Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency

[MikeWB]

Head of IMF Proposes New Reserve Currency
IMF's Strauss-Kahn suggests IMF may one day provide global reserve asset
By HARRY DUNPHY Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON February 26, 2010 (AP) The Associated Press
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Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the head of the International Monetary Fund, suggested Friday the organization might one day be called on to provide countries with a global reserve currency that would serve as an alternative to the U.S. dollar.

"That day has not yet come, but I think it is intellectually healthy to explore these kinds of ideas now," he said in a speech on the future mandate of the 186-nation Washington-based lending organization.

Strauss-Kahn said such an asset could be similar to but distinctly different from the IMF's special drawing rights, or SDRs, the accounting unit that countries use to hold funds within the IMF. It is based on a basket of major currencies.

He said having other alternatives to the dollar "would limit the extent to which the international monetary system as a whole depends on the policies and conditions of a single, albeit dominant, country."

Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister of France, said that during the recent global financial crisis, the dollar "played its role as a safe haven" asset, and the current international monetary system demonstrated resilience.

"The challenge ahead is to find ways to limit the tension arising from the high demand for precautionary reserves on the one hand and the narrow supply of reserves on the other," he said.

Several countries, including China and Russia, have called for an alternative to the dollar as a reserve currency and have suggested using the IMF's internal accounting unit.

Strauss-Kahn said the IMF also needs to do a better job of tracing how risk percolates through the global economy.

"Here it will be essential to improve our ability to monitor several dozen large complex financial institutions that make up the `plumbing' through which global capital flows," he said, while leaving national regulators the job of monitoring the solvency of individual institutions.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

Typical J.S. Idiot Pronouncements:
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26 February 2010
More Denials on the IMF Gold Purchase by China


No official denial, but lots of doubts.

The whole thing seems odd, from the story to the doubts to the blatant bear raids and price manipulation being conducted almost every day with the New York open around these option expirations on the futures contracts.

Just yesterday we saw rumours floated in the SP futures pits that triggered a striking turnaround in the US stock indices, shortly after Goldman bought a large number of SP futures contracts. When the rumours were proved false, the forced buying continued.

Gold and financial assets in general are becoming even more political than usual. Expect this to intensify as the recomposition of the SDR and the international reserve currency are negotiated this year. The Anglo-Americans are the status quo on this one, and the integrity of their motivations and reports and transactions are definitely on the table.

We may be seeing the next stage of the currency wars that are so many things to different people. But in the end, it involves the artificial control of wealth and transactional flows, as they conflict with public policy and national and private interests.

http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/

[MikeWB]

IMF just doesn't want a basket of currencies to be the reserve currency. They want to control it themselves.

[CrackSmokeRepublican]

IMF just doesn't want a basket of currencies to be the reserve currency. They want to control it themselves.

I agree MikeWB, it looks like they are swinging for the fences. They know that a lot of "funded" countries are going to hit the rocks this Spring-Summer... they want to be the Federal Reserve for the World. It's almost child like... the scam in the bigger sense of things...