World Bank says don't take dollar's place for granted

[Joanne98]

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the United States should not take the dollar's status as the world's key reserve currency for granted because other options are emerging.

In excerpts released on Sunday from a speech that he is to deliver on Monday, Zoellick said global economic forces were shifting and it was time now to prepare for the fact that growth will come from multiple sources.

"The United States would be mistaken to take for granted the dollar's place as the world's predominant reserve currency," he said. "Looking forward, there will increasingly be other options."

Zoellick said that a meeting of Group of 20 rich and developing countries in Pittsburgh on Thursday and Friday had made "a good start" toward increased global cooperation but they will have accept global monitoring of their activities.


Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE58Q1YU20090927

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"Growth" is code for "give all the money to the rich"

[Joanne98]

1. World Bank Chief to Take Shots at The Fed (Zoellick is a Bushy)

By Jon Hilsenrath

Criticism of the Federal Reserve is mounting on many fronts. Rep. Ron Paul (R., Texas) has seen his book, “End the Fed,” climb on best seller lists. And now the president of the World Bank, Robert Zoellick, is taking his shots.

In a speech he’ll deliver at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies of the Johns Hopkins University Monday, Mr. Zoellick says central banks around the world fell down as regulators. He questions whether Congress should give the Fed any more power as it looks for ways to revamp financial sector oversight.

“Central banks failed to address risks building in the new economy,” Zoellick says. “They seemingly mastered product price inflation in the 1980s, but most decided that asset price bubbles were difficult to identify and to restrain with monetary policy. They argued that damage to the ‘real economy’ of jobs, production, savings, and consumption could be contained once bubbles burst, through aggressive easing of interest rates. They turned out to be wrong.”

Zoellick is a veteran U.S. economic-policy official who served at the U.S. Treasury from 1985 and 1993 where he was, among other posts, deputy assistant secretary for financial institutions policy under then Secretary James A. Baker III.

It is unusual for the head of an international organization like the World Bank to inject himself into the middle of U.S. bureaucratic fight. But Mr. Zoellick does just that, as he goes on to say that the Treasury, which is more accountable to Congress, should get additional authority to regulate big financial institutions, not the Fed.

“It will be difficult to vest the independent and powerful technocrats at the Federal Reserve with more authority. My reading of recent crisis management is that the Treasury Department needed greater authority to pull together a bevy of different regulators. Moreover, the Treasury is an Executive department, and therefore Congress and the public can more directly oversee how it uses any added authority.”

President Barack Obama’s Treasury has recommended that the Fed get oversight of too-big-too-fail financial institutions in a new regulatory revamp. One argument against giving it to the Treasury is that it doesn’t have the resources for the job. But lawmakers have been resistant to giving the Fed more power. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner served as president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York before joining the Obama administration.

Excerpts of Zoellick’s comments were released in advance of his speech.
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2009/09/27/world-bank-chief-to-take-shots-at-the-fed/

[w4rma]

2. Zoellick is correct that the Fed doesn't need additional powers and that the Treasury does. (nt)

[Dover]

3. Inclusiveness, mult-polar systems...this is the way of the future.

"We need a system of international political economy that reflects a new multi-polarity of growth," Zoellick said. It needs to integrate rising economic powers as 'responsible stakeholders' while recognizing that these countries are still home to hundreds of millions of poor and face staggering challenges of development.".


Each country/state has a different set of circumstances so formulaic one-size-fits-all 20th century mentality is OVER. How we proceed to accomplish this is going to be a bit messy. It's hard to shed one's old skin overnight. But the pressure is on to do so as fast as possible, and we need to establish new, broader, more inclusive means to accomplish it. We need models and leaders who have
a sense of how open natural systems work.

[defendandprotect]

4. Sorry . . . UN'd this by mistake . . . count it as a REC . . .and kick

[dixiegrrrrl]

5. Listen to him with extra caution.

This is a public service annuncement:
Know your enemy.

Robert Zoellick is a long time Bush buddy, member of the old PNAC, pals with James Baker, who goes way back in Texas politics, banking, law, and who kept Bush propped up for decades.
Robert Zoellick comes from ties with Goldman Sachs.
He was shoehorned into the World Bank job after they pried Wolfowitz's dirty fingers from the door.

Here is a too short summary of this guy: from Wiki:

Government service (1985–1992)

Zoellick served in various positions at the Department of the Treasury from 1985 to 1988. He held positions including Counselor to Secretary James Baker, Executive Secretary of the Department, and Deputy Assistant Secretary for Financial Institutions Policy.

During George H. W. Bush's presidency, Zoellick served with Baker, by then Secretary of State, as Under Secretary of State for Economic and Agricultural Affairs, as well as Counselor to the Department (Under Secretary rank). In August 1992, Zoellick was appointed White House Deputy Chief of Staff and Assistant to the President. Zoellick was also appointed Bush's personal representative for the G7 Economic Summits in 1991 and 1992.

After leaving government service, Zoellick served from 1993-1997 as an Executive Vice President of Fannie Mae. Afterwards, Zoellick was appointed as the John M. Olin Professor of National Security at the U.S. Naval Academy (1997–1998), Research Scholar at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, and Senior International Advisor to Goldman Sachs.

Zoellick signed the January 26, 1998 letter< to President Bill Clinton from PNAC that advocated war against Iraq.[br />
During 1999 Zoellick was, for a short period, the head of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS)< During 1999, Zoellick served on a panel that offered Enron executives briefings on economic and political issues.[br />
In the 2000 U.S. presidential election campaign, Zoellick served as a foreign policy advisor to George W. Bush as part of a group, led by Condoleezza Rice, that called itself The Vulcans. James Baker designated him as his second-in-command — "a sort of chief operating officer or chief of staff" — in the 36-day battle over recounting the vote in Florida.

Zoellick is a mouthpiece for the Powers That Be, and while what he says sounds good, it means nothing.
He is like the bank robber helpfully pointing the police to a decoy car racing down the street.

Would you even trust this face????

[HowHasItComeToThis]

6. DANGER WILL ROBINSON

http://www.google.com/search?q=Robert+Zoellick+NEOCON&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

[Frosty cupcake]

7. One big problem

with giving more power to the Treasury "because it's more answerable to Congress:"

Congress is a bought and paid for body of do-nothings. No wait. That's unfair to do-nothings. No, Congress is the legislative arm of corporate America so stating that it's better for Congress to have more power over anything is a worthless statement.

[cal04]

8. Zoellick Advocates Greater Role for US Treasury

http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2009/09/28/business/AP-US-World-Bank-Treasury.html

The president of the World Bank says he opposes giving more authority to the U.S. Federal Reserve, arguing instead that the Treasury Department is better suited to manage financial crises.

Robert Zoellick (ZOH'-likh) also suggested in a speech Monday that the dollar's role as the world's reserve currency may be diminishing and the United States should recognize this fact. He said it would be difficult to give what he called independent and powerful technocrats at the Federal Reserve more authority. Zoellick also said the Treasury would be better at pulling together different regulatory agencies to deal with a crisis.