else in the world, so if their oil production gets interrupted it is going to have a dramatic impact on the global economy.
For example, are you ready to pay 5 dollars for a gallon of gasoline in the United States?
For decades, the entire globe has been blessed with very cheap oil and this has resulted in a massive economic boom.
But times are changing.
The economic situation over in Europe is already deteriorating and any additional bad news could plunge that entire continent into a major crisis.  A recently released report from Ernst & Young is warning that if oil goes up to 150 dollars a barrel and it stays there, “at least” one eurozone country will default and the entire eurozone will be plunged back into recession.
A much higher price for oil would obviously not be good for the U.S. economy either.  Do you remember what happened back in 2008?  The price of oil hit a record high in June and then the entire financial system came unglued just a few months later.
But if we see a repeat of 2008 it may be a lot worse this time because the global financial system is now more unstable than ever.
The truth is that the entire world is still trying to recover from the last financial crisis.  The Federal Reserve is pumping massive quantities of dollars into the U.S. economy in an attempt to stimulate it back to life, but so far it is not working too well.
The rest of the world does not appreciate all of this “money printing” and the inflation that this is causing is beginning to create massive imbalances on global financial markets.
The world is starting to lose faith in the U.S. dollar.  Right now, approximately85% of all foreign-exchange transactions in the world involve the U.S. dollar.  Not only that, 60% of all the currency reserves in the world are in U.S. dollars.  With the U.S. dollar rapidly becoming less stable, many are now wondering if it should continue to be used as the reserve currency of the world.
The truth is that if the U.S. dollar falls, it is going to create a tremendous amount of financial chaos in almost every nation on the globe.
Unfortunately, as I have written about so many times previously, the U.S. economy is dying.  The U.S. government is absolutely drowning in debt, and leaders all over the planet are calling for the establishment of a new global reserve currency.
The days of the United States being the “economic engine of the planet” are rapidly coming to an end.
The U.S. economy is not ever going to fully “recover”.  In fact, the U.S. economy is basically “running on empty” at this point as Gerald Celente recently noted during an interview on RT television….
The entire U.S. economy was designed to operate on massive amounts of very cheap oil.  Americans do more driving than anyone else in the world.  Many of us are so lazy that we won’t even walk to a store if it is on the other side of the parking lot.
If oil hits record levels in 2011, it is going to be a massive shock to the U.S. economic system.  Any hopes for an “economic recovery” will be completely dashed.
In fact, if one wanted to “take down” the U.S. economy, driving up the price of oil would be a perfect way to do it.
And if one wanted to drive up the price of oil, a perfect way to do that would be to create all kinds of chaos in the Middle East.
So is all of this craziness that we are seeing in 2011 just a big coincidence or is there a reason why all of this is happening?

