Dollar

Basically, the process that is unfolding before our eyes, of which the US entry into an era of austerity is a simple budgetary expression, is a continuation of the balancing of the 30 trillion of ghost assets which had invaded the global economic and financial system in late 2007 The 15 September 2010, GEAB N°47 issue was headed « Spring 2011: Welcome to the United States of Austerity / Towards the very serious breakdown of the world economic and financial system ». Yet at the end of summer 2010, most experts believed first, that the debate on the US budget deficit would remain a mere subject of theoretical discussion within the Beltway (1) and secondly, that it was unthinkable to imagine the United States engaging in a policy of austerity because it was sufficient for the Fed to continue to print dollars. Yet, as everyone has been able to see for several weeks, Spring 2011 really did bring austerity to the United States (2), a first since the Second World War and the setting up of a global system based on the ability of the US engine to always generate more wealth (real from 1950 to 1970, increasingly virtual thereafter). At this stage, LEAP/E2020 can confirm that the next stage of the crisis will really be the "Very Serious Breakdown of the world economic, financial and monetary system" and that this historic failure will occur in autumn 2011 (3). The monetary, financial, economic and geopolitical consequences of this "Very Serious Breakdown" will be of historic proportions and will show the crisis of autumn 2008 for what it really was: a simple detonator. The crisis in Japan (4), the Chinese decisions and the debt crisis in Europe will certainly play a role in this historic breakdown. On the other hand we consider that the issue of government debt of countries on Euroland’s periphery is no longer the dominant European risk factor here, but it is the United Kingdom which will find itself in the position of the "sick man of Europe" (5). The Eurozone has in fact established and keeps improving all the monitoring systems needed to address these problems (6). Management of the Greek, Portuguese and Irish problems will therefore take place in an organized fashion. That private investors must take a haircut (as anticipated by LEAP/E2020 before summer 2010) (7) does not belong to the category of systemic risks, displeasing the Financial Times, the Wall Street Journal and Wall Street and City experts, trying every three months to rerun the "coup" of the early 2010 Eurozone crisis (8). In contrast, the United Kingdom has completely missed its attempt at "preventive budgetary amputation surgery” (9). In fact, under pressure from the street and particularly more than 400,000 British who roamed the streets of London on 03/26/2011 (10), David Cameron is forced to lower his target for reducing health care costs (a key point of his reforms) (11). At the same time, the Libyan military adventure has also forced him to rethink his goals for Defense Ministry budget cuts. We already mentioned in the last GEAB issue that the British government’s financing needs continue to rise, reflecting the ineffectiveness of the measures announced whose implementation is proving very disappointing in reality (12). The only result of the Cameron / Clegg (13) duo policy is currently the relapse of the British economy into recession (14) and the obvious risk of the ruling coalition imploding after the next referendum on electoral reform. In this issue, our team describes the three key factors that mark out this Very Serious Breakdown of autumn 2011 and its consequences. Meanwhile, our researchers have begun to anticipate the progression of the Franco-Anglo-American military operation in Libya which we believe is a powerful accelerator of global geopolitical dislocation and that it usefully illuminates some of the current tectonic changes in the relationships between major world powers. In addition to our GEAB $ index, we expand on our recommendations for dealing with the dangerous quarters to come. Basically, the process that is unfolding before our eyes, of which the US entry into an era of austerity (15) is a simple budgetary expression, is a continuation of the balancing of the 30 trillion of ghost assets which had invaded the global economic and financial system in late 2007 (16). While about half of them had disappeared in 2009, they have been partially resurrected since then due to the volition of the major global central banks, and the US Federal Reserve in particular and its "QE 1 and 2". Our team considers, therefore, that 20 trillion of these ghost assets will go up in smoke beginning autumn 2011, and very brutally, under the combined impact of the three US mega-crises in accelerated gestation: . the budgetary crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it . the crisis in US Treasury bonds, or how the US Federal Reserve reaches the "end of the road" which began in 1913 and must face up to its bankruptcy whatever accounting sleight of hand is chosen . the US Dollar crisis, or how the jolts in the US currency that will characterize the ending of QE2 in the second quarter of 2011 will be the beginnings of a massive devaluation (around 30% in a few weeks). Central banks, the global banking system, pension funds, multinationals, commodities, the US population, Dollar zone economies and/or dependent on trade with the United States (17) ... everyone structurally dependent on the US economy (of which the government, the Fed and the federal budget have become central components), assets denominated in dollars