With the beginning of 1999, the Euro came into being as the currency for much of continental Europe. This event took place as the possibilities of a global economic collapse continued to loom large. In this program, a number of aspects of global economic and political considerations are analyzed, drawing heavily on articles and analyses from The Financial Times of London. After discussion of how the Federal Reserve narrowly averted a financial collapse in 1998, the broadcast focuses on the unstable state of the world economy. Russian debt default, Brazilian economic instability, the role of currency speculators and the role of IMF are among the factors analyzed. Most importantly, the program discusses the strong status of the Euro and the virtual certainty that it will significantly challenge the dollar as the reserve currency of choice — an event that poses a grave threat to the economy of the United States. Key Financial Times articles read into the record in this broadcast highlight the probability that currency speculation between the dollar and the Euro may prove extremely attractive to investors and devastating to the American and global economic situation. There is a strong possibility that the U.S. economy and currency may be vulnerable to the same type of speculative forces that devastated Asia in 1997–98. A key point of analysis notes that the transition from the pound to the dollar as the world’s main currency in the aftermath of the first World War was one major factor that precipitated the Great Depression. Much of the broadcast reviews material analyzing the EMU as the realization of the proposal of Pan-German theoretician Friedrich List. In the 1840s, List proposed a European economic union, dominated by Germany, as a vehicle for German world domination. (Recorded in January of 1999.)
Discussion
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