US Dollar Dive Bomb

It's Taps For the Still Weakening Dollar

It now appears that the United States has finally succeeded in its efforts to destroy confidence in the U.S. dollar. Given the currency's reserve status, its ubiquity in financial markets, and the economic power and political position of the United States, this was no easy task. However, to get the job done Washington chose the right man: Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke. Thanks to Bernanke's herculean efforts, investors across the globe have now been fully weaned from their infantile belief that the U.S. dollar will remain the ultimate safe haven currency.
The proof of Ben's success can be seen in comparing how the foreign exchange markets reacted to the recent crisis in the Middle East with how they reacted to the financial crisis of 2008. Back then, investors looking for safety abandoned their foreign currency positions and piled into the U.S. dollar (the market for U.S. Treasury Bonds in particular). As a result of these fund flows, the U.S. dollar surged 20% from August to November 2008.
However, during this latest round of global destabilization the dollar experienced no such rally. In fact, the greenback shed about 5% of its value since the Tunisia revolution began in December of 2010. The reason should be clear; the Fed has placed international investors on notice that it will unleash even greater doses of dollar debasement at the first whiff of additional economic weakness, deflation threat, or dollar appreciation. Just this week, Bernanke once again made clear that despite what he considers to be a better growth outlook at home and abroad, and spreading global inflation, the United States will not pull back from monetary accommodation, even as other nations conspicuously do so. The architect of U.S. monetary policy has stated explicitly that dollar debasement will continue for the indefinite future.
Knowing this, why would any international investor seeking a "safe haven" choose to park assets in U.S. sovereign debt? If Bernanke is to be believed, continued economic weakness in the U.S. will cause low-yielding Treasuries to lose value due to inflation while the weakening dollar erodes the underlying value of the bond in real terms. This is a one-two punch that sane investors will seek to avoid. It is no coincidence that a record percentage of U.S. Treasury auctions are now being bought by central banks, for whom sanity is a lowly consideration.
But in reality, the Fed has much less influence over the dollar's value than do central bankers in Beijing. There is little disagreement among economists that without Chinese support, the dollar would be a dead duck. But for the last twenty years or so the monetary arrangement that pegged the yuan against the dollar served the interests of both countries. The U.S. enjoyed a flood of cheap imports, the benefits of ultra-low interest rates, and a strong currency. The Chinese received a booming export economy, which accounted for about a third of the country's GDP, and the ownership of a significant portion of the future of the United States. To maintain this peg, the People's Bank of China had to print trillions of yuan and perpetually hold more than $1 trillion U.S. dollars in reserve.
But recently, having led to rampant money supply growth and inflation in China, the peg has become more trouble than it's worth, particularly from the Chinese perspective. The latest reading on YOY money supply growth has China's M2 increasing by 17.2%; which has helped send their reported CPI up 4.9% YOY.
Inflation in China is pushing up the prices of its exports. According to the latest survey released February 14th from Global Sources (a primary facilitator of trade with Greater China), export prices of various China products are likely to increase in the months ahead, especially if the cost of major materials and components continues to soar. The survey of 232 Chinese exporters revealed that 74% of respondents said they boosted export prices in 2010. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in early January that its China import price index rose 0.9% in the fourth quarter after holding steady for the previous 18 months. And Guangdong, the biggest exporting province, said recently that it would increase minimum wages by around 19% this March.
But here is the rub; China maintains its peg in order to keep export prices from rising in dollar terms. But the peg is now causing export prices to rise anyway. As a result, the policy is a dead letter. The simple fact is that the threat to China's exports will exist whether they let their currency appreciate or not. But a strong currency offers the benefit of greater domestic consumption, while a weaker currency offers them nothing.
The Chinese government will take the path that preserves and balances their economy while enriching their entire population, rather than go down the road to never ending inflation. For China the realistic hope is that the greater purchasing power of a strong currency will enable their growing middle class to supplant U.S. consumers as the end market for China's own manufacturing efforts. However, for the U.S. the challenge will be to develop a diversified manufacturing base in an expeditious manner before surging interest rates, a plummeting dollar and soaring inflation overwhelm the economy.
The dollar's recent reaction to the turmoil in the Middle East and China's inflation problem illustrate that we have come to a watershed moment in American history. The decade beginning in 2010 should prove to be the decade in which the U.S. dollar loses its status as the world's reserve currency. As bad as that blow may be, the loss may provide the shock needed to get our economy back on a sustainable path. The real danger lies in refusing to adapt to the changing environment. Our current economic stewards are acting as if the dollar's status is written in stone, when in fact it's hanging by a thread.

State Workers Retiring Because They're Nothing But Drags On The Economy Anyway

State Worker Retirements Are Soaring Across the Country

State workers are retiring in droves.

Call it a sign of the troubled fiscal times, when governors are pushing for steep cuts in employee wages and benefits as they seek to restore their states to fiscal health.

Whatever you call it, it amounts to a huge challenge. Many employees of cash-strapped states, such as New Jersey, California and New York, appear headed for the exits -- trying to get out while they still have pensions -- as governors pressure workers and their unions to contribute more toward their health care and retirement.

