Acmetal

Proposed name for a universal world currency advocated by the president of Kazakhstan.

Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev recently called for the introduction of a new global currency – the “acmetal” – to counter the financial crisis.Agence France-Press reported:

“In our view, we must create a single world currency under the aegis of the United Nations,” Mr. Nazarbayev said … “We must make a transition to an absolutely new global currency system based on legitimacy and, in view of all countries, one single monetary system.”

The A.P. said:

Nazarbayev’s proposal has raised eyebrows in some quarters, but the idea was embraced Wednesday by Robert Mundell, who won the Nobel prize for economics in 1999 for helping lay the theoretical groundwork for Europe’s single currency. “It would be a very good idea if the G-20 took that idea up in London,” Mundell said.

Acmetal, or Akmetal as some report it, is a portmanteau of the Greek word “acme” – the highest point or zenith – and “capital.” Boldly, President Nazarbayev suggested that the term capitalism might, in time, be replaced with “acmetalism.”