最近金价攀升的真正理由 英文版.pdf

Gold Prices: What Is the Bullion Market Trying to Tell Us? - General * Europe * News * ... What Is the Bullion Market Trying to Tell Us GOLD, PRICES, METALS, PRECIOUS METALS, GOLD STANDARD, COMMODITIES, BUILLION, INFLATION, CURRENCY Financial Times | 13 Nov 2010 | 06:51 PM ET More than 2,000 years of monetary history came to an end on August 15 1971 when Richard Nixon went on prime-time television, displacing Bonanza on a Sunday night. “I have directed the secretary of the Treasury to take the action necessary to defend the dollar against speculators,” the US president gravely announced. “I have directed secretary [John] Connally to suspend temporarily the convertibility of the dollar into gold or other reserve assets.” Since that day, advocating a role for gold in the world’s monetary system has become a quixotic cause, on a par with Esperanto, corporal punishment and hats. But this week Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, suggested that the precious metal might be ready for a comeback. As part of a collection of reforms to the international financial system, Mr Zoellick proposed that policymakers “should also consider employing gold as an international reference point of market expectations about inflation, deflation and future currency values”. “Gold is now being viewed as an alternative monetary asset,” Mr Zoellick said. But he added that he was not calling for a return to a gold standard, like the pre- 1971 system under which currency was convertible into gold. His intervention is well timed. Some policymakers think it is dangerous to rely on a single reserve currency, the dollar, from an economy that needs to borrow heavily from abroad. Amid Friday’s failure of the Group of 20 industrial and emerging nations to reach any meaningful accord on global imbalances, France has promised as part of its G20 presidency next year to start a debate about the world’s future monetary arrangements. Yet none of the obvious options looks immediat