Global Currency?

It is interesting for the world economy watchers to note that the talk of an alternative global currency standard is gaining force.

If I recall correctly, the gold standard was the standard the world followed either directly or indirectly until about 1971 where the price of gold and US dollar started diverging.

Now there might be political rationale for going back towards a gold standard (Russia being a gold producer for example), having a common multi-national benchmark is a useful one.

Doing some research on it recently came across the concept of Bancor – as proposed by John Maynard Keynes way back in 1930 or so and recently opened up as a solution by the central bank (vice chairman?) in China.

A quick link to wikipedia will give you the specifics of bancor – but suffice it to say that given the economic turmoil and the expected changes in the global economic paradigms – currency will become a key topic of the future.