
A plan to replace the dollar with a world currency originated with Columbia  University economics professor Robert Mundell, who won a Nobel Prize in  economics in 1999 for creating the euro and is now widely regarded as "the  father of the euro." 
Mundell, currently an economic consultant to China,  is the originator of the suggestion that the International Monetary Fund should  utilize Special Drawing Rights, or SDRs, to replace the dollar as a new standard  for holding foreign exchange reserves in international trade  transactions. 
SDRs are international reserve assets calculated by the  IMF in a basket of major currencies allocated to the IMF's 185 member  nation-states in relation to the capital. The assets are largely in gold or  widely accepted foreign currencies the members have on deposit with the  IMF. 
As far back as June 2008, Mundell was telling Reuters a major  dollar crisis would come within five years, and China was discussing with him  proposals to reform the global monetary system. 
"There's no doubt about  it that inside the Chinese government there's a lot of discussion going on,"  Mundell told Reuters. "I'm not sure how they're doing it, but I know they're  going to get input from me." 
In the interview, Mundell went so far as to  speculate the Chinese-recommended solution would involve the  IMF. 
Aspiring to be the father of a global currency, Mundell has argued,  "What you need to have is an International Monetary Fund that's going to take  some of these excess dollars (such as held by China in foreign exchange  reserves), put them into a substitution account inside the IMF or some other  institution and then use that to create what is a new international  currency." 
Mundell stressed to Reuters that such a proposal would be  "very acceptable" to China. 
Optimum currency areas 
Mundell has  argued for decades the proposition that nation-state currencies, including the  dollar, need to give way to a new official world currency. 
According to  Mundell, an "optimal currency area" is best defined by international free-trade  areas and regional markets, not by nation-states such as the United States of  America. 
Mundell's argument was that nation-states are not optimal  currency areas because nation-state borders are artificial constraints imposed  on the globe to create ethnic or historical divisions that do not necessarily  represent how international markets operate. 
To understand the concept,  Mundell cites former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volker's frequently quoted  dictum, "A global economy needs a global currency." 
"The benefits from a  world currency would be enormous," Mundell argues on his website. 
G20  votes to fund global currency 
The G20 summit meeting in London last  week, through the International Monetary Fund, took an important step to create  a new global currency to replace the dollar as the world's foreign exchange  reserve currency of choice. 
Appearing on Sean Hannity's Fox News Channel  television show, political consultant Dick Morris and Hannity agreed the  decision by the G20 proved the "conspiracy theorists were right" and there is  now clear evidence of a plan to create a one-world currency. 
Point 19 of  the final communiqué from the G20 summit in London April 2 specified, "We have  agreed to support a general SDR which will inject $250 billion into the world  economy and increase global liquidity," taking the first steps forward to  implement China's proposal that Special Drawing Rights at the IMF should be  created as a foreign exchange currency to replace the dollar. 
"I think  the dollar is now under question," billionaire investor and political activist  George Soros told CNBC, commenting that the goal was to create an IMF currency  to use in international trade. 
Obama deficits frighten  China 
China is clearly worried its massive holdings of U.S. dollars are  at risk of devaluation, with the Obama administration projecting trillion-dollar  deficits into the foreseeable future. 
At the beginning of this year,  China's holdings of U.S. Treasury securities jumped to $739 billion, up  dramatically from $535 billion in June 2008. 
On March 17, the Moscow  Times published an article revealing the Kremlin attended to use the April G20  meeting in London to push for the IMF to utilize SDRs as "a super-reserve  currency widely accepted by the whole of the international  community." 
Then, a few days later, on March 24, the Financial Times in  London reported China's central bank governor Zhou Xiaochuan has proposed to  utilize SDRs issued by the IMF as a world reserve currency. 
The  coincidence of the two announcements gave the impression Moscow and Beijing had  coordinated their efforts to undermine the dollar. 
The G20 final  communiqué gave the strong impression the meeting adopted China's  proposal. 
China's proposal called for the IMF to issue at least $250  billion in SDRs to IMF-member states as a method of placing a safety net under  developing countries that might otherwise have to declare  bankruptcy. 
International overdraft 
As Red Alert previously  reported, the proposal originally advanced by China and Russia would issue SDRs  to central banks of IMF member states far in excess of any gold or currency  reserves the member states have on deposit with the IMF. 
The idea is to  utilize the little-understood and largely ignored SDR's in a new capacity, as a  sort of an international overdraft facility made available to bankrupt or  financially failing IMF members originated with Ted Turner, formerly a senior  official at both the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury. 
The IMF  created SDRs in 1969 to support the Bretton Woods fixed–exchange-rate  system. 
"The international supply of two key reserve assets – gold and  the U.S. dollar – proved inadequate for supporting the expansion of world trade  and financial development that was taking place," a a document on the IMF  website explains. "Therefore, the international community decided to create a  new international reserve asset under the auspices of the IMF." 
When the  Bretton Woods fixed-rate system collapse, major world currencies, including the  dollar, shifted to a floating exchange rate system where the price of the dollar  and other major world currencies was created by trading on international  currency exchanges. 
Until the current global economic crisis, SDRs  issued by the IMF have been used by IMF members primarily as a reserve account  to support international trade transactions, not as an alternative international  currency available to settle international debt transactions in danger of  default.