Global Currency Revaluation: An MLA Essay

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When a system is out of whack, there is just cause to adjust it so that it may serve its proper function. Such is what happens when cars, businesses, ecosystems, and even economies fall into poor alignment with their constituent parts and services. This also an underlying concept that is driving the global currency revaluation movement, one of the world’s most provocative yet challenging of social and economic initiatives. In this essay, created by the custom writing services of Ultius, the dynamics of the United States’ and the world’s currency operations are discussed within the context of fiat money systems and the hope of gold-based currency operations which may help to stabilize and elevate our inflated and outdated money exchanges.

Global Currency and The U.S. Dollar 

There are many issues in the modern American economy. The Wall Street Journal has called the inevitable, that

“Both the U.S. dollar and euro are doomed” (Rahemtulla 1).

While the permanency of currencies has never been a particularly well-established fact, modern-day global currency possesses several inherent and situational factors that threaten its stability and efficiency as an instrument of exchange. One of the first and most serious places that one may recognize the dilapidation of these currencies is within the enormous debts that have been piled upon them.

National debt woes

At this moment of time, the U.S. National Debt is rapidly accruing more than $19,274,608,888,000 in outstanding debts while the total U.S. debt is about $13,961,853, 400,000. This sums up to about national debt of $59,564 per U.S. citizen and a total debt of $200,000 per citizen. This sum is unfortunately not likely to drop anytime soon as the U.S. has a revenue of just $3,332,699,490,000 per year which breaks down to roughly $10,299 per citizen in income tax revenue, a figure that suggests an overturn by revenue alone is quite unlikely to be successful.

"According to some sources on global currency, the national debt increases by $2 Billion every 24 hours" (Elvi 1).

From a historical perspective, this figure is quite the development and President Obama referenced global economy in his final State of the Union speech in February 2016. Just before Reagan took his term of office as President, 1981, the debt total was just one trillion dollars, and within eight years that debt had practically doubled (1). Now just 20 some years later, that figure has more than quadrupled to well over thirteen trillion, and unfortunately, the Euro does not seem to be fairing much better. 

Global currency and the European Euro 

The European Euro entered into its debt crisis in about 2009. The crisis began with the collapse of Iceland’s banking system at 2008 and spread to Greece, Ireland, and Portugal in 2009 (“European Sovereign Debt Crisis”).

"The tragedy in this situation is that once countries with ties to the Euro, like the Iceland, or Greece, succumb to debt pressures, other countries with similar investments may be hit quite hard as well by the inflation and economic instability that the situation creates"(Editorial Board).

At the present, Greece has a debt sum greater than 300 billion euros which is more than 180% of the country’s gross domestic product and thus indicates that the country will likely never be able to repay their debt in full (Editorial Board). These issues are compounded by the ability of banks to manipulate foreign exchange rates.

Debt difficulties

The difficulty of exorbitant debts is several fold. For starters, one of the chief concerns within the Euro crisis is the procedure of collecting delinquent debts. Germany, a country who has been a principle lender to Greece, has almost no means of insuring a return on what may euphemistically be called an investment and at worst a bail bond for a sorry country (Editorial Board). Indeed, just about the only thing that Germany can do is motion for greater austerity and consider restricting the debt as soon as possible. Nevertheless, the lingering doubt concerning not only Greece’s repayment of their debts but the U.S.’s as well injects great uncertainty into the whole global economic system. 

Debt logistics associated with global currency

The extreme weight of such debt is neither random nor all that it is cracked up to be. As Henry Ford stated,

"It is well that the people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning" (Paul 1).

Why is that? Simply because there is an incentive for the creation, maintenance and debt within certain circles which prevents the country as whole from getting and standing on their own two feet. Essentially, aside from government bailouts, one may trace a vast majority of the world’s economic failure and instability to one critical factor: fiat money systems for global currency produced by bankers that have no means or intention of actually reflecting true money value. 

The trust system

Fiat money is known as

“decreed legal tender... not backed by gold or silver” (Griffin 155).

If one looks upon a piece of American currency, the world’s central basket currency, it clearly reads that it is “legal tender” good for all debts public and private. This means that there is no collateral to insure the money produced except the promise and expectation of wealth set up by social contract. The basis of this system is thus trust and belief. Trust that the banking systems are good institutions for the production of money and belief that they, and the countries they finance, will be good for their promise and production of wealth into the future. 

Currency foundations

Although a great deal of wealth in present day society is built upon future expectation, the history of money is just as, if not more important for the understanding and use of money. This is like saying the foundation of a house is as essential to its function as is the roof or any additions to be on later. The difficult aspect associated with today’s global currency, however, is that the generation is at its core defunct. John Kenneth Galbraith, two-time recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom and Harvard University professor has a rather dire prognosis for money’s origin. He states:

“The process by which money is created is so simple that the mind is repelled” (Martenson 7).

That’s because the money created by the Federal Reserve, the corporation that finances the U.S. dollar, actually charges interest on the money that they loan to the U.S.

Current fiscal process

How does one overcome a rigged system? Banks clearly make money in ways beyond unreasonable overdraft fees. If money is printed by fiat, that is by nothing more than the command of an enterprise with no sure way to verify its value, say as is the case with gold-backed global currency, and then it is loaned to a society with the expectation not only of return but also interest, then how does country possibly have the ability to ever be without the burden that debt is. When one examines the kind of banking operation presently in place within modern-day society this sort quandary is quickly butted into.

