Ditch the Dollar?

Despite calls from Iran and Venezuela - OPEC's steadfast bashers of the U.S. government - experts say there's little chance the cartel will shift from pricing oil in dollars to something like the euro.
At a summit of leaders from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries members in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, over the weekend, Venezuelan head Hugo Chavez and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad indicated the historic link between crude oil and the dollar should be severed.

"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad was quoted by the Associated Press. "Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar ... to form the basis of our oil trade."
Chavez echoed this sentiment Sunday on the sidelines of the summit, telling the news agency "the empire of the dollar has to end."

"That's the political weapon Iran and Venezuela are trying to leverage," said Peter Tertzakian, chief energy economist at ARC Financial, a Calgary-based private equity firm.

And given that the dollar has declined rapidly over the last few years, there are more people in the euro zone area and the relative stability diversification offers, there are may good reasons for wanting to switch from the dollar to the euro or, even better, a basket of currencies.