Word: greenbacked
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Heading abroad from the U.S. this summer? Consider packing a few extra dollars. Since early March, the greenback has fallen 11% against the euro and 17% against Britain's pound as investors who had sought out the dollar as a safe haven during the worst of the crisis now head for riskier assets. Throw in concerns over the U.S.'s spiraling deficit and calls from China for an alternative reserve currency, and "the likelihood is the dollar's going to remain under pressure," says Simon Derrick, head of currency research at Bank of New York Mellon in London...
...almighty dollar is designed to be uncrackable. From the distinctive feel of the greenback's cotton-and-linen-blended paper to its watermarks and color-shifting ink, the Treasury Department goes to excruciating lengths to ensure no one can counterfeit the world's most powerful currency. But the U.S. Treasury Department was no match for Art Williams, one of the most inventive and prolific counterfeiters of recent decades. After learning the craft at 16 from his mother's boyfriend, Williams, the product of a tough neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, went on to print an estimated $10 million...
...weakened West, Beijing sees an opportunity to assert itself globally. China has promised to buy International Monetary Fund bonds to bolster the organization, provided it gets a greater say in the IMF, and it has called for the creation of a new international reserve currency to replace the greenback. Though this idea is unlikely to ever become reality, just by floating the possibility, Beijing is signaling to the world that it wants to be a major player...
...greenback has also shown surprising resilience amid the financial meltdown, since investors continue to see it as a safe haven in bad times. Even after some recent losses, the dollar is 15% stronger against the euro than it was in mid-2008. The dollar has maintained its popularity in part because most major currencies don't look much more attractive. Investors judge the value of a currency relative to others. Though the U.S. economy may be in its worst condition in almost 30 years, the rest of the industrialized world isn't any better off. "The dollar should be much...
...what would take the greenback's place? Economists say that China's suggestion of turning to SDRs might be viable, since SDRs are already considered a core part of central-bank reserves. But global traders would have to begin denominating transactions in SDRs instead of dollars, and there is no sign of that happening anytime soon. Portes of the London Business School says using SDRs as the top international currency is "not impossible," but he adds that "the fundamental problem is that the issuer of the [international] currency also has to be the lender of last resort. The IMF does...