Question: whats wrong with going to a one world currency?

Originally posted by Astyanax
Again, you post no facts to support this opinion. Why should a common currency lead to a global welfare state? Can you show us how it would?

Originally posted by dolphinfan
Nobody can predict with certainty if the move to a global currency would lead to world gov, socialism and a declining standard of living.

Well then, that's different. Earlier, you said

A common currency is... clearly the final step to global socialism and world government.

You seem to have changed your position.

You also said

A global currency would lead directly to a reduction of the independance a nation states.

But why? Can you show how it does? Recall how, before the rise of currency markets and currency boards, states financed imports and production with specie - gold and silver. The value of a coin was the value of its metal content. Specie was the one world currency. Yet the princely states and kingdoms of the time were no less independent than modern nation-states are. Can you show me how one world currency would be any different from using metal as currency?

Reduction in liberty is perhaps the most central tenet of socialism.

I am not a socialist, but I know that the primary object of socialism is the liberation of people from servitude to economic elites. Someone has badly misinformed you.

The global elite who would manage the currency would undoubtably place guidlines on economic activity of nations, much as the EU does. Setting standards such as debt/gdp, % of GDP to national security, %/GDP to environmental causes, % GDP to global sustainability funds are likely candidates. Set levels of support for the UN, IMF and World bank would be enforced economically. All three have publically stated their desire for enforcement ability. Other global efforts, such as the Law of the Sea treaty, Kyoto Accord and the World Court and others would also require adoption else penalities would accrue. Forced compliance with these regimes is socialism.

Most of this seems to be right-wing paranoid fantasy. However, it is certainly true that states, like individuals, need to be held accountable for their actions. We don't want North Korea getting away with belligerent behaviour towards its neighbours; we don't want Iran getting away with refining uranium illegally; and we don't want America stinking up the world with its ordure and getting away with it, either.

As for your counterexamples from The Economist, you should have read more than their titles before you posted them.

• The first is just a blog post explaining, in textbook terms, potential problems with the euro. It isn't saying the euro is a bad thing or calling for its abolition. One of the 'related links' in the post is to another entitled Benefits of the euro.
  
  
• The second is actually entitled Danger ahead for the mighty euro (funny, your leaving a word out of the link title like that
  ). It is about possible threats to the euro from the impact of the US financial crisis on European economies. Not threats to the countries from the currency but threats to the currency from the countries. You have it backwards.
  
  
• The third (actually from the Guardian, not The Economist) is about how the EU is trying to encourage Greece to undertake some vital structural reforms to her economy. How is this a bad thing? You said that Greece is 'essentially a disaster'. Well then, EU intervention should help it. In fact, here's a case where being part of a currency club actually puts more pressure on a country to fix its economy. Sounds like a great argument for a single world currency to me.

Still, remember what I said earlier; it is not that the euro, or a one world currency either, would be without problems. There is no such thing as an ideal solution in economics. But your fears of lost liberty are not a valid argument against a single world currency till you can convince us they have some substance.

The rest of your post is, I fear, the kind of diatribe that makes one doubt the author's rationality. People who think America is a welfare state and the Great Society initiative was socialist are obviously viewing things from a perspective so far to the right they can't see straight any more. None of what you posted even begins to suggest that

the migration to a global currency will drive us to global socialism and decrease OUR standard of living. It will by definition reduce our freedom.

However, this insistence on your standard of living and your freedom tends to bear out my earlier remarks on the conservative character, doesn't it? Just saying.

Originally posted by Edrick
Face facts... Currencies ARE commodities. Their relative value is subject to the laws of supply and demand, no matter HOW many there are.

Well, then, why not have just one? What is the advantage of having many?

The PROBLEM with a One World Currency, is threefold:

1. We pay taxes to different Governments, and thus, the competition for different regions would strain the relative value of goods and services.

Why should you pay taxes to more than one government? You'd pay tax to your national government and that will be that, just as it is now.

2. Different nations have different labor standards. (First world wages vs third world wages) and thus, with a one world currency you would effectively be removing one of the wage protections between rich and poor nations. (Wage wise)

Why is this desirable? To protect jobs in rich countries, at the cost of making certain goods and services more expensive for everybody? To ensure that rich Westerners can continue to enjoy cheap goods produced in Asian sweatshops? To ensure that the Western world is overwhelmed by a flood of economic migrants?

3. The issuer of the currency would have the power to contract and expand the monetary supply at a whim, timing these changes with their own personal investment strategies.

I don't see how each country having its own currency protects against this.

Originally posted by deepwoods
Thanks folks, these replies are along the lines of my thought process as well. I agree it does sound like a good idea. But its just a matter of who is in control of that money. the way I understand it the "fed" isn't actually the federal government or is sort of a quasi government agency. So don't we have something similar now, where the bankers are in control of the currency? -- Isn't the IMF already in control?
(If there are other threads regarding this please feel free to post the links to help us understand)

Sure the IMF is in control. The real question is who is on top of the the world's most elaborate, and I hate to say, VERY well executed pyramid scheme.