or commercial dollar transactions, will suffer the head on shock of 20 trillion in ghost assets purely and simply disappearing from their balance sheets, from their investments, and causing a major decline in their real incomes. Around the historic shock of autumn 2011 which will mark the definitive confirmation of significant trends anticipated by our team in previous GEAB issues, the main asset classes will experience major upheavals requiring the increased vigilance of all players concerned for their investments. In fact, this triple US crisis will mark the true exit from the "world after 1945" which saw the US play the role of Atlas and will, therefore, be marked by many shocks and aftershocks in the quarters which follow. For example, the dollar may experience short-term effects of strengthening value against the major world currencies (especially if US interest rates rise very quickly following the ending of QE2), even if, six months after that, its 30% loss of value (relative to its current value) is inevitable. We can, therefore, only repeat the advice that has appeared at the head of our recommendations since the beginning of our work on the crisis: in the context of a global crisis of historic proportions like the one we are experiencing, the only rational objective for investors is not to make more money, but to try to lose as little as possible. This will be particularly true for the coming quarters where the speculative environment will become highly unpredictable in the short term. This short term unpredictability will be particularly due to the fact that the three US crises that trigger Very Serious Breakdown in the world in autumn are not concurrent. They are very closely correlated but not linearly. And one of them, the budget crisis, is directly dependent on human factors with a big influence on the timing of the event; whilst the other two (whatever those who see the Fed officials as gods or devils think (18)) are now, for the large part, included in the significant trends where US leaders’ actions have become marginal (19). The budget crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it The numbers can make the head spin: "6 trillion in budget cuts over ten years" (20), said the Republican Paul Ryan, "4 trillion in twelve years” retorted the 2012 candidate Barack Obama (21), "all this is far from sufficient", bids one of the Tea Party referents, Ron Paul (22). And anyway, sanctions the IMF, "the United States is not credible when it speaks of cutting its deficits" (23). This unusually harsh remark from the IMF, traditionally very cautious in its criticism of the United States, is in any case particularly justified in terms of the psychodrama which, for a fistful of tens of billions of dollars, nearly shut down the federal state absent any agreement between the two major parties, a scenario that will, moreover, soon take place again over the federal debt ceiling. The IMF is only expressing an opinion widely shared by creditors of the United States: if, for a few tens of billions USD in deficit reduction, the US political system reached that degree of paralysis, what will happen when, in the coming months, cuts of several hundred billion dollars a year will be required? Civil war? This is the new California governor Jerry Brown (24) opinion in any case, who believes that the United States is facing a regime crisis identical to that which led to the Civil War (25). The context, therefore, is no longer mere paralysis but really an all-out confrontation between two visions of the country’s future. The closer the date of the next presidential election gets (November 2012), the more the confrontation between the two sides will intensify and take place regardless of any rule of good behaviour, including safeguarding the country’s common good: "Whom the gods would destroy they first make mad", says the ancient Greek proverb. The Washington political scene will increasingly resemble a psychiatric hospital (26) in the coming months, making "the bizarre decision" increasingly likely. If, in order to reassure themselves about the dollar and Treasury bonds, Western experts repeat in turn that the Chinese would be crazy to get rid of these assets which would thus only hasten their fall in value, it’s that they haven’t yet understood that it’s Washington and its political mistakes that can come to the decision that hastens this fall. And October 2012, with its traditional annual budget vote, will be the ideal moment for this Greek tragedy which, according to our team, won’t have a happy ending because this isn’t Hollywood, but really the rest of the world which will write the scenario’s sequel. Whatever the case, by political choice, by closing down the federal government or by irresistible outside pressures (27) (interest rates, IMF + Euroland + BRIC (28)), it is really in autumn 2011 that the US federal budget will massively shrink for the first time. The continuation of the recession coupled with the ending of QE2 will cause interest rates to rise and thus significantly increase federal debt servicing costs, against a backdrop of falling tax revenues (29) caused by a relapse into a deep recession. Federal insolvency is now just round the corner according to Richard Fisher, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas (30). Read more in GEAB: . The budgetary crisis, or how the United States plunges willingly or by force into this unprecedented austerity and takes whole swathes of the global economy and finance with it . The crisis in US Treasury bonds, or how the US