Will We Have a Global Currency?

Reuters reported today that Japan, Germany and Canada, and Japan pledged new measures to confront the financial crisis.

The Belgian government officially collapsed over the weekend.

In neighboring Belgium, King Albert consulted political leaders after the government collapsed following its botched attempt to bail out financial group Fortis.


Prime Minister Yves Leterme tendered his government's resignation on Friday after a report by the Supreme Court found signs of political meddling to sway a court ruling on the future of the bank, a victim of the credit crunch.

This worldwide nature of the crisis, and the multinational efforts to meet it, call for extraordinary measures. Could one of those measures be to create a global currency? Some advantages:

• It simplifies commerce between countries
• It provides stability to volatile currencies
• It lessens the fluctuations for global organizations, that may buy materials in one country, have manufacturing in another, and sell in another.

People that won't like it:

• Companies that make money from the cost differential. There will still be a cost differential, just as San Francisco is more expensive than Topeka Kansas, although they use the same currency.
  
• Individuals that make money betting on the foreign exchange.
  

Is that really such a bad idea? :-)

-Paula