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To: Roebear who wrote (60701)	11/9/2000 7:34:37 AM
From: Enigma	Respond to of 116764

Shame has nothing to do with it - this thread is no different to any other when it comes to aliases.

To: Roebear who wrote (60701)	11/9/2000 1:18:41 PM
From: Alex	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 116764

Nobel-winning economist pitches world currency Reuters News Agency A Nobel-prize winning economist on Wednesday sketched out a rough blueprint for an effective single world currency encompassing the U.S. dollar, Europe's single currency and Japan's Yen, saying there was no major obstacle to its management. While the idea may seem bizarre to many — given politics, national pride, the fledgling euro's clumsy first steps, Japan's sluggish economy and America's paternal protectiveness of its monetary policy — to Robert Mundell the plan is as simple as one, two, three. The Columbia University economics professor, who once styled himself the "godfather of the euro", laid out his plan at an economic forum at the International Monetary Fund. "Throughout monetary history the superpower always rejects international monetary reform," Mr. Mundell said in his colorful presentation. "The United States is the country that has been opposed to a world currency in the 20th century." "The euro area has created for the first time a change in the power configuration and it is now time to, and useful, and in the United States' interests, to move toward (global monetary reform) and provide some leadership," he said. Mr. Mundell, who became a Nobel laureate for economics in 1999, admitted the idea was not a new one. More than 50 years ago, the original proposals for setting up the IMF included plans for a world currency but the U.S. torpedoed the notion because it did not see it as in its own interests. Now with the world economy becoming increasingly global, Mr. Mundell said the lessons learned from the creation of the 11-nation euro could help moves toward one world currency. "If we got the G3 area — the euro area, the dollar area and the Yen area — and fixed exchange rates among the three areas it would work very well," Mundell said. "There is no reason whatever that monetary union of those three (areas) would be more difficult or difficult to manage that any of the single countries are today," he added. The renowned academic proposed the three regions fix exchange rates at convenient levels. For the sake of simplicity he suggested parity between the dollar and euro and a rate of 100 Yen to the dollar. Maintaining the three currencies while fixing exchange rates would overcome initial concerns about sovereignty and allay nationalistic opposition by letting citizens keep the currency they are accustomed to, he said. Once fixed exchange rates were in place, a pool of central bankers from the U.S. Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank and the Bank of Japan would act together as an effective "Open Market Committee." The new body would set interest rates in similar fashion to the U.S. Fed but would use an agreed inflation target as an anchor in the same way Europe did before setting up the euro. "Immediately I see gasps of astonishment and horror at fixing exchange rates between the dollar, the euro and the Yen," the Canadian-born academic said to the assembled group of a more than one hundred economists. But Mr. Mundell conceded that the United States, as today's de facto economic superpower, was unlikely ever to go along with such a plan unless it was forced to do so. For that too he had a solution — start with Europe and Japan. This, he said, would reduce the dollar to a position of second fiddle in world currency markets and perhaps that would finally prod the world's richest economy to want to join Europe and Japan in monetary union. globeandmail.com