Federal Reserve reaches the "end of the road" which began in 1913 and must face up to its bankruptcy whatever accounting sleight of hand is chosen . The US Dollar crisis, or how the jolts in the US currency that will characterize the ending of QE2 in the second quarter of 2011 will be the beginnings of a massive devaluation (around 30% in a few weeks) -------- Notes: (1) An American term for Washington’s politico-administrative heart, situated in the middle of the local ring road, the Beltway. (2) From grim cuts in the US overseas aid budgets to reductions in social programmes; public organizations and whole sections of the US population (Latinos, the poor, students, retirees, ...) will now be severely affected by what is still only a drop in the bucket of adjustments needed. The grassroots demonstrations are beginning with students at the forefront. Sources: House of Resentatives, 04/13/2011; Devex, 04/11/2011; HuffingtonPost, 04/13/2011; Foxnews, 04/14/2011; Foxbusiness, 04/12/2011 (3) The world banking system (including Europe), still under-capitalized and mainly insolvent, is also one of the components of this Very Serious Breakdown of autumn 2011. (4) In GEAB N°55 our team will give its anticipations on the world nuclear question, using the political anticipation method as a decision-making tool on the subject. (5) The magnitude of the United Kingdom’s budgetary crisis is far more serious than the current British leaders are telling who, however, claim to have told the truth. There are in fact two ways of lying to a people: deny the existence of a problem (the position of Gordon Brown’s Labour) or only tell part of the truth (clearly the choice of the Cameron/Clegg pair). In both cases, the problem is not resolved. Source: Telegraph, 03/26/2011 (6) And from now and the definitive establishment of Euroland as the main European engine at the European summit of 11 March last, the four countries that do not participate in the "Euroland +" financial stabilization pact, i.e. the United Kingdom, Sweden, Hungary and the Czech Republic, will be asked to leave the room during discussions on financial and budgetary matters related to the pact. EU Observer of 03/29/2011 describes the panic which then seized the delegations of these four countries whose leaders play the thugs in front of the media and in speeches intended for their respective public opinion, but they well know they are now confined to a second-rate European role. (7) Source: Irish Times, 03/22/2011 (8) A very pertinent and very amusing must read article by Silvia Wadhwa, CNBC’s European correspondent, which makes fun of the caricatural anti- Euroland and anti-German articles of his colleagues in other Anglo-Saxon media, and rightly points out that differences in economic situations are bigger between US states than within Euroland and the debt problems of Greece or Portugal are nothing compared to those of a state like California. Source: CNBC, 04/12/2011 (9) We will come back to the British case in more detail in the GEAB N°55, barely a year after the Conservative/LibDem victory. (10) This protest against cuts is the largest demonstration in London for over twenty years and has been accompanied by serious violence against "symbols of wealth" with attacks against HSBC, the Ritz Hotel and Fortnum & Mason for example. As we have repeatedly emphasized in the GEAB, it is quite significant to note that this historic demonstration in the UK hardly made the headlines and then became invisible 48 hours after it happened. When a few thousand Greeks or Portuguese demonstrate in Athens or Lisbon on the other hand, we are entitled to an avalanche of shocking pictures and comments describing these countries on the brink of chaos. This "two weights and two measures" mustn’t deceive the clear-sighted observer. On the one hand, there are serious difficulties that are now managed within a powerful group, Euroland; on the other, there are major problems that can no longer be managed by a completely isolated country. Believe the media or think for yourself to guess the rest! Source: Guardian, 03/26/2011 (11) Source: Independent, 04/03/2011 (12) Moreover the financial markets realize this and no longer really believe the British government’s martial message of austerity, again leading to a downward spiral in the British Pound. Source: CNBC, 04/12/2011 (13) Nick Clegg has become the most hated politician in the United Kingdom for having betrayed nearly all his campaign promises one by one. Source: Independent, 04/10/2011 (14) And to push British households into a loss of purchasing power only similar to that of the post-World War I crisis in 1921. Source: Telegraph, 04/11/2011 (15) As the Europeans have done since 2010. (16) Average estimate by LEAP/E2020 made in 2007/2008. (17) Beyond traditional foreign trade, the chart below shows the extent of the reduction in transfers to their countries of origin by immigrant workers in the United States, because of the declining US Dollar. This reduction will increase further from Autumn 2011. (18) In the US today, the diabolic vision is the most common among public opinion, unlike 2008 when the Fed officials seemed to be the last resort. This psychological change, as we have pointed out, is not meaningless and contributes significantly to limit Fed officials’ leeway. And it’s not the US Central Bank’s historic legal defeat, which forced it to reveal the recipients of hundreds of billions of dollars in aid distributed after the 2008 Wall Street crisis, which will improve this situation, quite the opposite. A little