Word: dollar
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...growing differential in interest rates is only one element in this process. On the day Australia raised interest rates, Britain's Independent newspaper reported that the Gulf Arab states and China, Russia, Japan and France are working to end the use of the dollar in oil trading by 2018. Citing "Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong," the newspaper said the plan is to price oil using a basket comprising gold, euro, yen, renminbi and a new unified currency for the Gulf Cooperation Council countries...
...Australian dollar jumped 2.6% vs. the greenback after the rate hike was announced. The U.S. dollar also continued to fall against the euro, which ended the week at $1.47, up 1.2% from before the Australian move. Like the Japanese yen, the dollar has effectively become a carry-trade currency. People borrow in the U.S. currency and use the proceeds to buy the Australian dollar, profiting from the interest rate differential and also the greenback's downward spiral. (See pictures of TIME's Wall Street covers...
...Chairman Ben Bernanke tried to talk up the dollar last week by declaring that the central bank would tighten monetary policy in order to avert inflation. But he also emphasized that the Fed is committed to keeping interest rates at near zero to help the battered economy. In the tug of war between those two antithetical positions, it's virtually certain that near-zero rates will win for the foreseeable future...
...Another winner is gold, which breached the $1,000 level in September as the dollar started to weaken and then hit three record highs after the Australian announcement, ending the week at $1,049. Gold is still regarded as a hedge against a weak dollar and also against inflation. No one is listening to Warren Buffett, who describes the metal as having no utility, something that gets dug out of the ground, melted down and then buried again in another hole guarded by people who are paid to do the job. "Anyone watching from Mars," says the Sage of Omaha...
...Then again, the hypothetical Martian would also scratch his head at the notion of paper money. The dollar has no intrinsic value. It has become the world's storehouse of value because it is backed by the economic might of the U.S. If another super-economy emerges, be it the European Union, China, India, Brazil or Russia, then that new power's currency could replace the dollar as the world's reserve currency, just as the dollar replaced sterling in the last century. (See pictures of the best-selling cars in China...