Dollar starts the big slide against major currencies

Dollar starts the big slide against major currencies
by David Smith

On March 23, unnoticed by many, the US Federal Reserve quietly stopped publishing the quantum of broad money (referred to as M3) in the US economy.

Simply put, this meant the central bank will not reveal the amount of currency it pumps into the system each year. So, it will now be impossible to distinguish dollar inflows to US economy and new currency that the Fed would print.

So, the Fed, fear analysts, could covertly fund its near $800 billion budget deficit and $700 billion balance of payment deficit, which are more than India’s GDP.

These fears have prompted the dollar to plummet to multi-month lows against euro and yen and could seriously impact confidence in the world’s favourite currency…

A European think-tank has likened the cessation of M3 publication to Richard Nixons unilateral decision to suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold in 1971.

“In 1971, the dollar became a currency solely based on the rest of the world’s confidence. But this confidence mostly relied on the general feeling that US economy and its currency were managed transparently. With the end of M3 publication, this transparency disappears completely.

The US now wants the world to trust their word, even in the field of their currency’s value. In a world where the confidence in US has never been so low since 1945, the dollar is thus turned into the central player of the beginning global systemic crisis,”according to E2020 – European Political Anticipation.

“A falling dollar is the greatest threat to the world economy,”says Pradip Shah, who heads private equity firm IndAsia. Shah said the possibility of US slipping into a recession was unlikely.

Experts in US have already started voicing their concern about the economy in spite of robust growth figures in the first quarter.

A US media report on Monday even suggested that the biggest unknown about America’s next economic meltdown is not ‘if’ but ‘when’ it will come.

Commentators have pointed at a housing bubble that is threatening to explode.This isn’t very good news for emerging markets like India, which has America as its biggest trade partner.

The dollar’s status as a safe-haven currency has been a matter of comfort for many global investors while foraying into new territories as they could always rush back to the greenback if anything went wrong.

If that confidence is lost, as E2020 believes, many investors would think twice before buying assets in risky emerging markets.

Such a situation could also dent the Indian equity story, which rewrote records last week when the BSE’s 30-share sensex climbed a 1000 points in 19 days or an unbelievable return on investment of 10% in just over a fortnight.

“Nobody believes in the dollar any more. That is why fund managers are moving to commodities like gold, silver and even oil,”an adviser to a hedge fund told TOI.

Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is said to be in favour of a lower interest rate regime. However, runaway inflation and ballooning debt have forced the Fed to increase interest rates 15 times this year with another expected at a policy-setting meeting in June.

Higher interest rates could slow economic growth but keeping them low could stoke long-term inflation, leading US to an economic precipice.

A similar situation in the late seventies and early eighties had forced the then chairman Paul Volcker to radically alter Fed policy to toe the line of monetarist Milton Friedman, who advocated controlling inflation by tightening money supply.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1506648.cms