story, revealed by RollingStone magazine, illustrates the US people’s worsening grievances against its central bankers: beneficiaries of this Fed aid are two wives of leading Wall Street figures who have created a custom-made instrument allowing them to collect 200 million USD from the Fed to buy failed securities ... the profits go to them and the losses to the Fed! Sadly, this is just one example among many that are currently circulating on the Net and have now definitively shattered the respect of US people for its benchmark monetary institution; an explosive situation in the context of the current crisis. Source: Rollingstone, 04/12/2011 (19) The dollar’s fate, like US Treasury bonds, is now largely in the hands of operators around the world who will take a very "clinical" look at the exit from QE2 which was forced on the Fed during the second quarter of 2011. It’s the Fed’s collective opinion (already heavily criticised), not the way it is “presented”, which will be decisive. (20) Source: Politico, 04/04/2011 (21) Source: Boston Herald, 04/13/2011 (22) Source: Huffington Post, 04/11/2011 (23) And all the more so since they continue to break the records of financing needs for their deficits, and that the deficit forecast for the next decade by Obama commitments amounts to 9.5 trillion USD. On one side, he devises policies that increase the deficit, on the other he announces reduction targets… hardly credible, really! Sources: CNBC, 04/13/2011; Washington Post, 03/18/2011 (24) Brown is an original US character with a great deal of political experience having previously served as governor of California from 1975 to 1983, and was twice a candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination. His opinion on the ruinous state of the US political system is, therefore, not to be taken lightly. Source: CBS, 04/10/2010 (25) For those who find the picture risqué, our team reminds that one of the Civil War’s main causes was the irreconcilable vision of what the federal state and its role should be. Today, around budget issues, the role of the Fed, military expenditure and social spending, we are once again seeing the emergence of two diametrically opposed visions of what the federal state should be and what it should do, with its procession of growing institutional blockages and an atmosphere of hatred between political forces. Many illustrations have been given in previous GEAB issues. Source: Americanhistory (26) How else can one describe people who are barely able, and by dint of repeated crises, to cut a few tens of billions from a budget, and who suddenly announce that tomorrow they will cut thousands of billions of dollars from this same budget? Fools or liars? In any case irresponsible, because the constraints that require these deficit reductions in any case are building up. (27) Global government debt is at its highest since 1945 and, at 10.8% of GNP, the US has become the leading major country in terms of government deficits. Sources: Figaro, 04/12/2011; Bloomberg, 04/12/2011 (28) Regarding the BRIC countries (now BRICS with South Africa), it is very interesting to note that their third summit, which took place on the Chinese tropical island of Hainan, is finally enjoying significant media coverage from the Western media. We were one of the first and few Western publications to mention the first summit (at Ekaterinburg) three years ago and emphasize the importance of the event, but until now the major international newspapers persisted in considering the BRICs as a simple acronym without serious geopolitical clout. Obviously things have changed. Moreover from Libya to the dollar, the Hainan summit clearly positioned itself as a counterweight to the US and its surrogates (fewer and fewer in this case having regard to what is happening in Libya). As regards the dollar, the BRICs have decided to accelerate the process allowing them to use their own currencies for their trade: another sign that we're rapidly approaching a severe monetary shock. Source: CNBC, 04/14/2011 (29) Those who still believe in an improvement in US economic conditions, beyond the effect of QE2 "doping", should dwell on the moral of the SMEs in the US which have begun to deteriorate significantly and the fiction of the upturn in employment which will be sharply corrected (even in official statistics) from summer 2011. And we refer to previous GEAB issues regarding the fiscal crisis of the federated states. Sources: MarketWatch, 04/12/2012; New York Post, 04/12/2011 (30) Source: CNBC, 03/22/2011 Samedi 16 Avril 2011 In the same category: November 15, 2010: LEAP considers the victory of the Green Party in Baden-Württemberg an indicator of the double shock of the 2012 German and French elections - 29/03/2011 LEAP launches MAP "to renew our stock of potential futures" - 24/03/2011 MAP2-Winter 2011 - Content - 23/03/2011 France 2012: the National Front overtakes the UMP - 07/03/2011 The first half of the decade marked primarily by world geopolitical dislocation - 05/02/2011 GEAB wrote it in June 2008: "Arab world: Pro-Western regimes go adrift / 60 percent risk of socio-political explosion on Egypt-Morocco axis" - 31/01/2011 Book - 'World crisis: The Path to the World Afterwards Europe and the World in the decade from 2010 to 2020', by Franck Biancheri - 27/12/2010 Do GEAB yourself with the ‘Manual of political anticipation’! - 12/11/2010 For 100 euros, have access to 4 years of GEAB archives! - 26/03/2010 Traffic-Info LEAP/E2020 - Over two million single visitors from 150 different countries in 2009 - 14/01/2010