That's no surprise, considering the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that 45 states and the District of Columbia face a combined shortfall of $125 billion for fiscal 2012.

Worsening a Brain Drain

Although politics may play a role in some of these departures, they also underscore a demographic reality. According to the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, public sector workers tend to be older and more educated than their counterparts in the private sector. And growth in government employment outpaced private sector employment growth between 1992 and 2008.

The departures now are coming on top of a brain drain of state workers who were axed in budget cuts over the past few years. Another 400,000 government workers could lose their jobs this year. In Wisconsin, Gov. Scott Walker is threatening to lay off hundreds of state workers unless the legislature passes his spending plan, which includes a controversial proposal to strip employees of most of their collective bargaining rights.

In New Jersey, state worker retirements soared by 60% in 2010 as Gov. Chris Christie pressured them to pay more money toward their pension and health care costs. Bloomberg News estimates that the number of retirement applications has reached its highest level in a decade. Christie's battles with the teacher's union also have taken its toll in retirement plans: The number of teacher retirements surged 95% last year, the largest increase of any public sector group, Bloomberg reports.

A Coast-to-Coast Trend

California also saw retirements of its state workers, including teachers and bureaucrats, jump 22.6% to 30,119 in the 2009-2010 fiscal year. That represents the biggest annual gain in retirements since at least 2000, according to the California Pubic Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the nation's largest public pension fund. Projections for retirements for the current 2010-2011 fiscal year anticipate 31,800 retirements, according to CalPERS spokesman Bob Burton.

Nearly 13,000 New York State workers retired in 2010, up more than 60% from the previous year's 7,449 retirements. The state offered an early-retirement plan for some workers, which boosted the number, according to Eric Sumberg, press secretary for the Office of the New York State Comptroller.

That figure doesn't include New York teacher retirements. Those ranks are expected to swell this year, thanks to a separate early-retirement program for teachers, says John Cardillo, a spokesman for the New York State Teachers' Retirement System. Last year, 5,501 New York teachers retired, slightly lower than in 2009.

According to the Florida Retirement System, 11,639 of its members retired between July 1, 2009, and June 30, 2010. That compares with 10,888 retirements for the year-earlier period, says spokeswoman Lauren Engel.
Early Retirement Incentives?

The Pennsylvania State Employees' Retirement System expects 5,751 members to be added to its annuity payroll in 2011, up from 5,109 in 2010 and 3,806 in 2009. The actual number of retirees "will be highly dependent on whether any changes negotiated as part of the new employee contract provide employees with an incentive to leave earlier or stay longer than they might otherwise have planned," spokeswoman Pamela J. Hile writes in an email.

More than 4,800 Texas state workers retired last year as of August 2010, versus 3,044 for the same period a year earlier. The Employment Retirement System of Texas, which excludes teachers, expect 5,425 retirements this year, says spokeswoman Catherine Terrell.

Finally, in Illinois, officials expect 2,600 retirements in the current fiscal year, according to spokesman Tim Blair. That compares to 2,416 Illinois state worker retirements in the 2010 fiscal year and 2,046 in 2009.

Whether more public workers would leave if they could remains unclear, but the morale of government workers certainly appears to be suffering.

"Morale issues are important to think about," says Elizabeth Kellar, CEO of the Center for State and Local Government Excellence, in an interview. "It's important for the general public to know that we are beating up on the people who take care of us."

{The author obviously sides with the over-paid, under-worked government workers who leech the system slopping at the public trough for their working lives.  Most people leave their mortal coil after they chose retirement and here at SOC we wish them a pain-free passage into the afterlife as soon as possible.  Self-Righteous mooches like these leave nothing in their passing and will be remembered as the dregs they are.}

World Shocker When US Dollar Tanks

Today James Turk was interviewed out of Spain and Turk issued the following warning regarding the US dollar, “I am looking at the weekly chart for the last 2 1/2 years and my conclusion is that the dollar is forming a massive top.  If we stop to consider that gold was rising while the dollar was basically going sideways during this period of time, imagine how rapidly gold will rise when the dollar starts falling.”

