It was done for 2 reasons and planned out by Paul Volcker, and there is a speech to go with it if someone can find it.
1) USD reserves allow us to import more value than we export so it offers a better standard of life for the consumer than otherwise.
2) It allows us to have a bigger consumer market than we would otherwise have and incentive for countries to partner with us to sell their stuff to. If you've lived outside the US you know every business wants to sell their stuff here either as #1 or just after their home market.
Under those purposes it seems to have worked very well. Of course theres the risks of crashes along with it too.
It's odd how everyone here has such an odd opinion. It's best to let what be be and regulate it asap. The outright ban just means we'll fall behind, as usual with everything.
> China is very aggressively expanding its coal use - despite using as much coal as the rest of the world combined already. It's presently adding more new coal generation than exists in the entire EU.
That's today, given the pace China works at they could easily commit to phasing out coal by 2037 and mean it too. They've already started planning for moving on from it. It's also entirely likely they could have less coal use (excluding steel and industrial uses) than from power stations than Germany in 2037 (1 year before Germany commits to phase it out)
While Australia is insignificant on its own. Its per person contribution is far above average. And since slot of people want to live the developed lifestyle like that of Australia the problem is it offers the excuse to being scaled up in other aspiring countries.
Additionally Australia actively dismantles action amongst other countries. Your comment comes off as knowing the pond in the ocean of the problem. It also exports coal on a gigantic scale, read top of the world so other countries do her polluting.
1) USD reserves allow us to import more value than we export so it offers a better standard of life for the consumer than otherwise.
2) It allows us to have a bigger consumer market than we would otherwise have and incentive for countries to partner with us to sell their stuff to. If you've lived outside the US you know every business wants to sell their stuff here either as #1 or just after their home market.
Under those purposes it seems to have worked very well. Of course theres the risks of crashes along with it too.