Dollar

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Canadian one-dollar coin (Loonie)

United States one-dollar coin

United States dollar bill

Australian one-dollar coin

A New Zealand one-dollar coin

One New Taiwan dollar coin

500 old Zimbabwean dollar bill

The dollar (often represented by the dollar sign $) is the name of the official currency of many countries, including the United States, Canada, the Eastern Caribbean territories, Ecuador, Suriname, El Salvador, Panama, Belize, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Brunei, East Timor, Australia, and New Zealand.

Etymology

On the 15th of January, 1520, Count Hieronymus Schlick (Czech: Jeroným Šlik z Passounu) of Bohemia began minting coins known as Joachimsthaler, named for Joachimstal (modern Jáchymov in the Czech Republic), where the silver was mined.^[1] (In German, thal or tal refers to a valley or dale.) "Joachimsthaler" was later shortened in common usage to taler or thaler (same pronunciation), and this shortened word eventually found its way into Danish and Norwegian as (rigs)daler, Swedish as (riks)daler, Dutch as (rijks)daalder, Ethiopian as ታላሪ talari, Italian as tallero, Flemish as daelder, and into English as dollar.^[1]

Development of use

The coins minted at Joachimsthal soon lent their name to other coins of similar size and weight from other places. One such example, the Dutch lion dollar, circulated throughout the Middle East and was imitated in several German and Italian cities. Carried by Dutch traders, this coin was also popular in the Dutch East Indies as well as in the Dutch New Netherland Colony (New York), and circulated throughout the Thirteen Colonies during the 17th and early 18th centuries. Some well-worn examples circulating in the Colonies were known as "dog dollars".^[2] By the mid-18th century, the lion dollar had been replaced by the Spanish "pieces of eight" which were distributed widely in the Spanish colonies in the New World and in the Philippines.^[3]

Pieces of eight (so-called because they were worth eight "reals") became known as Spanish dollars in the English-speaking world because of their similarity in size and weight to the earlier Thaler coins.

Origins of the Dollar Sign

The Dollar Sign ($), an S crossed by two vertical bars, comes from the coat of arms set up by the King Ferdinand II of Aragon. The 'S' represents the motto "Non Plus Ultra" and the vertical bars symbolize the two Pillars of Hercules. This symbol (two pillars with S-shaped motto) first appeared in Spaniard 'Pieces of eight' , the currency used in the American colonies of the Spanish Empire, which then spread to the British colonies and later United States and Canada.

Adoption by the United States

By the American Revolution, Spanish dollars gained significance because they backed paper money authorized by the individual colonies and the Continental Congress.^[3] Common in the Thirteen Colonies, Spanish dollars were even legal tender in one colony, Virginia.

On April 2, 1792, U. S. Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton reported to Congress the precise amount of silver found in Spanish milled dollar coins in common use in the States. As a result, the United States Dollar was defined^[4] as a unit of weight equaling 371 4/16th grains (24.057 grams) of pure silver, or 416 grains of standard silver (standard silver being defined as 1,485 parts fine silver to 179 parts alloy^[5]). It was specified that the "money of account" of the United States should be expressed in those same "dollars" or parts thereof. Additionally, all lesser-denomination coins were defined as percentages of the dollar coin, such that a half-dollar was to contain half as much silver as a dollar, quarter-dollars would contain one-fourth as much, and so on.

