America's "exorbitant privilege" of being able to pay its bills in the currency it prints at a zero marginal cost has been a matter of great controversy ever since the term was coined in the mid-1960s by the former French President Valéry Giscard d'Estaing, who was serving as a young finance minister at that time. Various attempts have been made since then to provide alternatives to the dollar as the world's predominant transactions and reserve currency. One such instrument was created in 1969 in the form of a composite financial asset called special drawing rights (SDR). That was intended to offer a supplementary reserve ...READ MORE
