Currency

Is A Global Currency Necessary?

Posted by Will Hickey

on Wednesday, 1 April 2020 10:13

Major economies should pursue currency agreements to stabilize the US dollar, especially during the COVID-19 crisis, preventing a rapid rise against other currencies that is sure to trigger calls for protectionist measures.

There is historical precedent. In 1985, the US dollar soared. The United States, West Germany, Japan, France and the United Kingdom – the Group of 5 world powers – met at the Plaza Hotel in New York on a Sunday in September, when markets were closed. Four nations agreed to appreciate their currencies to depreciate the US dollar….CLICK for complete article

China Drops Below Canada as Currency Trading Plunges by 12.3%

Posted by Chriss Street

on Monday, 25 November 2019 10:00

China’s volume of international transactions that cleared in its own yuan currency tumbled on fading confidence in its financial stability by 12.31 percent in October 2019.

The Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) reported that despite the volume of international payments was up by a brisk 4.17 percent in October over September, the volume of cross-border transactions conducted in China’s yuan currency was down 12.31 percent. SWIFT tracks global interbank transactions for more than 11,000 financial institutions in over 200 countries.

October was expected to be an extraordinarily strong month for yuan transactions following the launch of a global financial markets “connect” trading programs with the Hong Kong Exchange; Morgan Stanley Capital adding China domestic securities to its stock market indexes; and the People’s Bank of China cutting its one-year Loan Prime Rate of interest to stimulate the domestic economy.

The rise of yuan usage had allowed China to internally finance substantially more trade payments without being forced to post collateral with Eurodollar banks to guarantee the exchange of yuan into U.S. dollars for complete customer payments. Wall Street credited the rise of yuan transaction volumes as a tangible sign of China’s financial stability….CLICK for complete article

Why Gold is Money: A Periodic Perspective

Posted by Nicholas LePan

on Monday, 8 July 2019 9:40

The economist John Maynard Keynes famously called gold a “barbarous relic”, suggesting that its usefulness as money is an artifact of the past. In an era filled with cashless transactions and hundreds of cryptocurrencies, this statement seems truer today than in Keynes’ time.

However, gold also possesses elemental properties that has made it an ideal metal for money throughout history.

Sanat Kumar, a chemical engineer from Columbia University, broke down the periodic table to show why gold has been used as a monetary metal for thousands of years….CLICK for complete article