The CFR: Abolish the Dollar and Create a Multinational Fiat Currency to "Globalize Safely"

Benn Steil, Director of International Economics for the CFR on the "End of National Currency":

Global financial instability has sparked a surge in "monetary nationalism" -- the idea that countries must make and control their own currencies. But globalization and monetary nationalism are a dangerous combination, a cause of financial crises and geopolitical tension. The world needs to abandon unwanted currencies, replacing them with dollars, euros, and multinational currencies as yet unborn.

Governments must let go of the fatal notion that nationhood requires them to make and control the money used in their territory. National currencies and global markets simply do not mix; together they make a deadly brew of currency crises and geopolitical tension, and create ready pretexts for damaging protectionism. In order to globalize safely, countries should abandon monetary nationalism and abolish unwanted currencies, the source of much of today's instability.

Brad W. Setser, a fellow of the CFR's Center for Geoeconomic Studies and an "expert on currencies". Here he answers questions in his interview on "Understanding the Falling Dollar":

How much power do governments have to control the value of their currency internationally?

There are two components to that. One is what sort of power does the U.S. government have, and by that I specifically mean the U.S. Federal Reserve. Most people believe that short-term interest rates do have a meaningful impact on the relative value of different currencies.

So monetary policy can be used to defend a country’s currency. The real question there is should it be used to defend a country’s currency, or should monetary policy be directed at domestic objectives.

Certainly most economists’ views, and I share that view, is that the core goal of U.S. monetary policy should be stabilizing U.S. domestic conditions, not trying to stabilize the value of the dollar.

David Rockefeller is one of the owners of the Federal Reserve Corporation and he is the Honorary Chairman of the CFR. The Rockefeller family has donated to the CFR since its founding. The CFR's Think Tank is called the David Rockefeller Studies Program.

In addition, since 1944 the CFR's Headquarters has been the former home of a Standard Oil Executive named Harold Pratt.

Thus in the quote above, Brad Setser essentially equates the CFR and the Federal Reserve Corporation with the U.S. Government.

Beyond this fallacy that international bank owners and Fabian socialist policy planners are the U.S. Government, it is a clear conflict of interest for the apolitical Federal Reserve Corporation to be intentionally debasing the currency to enable the political goals of their lobbyist group, the CFR.

Mr. Setser continues:

Is there any situation in which you think U.S. intervention to stabilize the dollar would be appropriate?

We have to differentiate between a decision on the part of the Fed to direct its monetary policy toward supporting the dollar, which I don’t think would be appropriate. It’s also not really consistent with the Fed’s mandate.

But I do think it’s appropriate for the Fed to consider how a weak dollar might impact its ability to achieve its domestic goals—including the goal of price stability—which provides a context in which the Federal Reserve might be less willing than it otherwise would be to reduce U.S. policy rates because of concerns that a falling dollar might feed higher inflation. I think that’s a legitimate consideration for policy.

If price stability is the Federal Reserve's mandate, than why wouldn't we use a Gold backed currency since there are direct correlations between gold and all commodities?

Gold buys approximately the same amount of oil today as it did 100 years ago -- but Federal Reserve Notes do not. A 2008 Federal Reserve Note is worth about 3 cents compared to a 1913 United States Note.

The Federal Reserve's fiat currency violates the Constitution. If you want to make the Federal Reserve and its government collection agency the IRS legal than lets have the States pass an Amendment to change the Constitution which says all money must be backed by Gold or Silver and that direct taxes must be apportioned (equally distributed). That is the legal process.

Until then, the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and the IRS is a criminal organization who enforces a law that doesn't exist for a private illegal cartel that is stealing the wealth of the middle class to fulfill the dreams of international socialists.