Turk continues:

“What I’m watching here very carefully is how the dollar is reacting to events in the Middle-East and higher commodity prices.  Brent crude is presently $115 and that is signaling higher inflation.  It’s a signal that everybody around the world is watching.  So watch the dollar index closely.  It broke below 77 and the chart is starting to look heavy.  

The dollar collapse is going to be the next big story.  If I am right and the dollar really starts to dive, the implications are global in nature and I truly believe this event will shock the world.

When asked about gold Turk responded, “To me the most important thing is this huge base that we now have in gold under $1,400.  I see it as a major launching pad that could easily take gold to my $1,800 target for this year.  

When asked about silver specifically Turk stated, “I think the major message in silver is that every dip is well bid for.  The shorts and other big players may gun for stops from time to time, but they can’t change the underlying trend, or the very bullish fundamental picture.

When the gold and silver markets start becoming disorderly, then we will know the metals are going to take a breather.  But everything at the moment says we should be focusing on higher prices for both gold and silver.”    

71 to 74 is seen as the last support if the dollar heads lower.  If that support fails and the dollar breaks 71, then a waterfall decline with panic selling could come into play.  Turk is right, that event would shock the world.

Faber Pulls No Punches

Marc Faber: "I Think We Are All Doomed"

All who enjoy hearing a meaty Marc Faber fire and brimstone sermon, that cuts through the bullshit, will be happy to know that the Gloom, Boom and Doom author conducted a 40 minute interview with the McAlvany Financial Group, which covers all the usual suspects: gold, silver, precious and industrial metals, the "crack up boom", the future of the Ponzi and capital markets in general and much more. Of course, it wouldn't be a Faber interview without the requisite soundbite: "I think we are all doomed. I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it." Of course, on a long enough timeline...
Key extract from the Faber speech:

I think we are all doomed.  I think what will happen is that we are in the midst of a kind of a crack-up boom that is not sustainable, that eventually the economy will deteriorate, that there will be more money-printing, and then you have inflation, and a poor economy, an extreme form of stagflation, and, eventually, in that situation, countries go to war, and, as a whole, derivatives, the market, and everything will collapse, and like a computer when it crashes, you will have to reboot it.

For the investor, the question is: How do I navigate through this complete disaster that is going to unfold?  And I think if you look at different asset classes – real estate, equities, bonds, cash, precious metals – I suppose that you have to be diversified.  I think real estate in the U.S. may go down another 10% or so, or even 15%, but I am always telling people, if you can buy the piece of land or the house you like, what do you actually care if it does down another 10%?  If everything I bought in my life had only gone down 10-15%, I would be very rich, because a lot of things became worthless, especially loans to friends, and bonds, and so forth.

Look at the history, for example, of Germany, for the last 100 years.  They had World War I.  They had the hyper-inflation in World War II.  The bond-holders got wiped out three times.  If you owned Siemens, and you still own Siemens today, it was not a fantastic investment, but at least you still have something.  You were not wiped out.  I think that in equities you will be better off because you have an ownership in a company, than by being the lenders to companies, and the lenders, especially, to governments.

Faber on the key distinction between nominal and real, which nobody on CNBC seems to grasp yet, why gold now is cheaper than it was in 1999, and on the Dow and gold reaching parity.

In a money-printing environment, it is very difficult to know what is actually cheap and what is expensive.  Is the price of wheat high, or is it low?  Inflation-adjusted, it is extremely low.  In nominal terms, it is relatively high.  I believe that, in March 2009 when the S&P was at 666, the market was actually much cheaper than is generally perceived, because of the money-printing, and I do not anticipate that we will see 666 on the S&P again, in nominal terms.

In other words, they are going to print so much money that the S&P could be at, perhaps, 2000, but in real terms, it could be down below the lows of March 6, 2009.  Maybe in gold terms, we could one day reach a ratio of Dow Jones to gold of 1-to-1, as we were in 1980.  In other words, the Dow could be perhaps at 10,000 or 12,000, and gold could be at the same level.

