Can the dollar's value go any lower? Well it just did. Eleven days ago the United States dollar (USD) lost its status as crude oil's primary currency. On September 6, 2012, China released a startling proclamation to buy, trade and sell crude oil for Yuan from this day forward. Russia quickly affirmed China with a promise to sell China all the oil it wants purchased with Yuan the very next day. In light of this recent event, we can now add China and Russia (and more to come) to the growing list of nations that have signed bilateral agreements to bypass the USD. This is not entirely China's fault. They can do whatever the wish with their growing wealth. Though it may appear China is "taking" the USDs status as the world's reserve currency, this is not entirely the case. The United States has been "giving up" the value of the dollar for a long time. Unfortunately this is just one first major consequences, in recent days, of the United States' devaluation of their own dollar. Regarding the gold standard, this could go one of two ways. Things like this can take us even further away from a sound monetary system. Or hopefully, events like this will increase the dialogue among mainstream US economists towards a gold standard currency.
