I'm a Henwoodite in predicting big global aspects of the future, but just
an observation.
What is this, a plague of Henwoodism? first Louis, and now the dominoes
start falling... once we start down that slippery slope...
;-)
BTW, I don't predict the future. Part of the nature of the current boom (as
with previous ones) is that there's tremendous amounts of uncertainty.
The dollar as a world currency is closely intertwined with U.S. military
dominance. Would not a really substantial shift in the world financial
and/or economic structure have to have at least one preliminary -- the
withdrawal of U.S. troops from Europe? A serious
struggle for hegemony between European and U.S. capital seems unlikely as
long as U.S. troops are the major military force in europe.
Yeah, that's why I expect that the dollar will continue to be the world
currency for a long time. A reason why the US$ became (almost) "as good as
gold" is that the US ran balance of payments deficits during the 1960s and
1960, creating the needed money supply for international exchanges. Much of
this was part of the Cold War military offensive (when the Chicago TRIBUNE
published maps showing the interlocking chains of US "allies" (SEATO, the
OAS, etc.) indicating that the sun would never set...), along with foreign
aid, which was largely military in function. A lot of this was
international investment, too.
Jim Devine [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://liberalarts.lmu.edu/~jdevine
