WEEK IN REVIEW: "The Dollar: Shrinkable But (So Far) Unsinkable," by Peter S. Goodman, New York Times, 11 May 2008, p. W1.

Between 2001 and 2007, the dollar's share of the world's total foreign exchange reserves drops from 73% to 64%, but it's mostly due to a drop in value that was long in the making. Still, it signals a long-term development in my mind. I think I wrote in PNM about the inevitable reality of a triad of global reserve currencies: the dollar, the euro, and some yuan/yen basket. As that day approaches, the U.S. economy and consumer will learn more discipline, but the corrections and the balancing will come faster, and not merely as the result of a once-every-decade "Plaza"-like accord. This will be a good thing for us and the world. We outgrew the mysticism of gold in the early 1970s and we—meaning the world—need to outgrow too much faith in the dollar. We simply don't dominate the global economy like that anymore, like we did in the early 1970s when the "global" economy was just the West. So ultimately we're made to adjust by the very same international liberal trade order that we created, set in motion, defended and nurtured since 1945. This is a "problem" of our success and not our failure. Our order extends over the near-entirety of the planet, dwarfing what the European colonial orders achieved. And this is an "empire" (if you must) that actually enriches its subjects! How else to explain the coming huge growth in the global middle class?