In an act passed in January 1837, the dollar's alloy (amount of non-silver metal present) was set at 11%. Subsequent coins would contain the same amount of pure silver as previously, but were reduced in overall weight (to 412.25 grains). On February 21, 1853, the quantity of silver in the lesser coins was reduced, with the effect that their denominations no longer represented their silver content relative to dollar coins.

Various acts have subsequently been passed affecting the amount and type of metal in U. S. coins, so that today there is no legal definition of the term "dollar" to be found in U. S. statute.^[6][7][8] Currently the closest thing to a definition is found in United States Code Title 31, Section 5116, paragraph b, subsection 2: "The Secretary [of the Treasury] shall sell silver under conditions the Secretary considers appropriate for at least $1.292929292 a fine troy ounce."

Silver was mostly removed from U. S. coinage by 1965 and the dollar became a free-floating fiat currency without a commodity backing defined in terms of real gold or silver. The US Mint continues to make silver $1-denomination coins, but these are not intended for general circulation.

Usage in Great Britain

The word dollar had been in use in the English language as a variant for "thaler" for about 200 years before the founding of the United States, with many quotes in the plays of Shakespeare referring to dollars as money. Coins known as "Thistle dollars" were in use in Scotland during the 16th and 17th century,^[9] and use of the English word, and perhaps even the use of the coin, may have begun at the University of St Andrews.^{[citation needed]} This might be supported by a reference to the sum of "ten thousand dollars" in Macbeth (Act I, Scene II) (an anachronism because the real Macbeth, upon whom the play was based, lived in the 11th century).

In 1804, a British five-shilling piece, or crown, was sometimes called "dollar". It was an overstruck Spanish 8 Real coin (the famous 'piece of eight'), the original of which was known as a Spanish dollar. Large numbers of these 8-real coins were captured during the Napoleonic Wars, hence their re-use by the Bank of England. They remained in use until 1811.^[10] During World War II, when the US dollar was (approximately) valued at 5 shillings, the halfcrown (2s 6d) became nicknamed a "half dollar" by US personnel in the UK.

Usage elsewhere

Chinese demand for silver in the 19th and early 20th centuries led several countries, notably the United Kingdom, United States and Japan, to mint trade dollars, which were often of slightly different weights to comparable domestic coinage. Silver dollars reaching China (whether Spanish, Trade, or other) were often stamped with Chinese characters known as "chop marks", which indicated that that particular coin had been assayed by a well-known merchant and determined genuine.

Other national currencies called "Dollar"

Prior to 1873, the silver dollar circulated in many parts of the world, with a value in relation to the British gold sovereign of roughly $1 = 4s 2d (21p approx). As a result of the decision of the German Empire to stop minting silver thaler coins in 1871, in the wake of the Franco-Prussian war, the worldwide price of silver began to fall.^[11] This resulted in the US Coinage Act (1873) which put the United States on to a 'de facto' gold standard. Canada and Newfoundland were already on the gold standard, and the result was that the value of the dollar in North America increased in relation to silver dollars being used elsewhere, particularly Latin America and the Far East. By 1900, value of silver dollars had fallen to 50 percent of gold dollars. Following abandonment of the gold standard by Canada in 1931, the Canadian dollar began to drift away from parity with the US dollar. It returned to parity a few times, but since the end of the Bretton Woods system of fixed exchange rates that was agreed in 1944, the Canadian dollar has been floating against the US dollar. The silver dollars of Latin America and South East Asia began to diverge from each other as well during the course of the 20th century. The Straits dollar adopted a gold exchange standard in 1906 after it had been forced to rise in value against other silver dollars in the region. Hence, by 1935, when China and Hong Kong came off the silver standard, the Straits dollar was worth 2s 4d (11.5p approx) sterling, whereas the Hong Kong dollar was worth only 1s 3d sterling (6p approx).

