United States Dollar as Reserve Currency

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In February of 2011, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) shocked the world by calling for the United States dollar to be replaced as the global world currency (Rooney, 2011). In one report, the world’s dirty little monetary secret had been exposed; faith in the US dollar was faltering. Since then, international attitudes toward the US dollar have only gotten worse. With 2013 debt at approximately 105 percent of gross domestic product and a negative outlook rating from Standard’s and Poor, the United States is looking like an insolvent bank no one wants to keep their money in. In addition, the dollar has lost 97 percent of its value since being taken off the gold standard in 1971 (Mack, 2011). This makes holding the dollar long-term a losing proposition. While many people in the Unites States are fighting to keep the US dollar as reserve currency for as long as possible, the US dollar as reserve currency has become a threat to the stability of the United States economy and is unfair to most of the world’s population and should be replaced by a basket of currencies that would allow all countries, large and small, to have their “key interests respected and protected on an equal footings.” (Puzzanghera, 2013).
Historically, international payments consisted almost entirely of gold, silver, and other precious metals. Unfortunately, these metals were cumbersome and made trade difficult. By 1694, because the Bank of England would hand over gold for pounds at a fixed exchange rate upon presentment, many countries found it more convenient to carry pounds than gold or other metals for trade. The pound was known to be “as good as gold,” and became the world’s first reserve currency. The British pound remained the world’s reserve currency u...

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