That is why I am advising people to accumulate gold.  Can gold have a correction?  Yes, there has been a little bit too much euphoria about gold, and we may have a correction, but I do not think we are in a bubble in the price of gold.  In fact, I could make a case that gold, at this level of $1400 an ounce, is cheaper than in 1999, when I look at the unfunded liability growth of the U.S., at the credit growth of the U.S., and at the household growth, and at the money printing, and at all the wealth creation that happens in China and Russia.

Something "Silver" This Way Comes

Why the Financial Werewolves Hate Silver

February 28, 2011


Folklore, myths and legends have all attributed silver bullets to being one of the ways to kill "werewolves". I find it fascinating that the current youth of America and Europe are fascinated by werewolves and vampires as their futures are literally being sucked from their very lives.

Death is more appealing to many, more so then the promise of a life worth living or a career worth pursuing let alone Heaven and Eternal life. Unfortunately real life is a far cry from the soap opera presentation "As the world churns and burns".

The carnage that "financial werewolves" leave in their path, becomes a perfect metaphor for the financial markets now destroying the lives, hopes and dreams of families, who are having their hearts and lives torn apart from these "creatures" and their elected handlers.

Silver was believed to be involved in killing the "disease" that caused the shape-shifting virus that would change a man in to a werewolf or vampire during a full moon. Incidentally, legends suggests that "sheep" were the favorite delicacy of werewolves. How appropriate, as the sheep are no longer just being shorn of their finances, but are being herded off to the slaughterhouse to become delicacies for the werewolves to consume. Silver in the Old Testament was always tied to redemption and refinement.

The Tabernacle, the giant tent where the Ark of the Covenant was kept in the Holy of Holies where God's Literal earthly presence manifested, had precious metals vessels, which were made of a specific metal, increasing in purity and value in approaching the presence of God. The epistles of Paul and the Revelation of Jesus that God gave to the apostle John (The Book of Revelation) all make reference to silver being a precious metal and of great value.

Silver and gold are precious as they are rare, unique and don't wear out under normal circumstances. They have stood the test of time and still are universally accepted as a means of exchange in all the world. The word redeem means to buy back at a greater price then the indebted and enslaved debtor could ever hope to accomplish on his own. Redemption required that someone capable and willing, would step up and pay the price for the other persons debt.

The financial world and their paper have brought the world to it's prophetic final showdown. Paper has plastered the planet as evil and malevolent beings bring the planet to its ultimate confrontation with eternity.

Jesus said the love of money is the root of all evil and so the control of money is the control of all evil. Paper money will fail during the global famine, that has now begun, which by the way is being fomented and helped along by the globalist werewolves and their demonic cohorts, and technology, whose appetite for mutton has increased dramatically.

Silver, gold platinum and palladium, not to mention all other metals and rare earths, are the only way to have anything of value, now that the engineered global chaos has been unleashed. The Chinese and other nations are trading their trillions and billions of paper dollars for precious metals at the speed of light. The powers that are, will soon meet the real powers that have always been, and even the "elites' hearts" will fail them when Lucifer, returns in full fury, and the Living God strips Lucifer of his mask that has seduced even them! This is one fiddling contest with the Devil that they can't win.

US Dollar Headed Out - Don't Say We Didn't Warn You!

Why the Dollar's Reign Is Near an End

For decades the dollar has served as the world's main reserve currency, but, argues Barry Eichengreen, it will soon have to share that role. Here's why—and what it will mean for international markets and companies.

• The single most astonishing fact about foreign exchange is not the high volume of transactions, as incredible as that growth has been. Nor is it the volatility of currency rates, as wild as the markets are these days.

Instead, it's the extent to which the market remains dollar-centric.