Existing dollar units today are the Bahamian dollar, the Barbados dollar, the Belize dollar, the Bermuda dollar, the Brunei dollar, the Canadian dollar, the East Caribbean dollar, the Guyanese dollar, the Hong Kong dollar, the New Taiwan dollar, the Singapore dollar, the Trinidad and Tobago dollar, and the United States dollar. The only ones on this list that have still retained their original parity from the days of the universal Spanish dollar are the Singapore dollar and the Brunei dollar.

The term "dollar" has also been adopted by other countries for currencies which do not share a common history with other dollars. Many of these currencies adopted the name after moving from a sterling-based to a decimalized monetary system. Examples include the Australian dollar, the New Zealand dollar, the Jamaican dollar, the Cayman Islands dollar, the Fiji dollar, the Namibian dollar, the Rhodesian dollar, the Zimbabwe dollar, and the Solomon Islands dollar.

• The tala is based on the Samoan pronunciation of the word "dollar".
• The Slovenian tolar had the same etymological origin as dollar (i.e. thaler).

Economies which use the dollar

Economies currently using the dollar

Countries	Currency	ISO 4217 code	Date Established	Preceding Currency
Antigua and Barbuda	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
Australia and its external territories	Australian Dollar	AUD	1966-02-14	Australian Pound
Bahamas	Bahamian Dollar	BSD
Barbados	Barbados Dollar	BBD
Belize	Belize dollar	BZD	1973	British Honduran Dollar
Brunei	Brunei dollar	BND
Canada	Canadian Dollar	CAD
Dominica	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
East Timor	United States Dollar	USD
Ecuador	United States Dollar	USD	2001	Ecuadorian Sucre
El Salvador	United States Dollar	USD	2001-01-01	Salvadoran colón
Fiji	Fiji Dollar	FJD
Grenada	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
Guyana	Guyana Dollar	GYD
Hong Kong	Hong Kong Dollar	HKD	1863	Rupee, Real (Spanish/Mexican), Chinese cash
Jamaica	Jamaican Dollar	JMD	1969	Jamaican pound
Kiribati	Kiribati dollar along with the Australian Dollar	N/A/AUD
Liberia	Liberian Dollar	LRD
Marshall Islands	United States Dollar	USD
Federated States of Micronesia	United States Dollar	KWD
Namibia	Namibian Dollar along with the South African rand	NAD	1993	South African rand
Nauru	Australian Dollar	AUD
New Zealand and its external territories	New Zealand Dollar	NZD	1967	New Zealand pound
Palau	United States Dollar	USD
Saint Kitts and Nevis	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
Saint Lucia	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	East Caribbean Dollar	XCD
Saint Pierre and Miquelon	Canadian Dollar, unofficial[12]	CAD
Singapore	Singapore Dollar	SGD
Solomon Islands	Solomon Islands Dollar	SBD
Suriname	Surinamese dollar	SRD
Republic of China (Taiwan)	New Taiwan Dollar	TWD
Trinidad and Tobago	Trinidad and Tobago Dollar	TTD
Tuvalu	Tuvaluan dollar along with the Australian Dollar	TVD/ AUD
United States and its territories	United States Dollar	USD
Zimbabwe	United States Dollar[13]	USD

Countries and regions which have previously used the dollar

• Malaysia: the Malaysian Ringgit used to be called the "Malaysian Dollar". The surrounding territories (i.e. Malaya, British North Borneo, Sarawak, Brunei, and Singapore) used several varieties of dollars (e.g. Straits dollar, Malayan dollar, Sarawak dollar, British North Borneo dollar; Malaya and British Borneo dollar) before Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei gained their independence from the United Kingdom. See also for a complete list of currencies.
• Spain: the Spanish dollar is closely related the Dollars and Euros used today.
• Rhodesia: the Rhodesian dollar replaced the Rhodesian pound in 1970 and it was used until Zimbabwe came into being in 1980.

