ZHENGZHOU, China: Previously, I discussed the extent to which a currency could freely circulate as being crucial in determining whether it can become a major currency regionally or even globally. Some currencies, such as the British pound and Swiss franc, although not issued by the world's major economies, have achieved significant levels of free circulation and thus might also be considered to have joined the ranks of major currencies. Others, like the euro and Japanese yen, backed by sizable economies and free circulation, are as such as well.
A year and a half ago, the United Kingdom suddenly announced tax cuts, which originally, at least in the eyes of the British government, seemed reasonable. The British economy had been toying with a slump, and the Conservative British government wanted to pull the same rabbit out of its economic hat. After all, some of us may remember that in the 1980s, then British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher also implemented significant tax reductions, which might be said to have successfully revived the previously stagnant UK economy. Thatcher also mercilessly slashed what she considered excessive social welfare benefits in Britain. In retrospect, one cannot help but admire Thatcher's resoluteness in bulldozing through the then-British socioeconomic quagmire in what she thought would revamp the seemingly unbearable mess and, in the process, restore some of Britain's global standing.
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