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The question is: what can such a committee achieve? That depends on how it formulates the problem. If the ministers focus on simply replacing the dollar with another currency, or basket of currencies, they will solve nothing. Although Chavez celebrated the fall of the dollar as the "fall of the American empire," and looked to the day when Latin America and the world would be freed of the U.S. currency, he was blithely ignoring a simple reality: the dollar is not just the currency of the U.S., still the world's biggest economy; it is the basis of the world financial system. The dollar is the leading currency in international trade, and dominates world financial transactions. It is still the major reserve currency for central banks, even though their percentage of dollar holdings has dropped from 71% in 1999 to 64.8% today. True, central banks have been moving out of the dollar and into other currencies, especially the euro and yen. In August, for the first time in ages, there was a net outflow of dollars and U.S. investments, to the tune of $150 billion, reversing a trend that used to see hundreds of billions flowing into America, to finance its multiple deficits. Those pulling dollars out of the U.S. included China; the assistant governor of the Bnak of China Yi Gang did say on November 15 that the dollar would remain the leader among its $1.4 trillion (!) reserves, however he added that China would "diversify." Cheng Siwei, vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Peoples Congress, was quoted by the Peoples Daily on November 8, saying "We [China] favor stronger currencies over weaker ones, and will readjust accordingly," i.e. continue to diversify. Russia has diversified, as have many Persian Gulf countries, including Iran.

But this, in itself, will solve nothing. The crisis of the dollar is the {crisis of the dollar-denominated system}. Unless that reality is addressed, no bandaid measures can provide relief. Just imagine what would happen, were China to pull out of the dollar completely. That would further plunge the dollar into negative territory, but with the result that China's earnings from its trade with the U.S., would plummet.

Any serious approach to address the dollar crisis, must address the underlying problem: the system is bankrupt and must be radically reformed, in order to prevent the collapse of the dollar system from precipitating a breakdown of the world economy--the production and trade of real goods and services, upon which the well-being of nations and populations depend. Ahmadinejad laid the blame for the dollar collapse on the Bush Administration--all well and good, so far as it goes. But the insane financial, monetary and economic policies which have reached a peak under George W. and his henchmen Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke, have been merely the continuation of a defective policy orientation going back to the early 1960s. It was after the assassination of John F. Kennedy that U.S. (and British) economic policy radically shifted away from emphasis on investment in the production of real goods and services, and vital infrastructure, into pure speculation. Richard Nixon's decoupling of the dollar from gold in August 1971, created the basis for the floating exchange system, whereby national currencies could and did become the prey of voracious speculators. From then on, the system generated one after another of wild speculative instruments, leading into today's explosive $750 billion derivatives market, collateral debt obligations, mortgage-backed securities, and the like. Now, a reverse-leveraging process has set in, whereby the croupier is calling in the debts. And the players' pockets are empty. The biggest banks in the U.S., led by Merrill Lynch and Citigroup, have reported tens of billions of dollars in losses, while their stocks plunge on the markets. No amount of pump-priming and repeated injections of hundreds of billions of dollars into the banking system can save it. Ben "helicoptor" Bernanke may think he can fly over America in a plane and flood the country with liquidity, but he is going to run out of gas very soon.