Joseph Stiglitz on a global reserve currency

Joseph Stiglitz on a global reserve currency


Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winning economist, Columbia University professor, and former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank. In this interview at INET's Bretton Woods conference in New Hampshire he explains why he thinks the US dollar as the reserve currency is hurting the entire world economy
Joseph Stiglitz : What I've argued for is a creation of a global reserve currency. Reserve currencies are, you might think of a store value and the dollar has been very unstable , understandable given the difficulties of the American economy, our performance was not a stellar. But the fact that in a modern globalized economy, 21st Century, it is an anachronism that a single currency would play the pivotal role that the dollar has played. What I argue in my book "Making Globalization Work" is that the dollar reserve currency system contributes to inequality ... and it actually contributes to the weakening of the global economy, because countries are setting aside literally hundreds of billions of dollars, you might say, of precautionary savings. That's money not spent.

Marc Faber about The bond market and what should the FED do to save it

Dr. Marc Faber answering a question from radio host MacAlavany about measures might the Fed and the Treasury employ to defend the bond market had this to say : ..."..I think they do not necessarily want to support the bond market, because the debt issuance is so huge, they almost have to monetize part of the debt. I have read Treasury reports in 2010 by Tim Geithner saying the U.S. government debt increased by more than 2 trillion dollars during that period of time. The deficit, in my opinion, mathematically,cannot come down, because 80% of the budget is mandatory expenditures, in other words, you cannot cut them. Legally, they have to be met.Of the remaining 20%, you can cut a little bit, but not that much, because then services collapse. In my view, the fiscal deficit of the U.S. will stay around 1½ trillion dollars for as far as the eye can see, and maybe even go to 2, or 2½ trillion dollars, and then the interest expenditures on the debt go up. So actually, over time, in my view, unless taxes are increased significantly, and spending is cut significantly, not by a little bit here, a little bit there, the budget will never again be balanced, and that will then necessitate, in time, QE-III, QE-IV, and QE-V. Taxes cannot be increased dramatically, because if you increase them very substantially, we will go straight back into a recession..."