Will the dollar keep its global dominance? The US needs to get its act together | Barry Eichengreen

The American position depends not only on relations with Russia, China and the Brics countries, but on fixing its own economic and political problems

Is the dollar poised to lose its dominance of global economic and financial transactions? Many commentators apparently think so.

Russia obviously hopes they are right, given that it has been shut out of the US banking system and suspended from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (Swift). China evidently wants to help the process along by encouraging countries to undertake transactions in yuan. And the Brazilian president, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, has called for the Brics countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) to create a common currency as an alternative to the dollar.