TIME Asia’s Michael Schuman asks Is the Dollar Doomed?
His answer is basically: “Sure. Someday.” And he throws some cold water on the idea that the IMF’s special drawing rights could become the world’s new reserve currency:
And what would take the greenback’s place? Economists say that China’s suggestion of turning to SDRs might be viable, since SDRs are already considered a core part of central bank reserves. But global traders would have to begin denominating transactions in SDRs instead of dollars, and there is no sign of that happening any time soon. Portes of the London Business School says that using SDRs as the top international currency is “not impossible,” but he adds that “the fundamental problem is that the issuer of the [international] currency also has to be the lender of last resort. The IMF does not have the legitimacy to do that.”