Why is the US dollar used as the benchmark for currencies worldwide?

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Why do we compare our country’s currency to that of US’s and determine our currency’s value?

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Well, the US is a major economy on the world stage, which explains part of those comparisons- as does the fact that many other countries hold large amounts of dollars in reserve. You can trace this back to the days when the US dollar was backed in gold and when the US head the most gold, near the end of World War 2. There was a deliberate choice made to pin many other currencies on the dollar, reassuring other countries and their banks that they could exchange their reserves of dollars for gold.

Of course, the dollar is fiat now, and ‘floats’ without being pinned to gold, silver, or otherwise, but the influence of that decision, along with US hegemony, keeps the dollar important.

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