Former Malaysian PM Warns Of Dollar Catastrophe

UK Inquirer | April 1 2005

THE FORMER prime minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, has launched into a swingeing attack on US president George W. Bush and warned that the global economy was heading for a catastrophe with the dollar in danger of imminent collapse.

Mahathir claimed that the only reason the US dollar was keeping its value was because of a widespread fear of global meltdown it it collapsed.

According to a report in today's Taipei Times, the only way to avert such a meltdown in the value of the US dollar was if the Americans replaced George W. Bush with a "more responsible president". Replacing US presidents isn't that simple, we suspect.

The former prime minister suggested one answer to the impending doom was to switch from dollars to a gold standard for international trade. Companies should start demanding that payments be made in Euros, or that US dollar payments should be at the Euro rate.

A dollar catastrophe was inevitable because the USA was unable to repay loans which Mahathir estimated amounted to $7 trillion. One US dollar is currently worth .77 of a Euro, and .53 UK pounds. Which is fine and dandy if you're a Brit that goes shopping for iPods in New York, but is crippling when you're an IT company that gets paid in US dollars.