World Bank

After making some very unwelcome advances calling for a return to the gold reserve, World Bank head Robert Zoellick is again back, and refuses to shut up. The FT reports that earlier Zoellick said
the increasing use of gold as a monetary asset was an “elephant in the room”
that was being ignored by policymakers in the debate over how to correct global
trade and fiscal imbalances. It gets worse: during a conference presentation, Zoellick said the price of gold indicated that the world was heading towards a new monetary system in which the US dollar would be only one of a number of reserve currencies with flexible exchange rates. As we highlighted yesterday, a variety of factors have already conspired to make it appears that not the dollar, but the Chinese currency is increasingly starting to act as a reserve currency on its own merit.

One of the most serious condemnations of the race to the currency bottom to date comes not come from some peripheral media, but from the head of the World Bank itself, who in a just released Op-Ed in the Financial Times says that since the system of floating currencies established by the 1971 Bretton Woods II system, has broken down, it is time to look to a new international system of commerce, one which "should also consider employing gold as an international reference point
of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency
values." In other words, welcome back gold standard 2. Of course, this proposal will never attain more than a casual academic reference, as even a partial gold standard will immediately establish a lower bound on how much any given monetary authority can debase its (and, by retaliation, others') currencies. What, however, if very curious, is why this proposal is being floated precisely 3 short days after the Fed has launched its most ambitious attempt to reflate global asset prices and devalue fiat paper. And as is well-known, the IMF has also been quietly proposing a return to an ven more powerful version of the SDR.... Just what will take for the scales to tip, and for the dollar to remain a reserve currency just in retrospect.

Well, if the Senate can say it, so can we - this shit is now beyond ridiculous and has hit accelerated Goldman prop selling dimensions. Below is a joint press release by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, OECD Secretary-General Angel Gurria, WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy, ILO Director-General Juan Somavia, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn and World Bank President Robert Zoellick. For the most this bureaucratic essay is worse even than overflowing fecal matter, but this particular statement from the pathological Keynesianites gets a 10 even from the French judgein both hypocrisy and braindeath: "Only a sustainable global economy can continue to guarantee growing wealth without jeopardizing the chance for future generations to meet their own needs." And how do we sustain it? Why, by having the developed world issue half a trillion in debt each and every month.

“It is alarming to look at what the Europe and Central Asian countries are soon to face as the region continues to age,” said Schwarz. “Future pension system deficits can be threefold than what is currently expected, and are expected to remain at that level for more than 20 years before slightly improving. Policymakers need to use the opportunity of the current crisis to address long-term issues, which could bankrupt pension systems precisely when the numbers of people who need them are growing.”