We're In A Whole New Territory.(International Edition; BUSINESS)(Joseph E. Stiglitz)(Interview)

Byline: Rana Foroohar

Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz on the coming global economic order.

The power shift from west to east continues, as developing nations flexed their muscles at the G20 in London recently, and China and Russia called for a new international reserve currency to replace the dollar. Nobel laureate Joseph E. Stiglitz, who pioneered the idea of "global greenbacks" in his book "Making Globalization Work," and is now at the center of many debates over the future of global capitalism, spoke to NEWSWEEK'S Rana Foroohar about Asia's big bucks, America's bad loans and why the European welfare state still works.

FOROOHAR: You've been talking for years about how the dollar reserve system is broken. Why is everyone getting on the bandwagon now?

STIGLITZ: A reserve currency has to be stable to be effective, and for some time now, it's been clear that the dollar is not. The financial crisis has brought this home with a vengeance. The Fed's balance sheet is surreal. They are in uncharted territory, and there are serious concerns about inflation, and its subsequent effects on the dollar. The Chinese are clearly very concerned about this. They see that some of their investments in the U.S. (like Blackstone) have gone badly wrong, and they worry that they will have worked so hard to save their $2 trillion in reserves, only to see it blown away by inflation. At the same time, there's this broader concern about how the current reserve system basically entails poor countries lending to the U.S. at very low interest rates. It's inequitable, and it also reduces consumer demand at a time when it's really needed.

Why can't the euro help fill the currency void?

A two-currency reserve system would be even more unstable than what we have now, because people would move in and out of the dollar and the euro depending on which is up or down, increasing volatility.