Other territories which currently use the dollar

• Anguilla
• Bermuda
• Template:Bonaire
• British Indian Ocean Territory
• Template:Sint Eustatius
• British Virgin Islands
• Cayman Islands
• Montserrat
• Template:Saba
• Turks and Caicos Islands
• Saint Pierre and Miquelon (France) (alongside the Euro)

Countries which accept the dollar, but do not use it as their official currency

• Afghanistan
• Cambodia
• Lebanon
• Mexico
• Peru
• Guatemala^[14]
• Panama^[15]
• Bolivia

See also

Numismatics portal

• Fiat Money
• Eurodollar
• Amero
• Dollar sign
• List of circulating currencies
• Petrodollar
• United States one hundred-dollar bill

References

1. ^ ^{a b} National Geographic. June 2002. p. 1. Ask Us.
2. ^ "Lion Dollar — Introduction". http://www.coins.nd.edu/ColCoin/ColCoinIntros/Lion-Dollar.intro.html.
3. ^ ^{a b} Julian, R.W. (2007). All About the Dollar. Numismatist. pp. 41.
4. ^ Act of April 2, A.D. 1792 of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, Section 9.
5. ^ Section 13 of the Act.
6. ^ United States Statutes at Large.
7. ^ Yeoman, RS. A Guide Book of United States Coins.
8. ^ Ewart, James E. Money — Ye shall have honest weights and measures.
9. ^ Handbook of the Coins of Great Britain and Ireland in the British Museum, by Herbert Appold Grueber [1]
10. ^ http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_value_of_an_1804_British_Dollar
11. ^ Monetary Madhouse, Charles Savoie, 2005
12. ^ While the Canadian dollar is widely accepted in St. Pierre and Miquelon (especially at tourism destinations), the euro (€) is legal tender.
13. ^ Alongside Zimbabwean dollar (suspended indefinitely from 12 April 2009), Euro, Pound Sterling, South African rand and Botswana pula. The US Dollar has been adopted as the official currency for all government transactions.
14. ^ Wojtanik, Andrew (2005). Afghanistan to Zimbabwe. Washington, DC: National Geographic Society. pp. 147.
15. ^ Alongside Panamanian balboa coins

External links

• Etymonline (word history) for "buck" and Etymonline (word history) for "dollar"
• Thesaurus (synonyms)
• Currency converter CNNMoney.com

[hide]v · d · eCurrencies named dollar or similar
Circulating	Australian dollar · Bahamian dollar · Barbadian dollar · Belize dollar · Bermudian dollar · Brunei dollar · Canadian dollar · Cayman Islands dollar · Cook Islands dollar · East Caribbean dollar · Fijian dollar · Guyanese dollar · Hong Kong dollar · Jamaican dollar · Kiribati dollar · Liberian dollar · Namibian dollar · New Zealand dollar · Samoan tala · Singapore dollar · Solomon Islands dollar · Surinamese dollar · New Taiwan dollar · Trinidad and Tobago dollar · Tuvaluan dollar · United States dollar
Circulating, but renamed	Chinese yuan · Ethiopian birr
Obsolete	Antigua dollar · British Columbia dollar · British North Borneo dollar · British West Indies dollar · Ceylonese rixdollar · Confederate States of America dollar · Continental dollar · Danish rigsdaler · Danish West Indian daler (dollar) · Danish West Indian rigsdaler · Dominican dollar · Dutch rijksdaalder · Greenlandic rigsdaler · Grenadan dollar · Hawaiian dollar · Japanese occupation dollar · Kiautschou dollar · Malaya and British Borneo dollar · Malayan dollar · Malaysian dollar · Mauritian dollar · Mongolian dollar · Nevisian dollar · New Brunswick dollar · Newfoundland dollar · Norwegian rigsdaler · Norwegian speciedaler · Nova Scotian dollar · Penang dollar · Prince Edward Island dollar · Puerto Rican dollar · Rhodesian dollar · Saint Kitts dollar · Saint Lucia dollar · Saint Vincent dollar · Sarawak dollar · Sierra Leonean dollar · Slovenian tolar · Spanish dollar · Straits dollar · Sumatran dollar · Swedish riksdaler · Old Taiwan dollar · Trinidadian dollar · Tobagan dollar · Zimbabwean dollar
Conceptual	Eurodollar · Petrodollar · Geary–Khamis dollar
Virtual	Linden dollar · Project Entropia Dollar
Fictional	Angus Bucks
Private	Antarctican dollar · Calgary dollar · Canadian Tire money · Disney dollar · Liberty dollar · Salt Spring dollar · Toronto dollar
See also	Dollar sign · Half dollar · Holey dollar · Thaler · Trade dollar