I don't think so. Rather, I think this is as much wishful thinking, which he does from time to time, in my opinion.
OK, here's the skinny.
There's three currencies, two of them state-backed, that have the possibility. None of them will become an official, or even a strongly quasi-official, world reserve currency before 2040.
First, referencing those countries above, is the Euro.
From my understanding of the EU, this could only happen officially by vote of all EU members who use the euro. That's less likely in the next 20 years than herding cats successfully.
Second, the yuan. Nope. That would require it to be depegged from the dollar. Anybody who thinks that happens in the next 20 years, thinks Trump is a free-trader.
Besides, China is doing better, per N+One, halfway down or so, with the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank giving it leverage against the World Bank.
The third is the non-state collection of electronic ledgers known as crypotocurrency.
That ain't happening, either.
The way most bitcoin systems are structured, none individually are elastic enough to get anywhere near that big even as unofficial reserve currency.
Collectively? Dude, these are libertarian wet dreams. No chance they unite into one massive megacoin.
And, as an official reserve currency? It's part of their duty as nation-states for their governments to crush bitcoin precisely because it's stateless.
File 13 this idea, Michael.
If you were engaging in sardonic humor about Trump being a deliberate wrecker of the dollar as a reserve currency, it really didn't come off that way.
==
And, while you're at it, File 13 your love for Modern Monetary Theory. Go read some Doug Henwood on that. (I'm eventually going to have to do a separate piece on this.)
Doug's piece is actually very interesting. I didn't know that Hudson is NOT the No. 1 touter of MMT at Missouri-Kansas City, which Henwood calls the Vatican of MMT. I also didn't know that Yves Smith of Naked Capitalism is a fangirl.
In usual Henwood style, Doug can be scathing. (He can be when he's wrong, as well.):
MMTers extend this hubris about the precision and power of policymaking to the realm of interest rates, which they think the central bank is completely in control of and should be kept as close to zero as possible.That right there is silly. I don't need Doug to tell me that:
Without higher interest rates to compensate for greater default risk or longer maturities, there will simply be no one willing to buy the bonds or issue the loans.The MMTers answer is for the Fed to be the purchaser of last resort.
Gee, isn't that something quite similar to Quantitative Easing?
Otherwise, Doug's even better further in, when he criticizes the MMTers for being lackadaisical about inflation.
Then, tying this back to Hudson's thoughts on reserve currencies, Henwood notes other nations don't have the same degree of currency-printing freedom as does the US.
Henwood then notes that a jobs guarantee program is in no way dependent on MMT.
One last thought, per Henwood: If Stephanie Kelton truly believes that just following MMT will solve climate change, she's either a tremendous idiot or an incredible liar.
See more MMT refudiation here.
And, stuff like this on Twitter is laughable.
MMT is first and foremost just a description of how our monetary system works. So, in order to rein in FIRE it’s good to know how our monetary system works— Kathryn Cannon (@katiecannon2) February 27, 2019
Geez. Back at you.
No #MMT is not "first and foremost just a description of how our monetary system works." It is not even second or third "just a description of how our monetary system works." We are getting into #Maoist Little Red Book territory, I do think. Bye!— ATrealDonaldTrump 🚩🌻 (@AFCC_Esq) February 27, 2019
And, that's that.
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