Journal Report

Consider this: When a South Korean wine wholesaler wants to import Chilean cabernet, the Korean importer buys U.S. dollars, not pesos, with which to pay the Chilean exporter. Indeed, the dollar is virtually the exclusive vehicle for foreign-exchange transactions between Chile and Korea, despite the fact that less than 20% of the merchandise trade of both countries is with the U.S.
Chile and Korea are hardly an anomaly: Fully 85% of foreign-exchange transactions world-wide are trades of other currencies for dollars. What's more, what is true of foreign-exchange transactions is true of other international business. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries sets the price of oil in dollars. The dollar is the currency of denomination of half of all international debt securities. More than 60% of the foreign reserves of central banks and governments are in dollars.
The greenback, in other words, is not just America's currency. It's the world's.
But as astonishing as that is, what may be even more astonishing is this: The dollar's reign is coming to an end.
I believe that over the next 10 years, we're going to see a profound shift toward a world in which several currencies compete for dominance.
The impact of such a shift will be equally profound, with implications for, among other things, the stability of exchange rates, the stability of financial markets, the ease with which the U.S. will be able to finance budget and current-account deficits, and whether the Fed can follow a policy of benign neglect toward the dollar.

The Three Pillars

How could this be? How could the dollar's longtime most-favored-currency status be in jeopardy?

 

To understand the dollar's future, it's important to understand the dollar's past—why the dollar became so dominant in the first place. Let me offer three reasons.
First, its allure reflects the singular depth of markets in dollar-denominated debt securities. The sheer scale of those markets allows dealers to offer low bid-ask spreads. The availability of derivative instruments with which to hedge dollar exchange-rate risk is unsurpassed. This makes the dollar the most convenient currency in which to do business for corporations, central banks and governments alike.
Second, there is the fact that the dollar is the world's safe haven. In crises, investors instinctively flock to it, as they did following the 2008 failure of Lehman Brothers. This tendency reflects the exceptional liquidity of markets in dollar instruments, liquidity being the most precious of all commodities in a crisis. It is a product of the fact that U.S. Treasury securities, the single most important asset bought and sold by international investors, have long had a reputation for stability.

WSJ's David Wessel sits down with three senior experts in international finance - Edwin M. Truman, Joseph E. Gagnon and Eswar Prasad - for a discussion on the major issues facing currencies and the global economy.

Finally, the dollar benefits from a dearth of alternatives. Other countries that have long enjoyed a reputation for stability, such as Switzerland, or that have recently acquired one, like Australia, are too small for their currencies to account for more than a tiny fraction of international financial transactions.

What's Changing

But just because this has been true in the past doesn't guarantee that it will be true in the future. In fact, all three pillars supporting the dollar's international dominance are eroding.
First, changes in technology are undermining the dollar's monopoly. Not so long ago, there may have been room in the world for only one true international currency. Given the difficulty of comparing prices in different currencies, it made sense for exporters, importers and bond issuers all to quote their prices and invoice their transactions in dollars, if only to avoid confusing their customers.
Now, however, nearly everyone carries hand-held devices that can be used to compare prices in different currencies in real time. Just as we have learned that in a world of open networks there is room for more than one operating system for personal computers, there is room in the global economic and financial system for more than one international currency.

OECD Secretary-General Jose Angel Gurria sat down with Dow Jones FX Trader during the meeting of G20 finance officials in Paris to talk about global imbalances and the euro zone's debt crisis.

