The Federal Reserve has been a nightmare for the American people. It inflates the money supply, thereby devaluing already-existing money and placing a massive hidden tax on the people via rising prices. It also uses its monopoly power to cause interest rates to go up or down, usurping the rightful place of the market and causing massive malinvestment and generally an improper and unproductive allocation of resources.
The Fed also causes the boom-and-bust cycle through its manipulations of the currency and credit supply. It serves as the government’s partner in perpetually expanding the “welfare-warfare state,” allowing the state to spend far more than it could ever hope to reasonably raise through direct taxation. And of course, the fact that all Federal Reserve notes enter the economy as debt with interest attached (but never created) has led to a situation where it is literally mathematically impossible to pay off the debt. In sum, the consequences of such a system have been disastrous for average Americans – hence the growing calls to audit and even end the Fed.
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But now, imagine such a system at the global level. And it isn’t just a mental exercise; the global central bank is already emerging. As bad as the Fed has been for America – and indeed the world – a similar system at the international level would be far worse. Disaster might even be an understatement.
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International Liquidity and Inflation
One of the most serious threats posed by a global central bank and world fiat currency is the fact that it would allow the emerging planetary regime to print its own money and finance its activities independently. That means wealth could be secretly siphoned away from all of humanity to pay for armies, tax collectors, courts, bureaucracies, law enforcement, wealth redistribution, propaganda, and much more. With no limits. But to advocates of such a system, that is one of its primary benefits.
“A super-sovereign reserve currency not only eliminates the inherent risks of credit-based sovereign currency, but also makes it possible to manage global liquidity. A super-sovereign reserve currency managed by a global institution could be used to both create and control the global liquidity,” wrote Chinese central-bank boss Zhou Xiaochuan in his public paper calling for a world currency. “The centralized management of its member countries’ reserves by the Fund will be an effective measure to promote a greater role of the SDR [Special Drawing Rights, the International Monetary Fund’s first effort at a world currency] as a reserve currency.” Of course, communists have always supported control of “liquidity” (Karl Marx was a strong advocate of central banks with a monopoly on currency and credit). But to people who care about freedom and prosperity, the communists’ support should be a huge red flag.
The United Nations has also backed global currency proposals for the same reason. In a report earlier this year calling for the end of the dollar’s status as a reserve currency and a new monetary regime controlled by the International Monetary Fund, the UN’s World Economic and Social Survey for 2010 points out that, “Such emissions of international liquidity could also underpin the financing of investment in long-term sustainable development.” The term “sustainable development” – especially when used by the UN – is often used to refer to stronger central planning, population reduction, more land in government hands, and other ideas repugnant to average Americans and the U.S. Constitution. Other schemes for “international liquidity” could be even worse.
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Hiding behind the passive voice, a separate report by the UN Conference on Trade and Development adds in the concept of wealth redistribution: “It has been suggested that in order for the SDR to become the main form of international liquidity and means of reserve holding, new SDR allocations should be made according to the needs of countries.” It then promotes worldwide central planning to “stabilize global output growth” by issuing more SDRs or retiring them as the emerging global government deems necessary. As it stands, wealth redistribution around the world is bad enough. Surrendering that power to a global institution would be a nightmare.
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In its report published earlier this year, the IMF also recently came out in favor of allowing it to print its own money to provide “international liquidity.” “A global currency, bancor, issued by a global central bank would be designed as a stable store of value that is not tied exclusively to the conditions of any particular economy,” the paper says. “The global central bank could serve as a lender of last resort, providing needed systemic liquidity in the event of adverse shocks and more automatically than at present.” In laymen’s terms, the IMF, with its power to “emit liquidity” out of thin air, would be empowered to “bail out” companies, governments, and whomever it wished. If you thought the Fed handing out trillions of dollars to the big banks and other insiders was bad, just wait until a global central bank exercises that power.
Allowing the emerging global government to supply its own money would free it from the constraints of having to raise money through national contributions or direct international taxation. But of course, printing all of this new “liquidity” and financing all of its ambitious projects would be inflationary by definition. And this inevitably would represent a massive problem.
Even John Maynard Keynes, the original proponent of the world currency called “bancor,” understood the concept well. In 1919, he wrote in his book The Economic Consequences of the Peace, “By a continuous process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.”
September 17, 2010