1. When the Federal Reserve prints money, they loan it to banks with the expectation of return.
2. This money is distributed to their customers as though the money actually belonged to the bank.
3. In doing so, they make the huge ordeal of supposing there to be the great burden of withdrawing funds from their vaults as though the money comes from a limited supply, however, this is clearly not the case with fiat money.
4. They “sell” the money to the people with the expectation that they too will find some imaginary way of repaying the money they are lent with the so called “interest owed” (Martenson 7).
5. The money is “loaned into existence” (7).
6. This money is, however, treated as though it is the bank’s own wealth rather than what it actually is, a people’s commodity printed not for their extortion but for their convenience.

President Obama's Operation Chokepoint sought to corral some of these more nefarious banking practices.

Global currency and the world economy

If this procedure sounds deceptive, that is because it is. Further complicating and breaking the economic system is the fractional banking system which even further stretches the fiat money into realms of abstraction that baffle the mind. With fractional reserve banking, banks are allowed to lend out money at rates that do not match the amounts in their stores. That is, the banks are permitted to loan out money at amounts far beyond what they presently possess thus creating enormous surpluses of imaginary money in the economy that extend well beyond the Federal Reserve’s fiat money system. For example, a bank may borrow from the Federal Reserve, loan it to their customers, and then use that promise of that money’s return, with interest, as a basis to loan even further (Martenson). That makes a monetary system built more upon smoke and mirrors than substance and would be hazardous to global currency. For this reason, bank regulation is more important now than ever.

The dangers of unregulated loans

Loaning money into existence with the expectation of exponential return can only result in a few things.

1. The consequence of these systems is obviously debt, which is collecting at untold rates throughout the world. Having been loaned with interest in the first place, it seems entirely unreasonable or possible for country’s to make up the interest to cover the debt they borrow.
2. Economic instability and corruption. It goes practically without saying that if the basis for an economies life-blood, money, is biased and artificial, the result of the system will be similarly week and insufficient.

Hence why, there is a growing movement in the world for a global currency adjustment program. 

Global currency adjustments

Given the controversy surrounding both debt and money creation through practices such as transfer pricing, there is legitimate cause throughout the world for currency and policy adjustments. Two leading thought considerations of such movements are debt forgiveness and gold-backing currency. Gold-backing currency is a strategy for insuring monetary health and wealth that has been used since ancient times. The U.S. dollar, besides being backed by the banking manipulations discussed earlier, are also by and large backed by petroleum, the world’s foremost precious and controversial resource (Syrmopoulos).

A return to the gold standard

As a receding resource, the days of the petrodollar are numbered. Hence why many countries, especially China and Russia, have begun collecting stores of Gold to insure the wealth of their currency in the face of Global down-turns forced by retracting oil stores and Dollar value (Syrmopoulos).

• Reports on both China and Russia indicate that they are set to become some of the world’s foremost suppliers of currency.
• The Chinese Yuan and the Russian Rupee are continuing to rise in wealth as each increases their gold stores.
• These countries recognize the frailty of the dollar and the system that founded the petrodollar as a global currency reserve (Koenig).

Just a few years ago, China had its first ever Chinese Gold Congress, a meeting held between the Chinese Government and 5 big gold companies to discuss gold policy, acquisition, and retention (King World News). To back up their plans, and ignoring other currencies such as Bitcoin, the Chinese have announced that they will trade gold internationally and will also be building a massive vault to store the gold acquired (King World News). In the wake of these realizations, many Americans are beginning to grasp the fickleness of their own dollar and have also begun to seek out ways to preserve and restore the wealth, namely through the acquisition of gold. 

Conclusion

Currency, literally meaning presence, is a critical factor that the world must properly appreciate in order that all sorts of virtue may be duly realized and achieved. These findings on global currency revaluation seem to state that unless something drastic is done soon, there shall be the hard realization of the debt ceiling, the maximum amount that one can possibly accrue debt and still remain a functioning enterprise. Perhaps, this will be a positive change and an improvement can be made. 

Works Cited

Editorial Board. “Vague Promises of Debt Relief for Greece.” NY Times. Web. May 30, 2016. 

Griffin, Edward G., “A Crash Course on Money.” The Creature from Jekyll Island, Third World Traveler. Web. May 30, 2016. 

King World News. “Russians Stunned as Chinese Leader Pushes Gold Backed Yuan.” Gold-Eagle, n.d. Web. May 31, 2016.

Koenig, Peter. “The Collapse of the Western Fiat Monetary System may have Begun.” Global Research, 2016. Web. May, 31, 2016. 

Syrmopoulos, Jay. “Gold Backed Russian Ruble, Chinese Yuan Primed to Destroy U.S. Dollar as Global Reserve Currency.” Activist Post, 2015. Web. May 30, 2016. 

Martenson, Chris. “The Crash Course.” Peak Prosperity, Whitney Peak Ventures, 2016. Web May, 31, 2016.

Paul, Ron. “Honest Money.” RonPaul, 2016. Web. May 30, 2016.

Rahemtulla, K. “Three Currencies Ready for a HUGE Revaulation.” Wall Street Daily.com, 2012. Web. May 30, 2016.

“US Debt Clock.” US Debt Clock, 2016. Web. May 30, 2016.