FT / Europe on the Amero aka Noonie

Could the US dollar be destined to join the D-Mark and the franc in the graveyard of defunct national currencies? Vicente Fox, former Mexican president, told CNN this week that he had talked to US president George W. Bush about the possibility of a regional currency for the Americas. [...] Dana Perino, White House press secretary, has dismissed Fox’s claim.

“There is no plan under way to create such a currency,” she said.

Ideas for an American currency union, including the US, Canada and Mexico, have been circulating among academics since the creation of the euro in 1999. Its advocates have even given the hypothetical currency a name: the amero.

Now would be a convenient time for the merger to take place, after the Canadian dollar recently reached parity with the US dollar for the first time in 30 years. (Perhaps instead of the amero, it could be called the noonie – a North American version of the Canadian dollar, which is known affectionately as the loonie.)

~The Financial Times EUROPE, Oct 11 2007