Second, the dollar is about to have real rivals in the international sphere for the first time in 50 years. There will soon be two viable alternatives, in the form of the euro and China's yuan.
Americans especially tend to discount the staying power of the euro, but it isn't going anywhere. Contrary to some predictions, European governments have not abandoned it. Nor will they. They will proceed with long-term deficit reduction, something about which they have shown more resolve than the U.S. And they will issue "e-bonds"—bonds backed by the full faith and credit of euro-area governments as a group—as a step in solving their crisis. This will lay the groundwork for the kind of integrated European bond market needed to create an alternative to U.S. Treasurys as a form in which to hold central-bank reserves.
China, meanwhile, is moving rapidly to internationalize the yuan, also known as the renminbi. The last year has seen a quadrupling of the share of bank deposits in Hong Kong denominated in yuan. Seventy thousand Chinese companies are now doing their cross-border settlements in yuan. Dozens of foreign companies have issued yuan-denominated "dim sum" bonds in Hong Kong. In January the Bank of China began offering yuan-deposit accounts in New York insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.
Allowing Chinese companies to do cross-border settlements in yuan will free them from having to undertake costly foreign-exchange transactions. They will no longer have to bear the exchange-rate risk created by the fact that their revenues are in dollars but many of their costs are in yuan. Allowing Chinese banks, for their part, to do international transactions in yuan will allow them to grab a bigger slice of the global financial pie.
Admittedly, China has a long way to go in building liquid markets and making its financial instruments attractive to international investors. But doing so is central to Beijing's economic strategy. Chinese officials have set 2020 as the deadline for transforming Shanghai into a first-class international financial center. We Westerners have underestimated China before. We should not make the same mistake again.
Finally, there is the danger that the dollar's safe-haven status will be lost. Foreign investors—private and official alike—hold dollars not simply because they are liquid but because they are secure. The U.S. government has a history of honoring its obligations, and it has always had the fiscal capacity to do so.
But now, mainly as a result of the financial crisis, federal debt is approaching 75% of U.S. gross domestic product. Trillion-dollar deficits stretch as far as the eye can see. And as the burden of debt service grows heavier, questions will be asked about whether the U.S. intends to maintain the value of its debts or might resort to inflating them away. Foreign investors will be reluctant to put all their eggs in the dollar basket. At a minimum, the dollar will have to share its safe-haven status with other currencies.

A World More Complicated

How much difference will all this make—to markets, to companies, to households, to governments?

One obvious change will be to the foreign-exchange markets. There will no longer be an automatic jump up in the value of the dollar, and corresponding decline in the value of other major currencies, when financial volatility surges. With the dollar, euro and yuan all trading in liquid markets and all seen as safe havens, there will be movement into all three of them in periods of financial distress. No one currency will rise as strongly as did the dollar following the failure of Lehman Bros. There will be no reason for the rates between them to move sharply, something that would potentially upend investors.
But the impact will extend well beyond the markets. Clearly, the change will make life more complicated for U.S. companies. Until now they have had the convenience of using the same currency—dollars—whether they are paying their workers, importing parts and components, or selling their products to foreign customers. They don't have to incur the cost of changing foreign-currency earnings into dollars. They don't have to purchase forward contracts and options to protect against financial losses due to changes in the exchange rate. This will all change in the brave new world that is coming. American companies will have to cope with some of the same exchange-rate risks and exposures as their foreign competitors.
Conversely, life will become easier for European and Chinese banks and companies, which will be able to do more of their international business in their own currencies. The same will be true of companies in other countries that do most of their business with China or Europe. It will be a considerable convenience—and competitive advantage—for them to be able to do that business in yuan or euros rather than having to go through the dollar.

U.S. Impact

In this new monetary world, moreover, the U.S. government will not be able to finance its budget deficits so cheaply, since there will no longer be as big an appetite for U.S. Treasury securities on the part of foreign central banks.
Nor will the U.S. be able to run such large trade and current-account deficits, since financing them will become more expensive. Narrowing the current-account deficit will require exporting more, which will mean making U.S. goods more competitive on foreign markets. That in turn means that the dollar will have to fall on foreign-exchange markets—helping U.S. exporters and hurting those companies that export to the U.S.
My calculations suggest that the dollar will have to fall by roughly 20%. Because the prices of imported goods will rise in the U.S., living standards will be reduced by about 1.5% of GDP—$225 billion in today's dollars. That is the equivalent to a half-year of normal economic growth. While this is not an economic disaster, Americans will definitely feel it in the wallet.
On the other hand, the next time the U.S. has a real-estate bubble, we won't have the Chinese helping us blow it.