Among the other things I don’t know.
I have disclosed this already : the number of things I do not know can fill many libraries. The essay earlier and a subsequent article about Venezuela considering adopting the USD as their official currency led me on a different sort of quest.
How many foreign countries use the US dollar as their official currency?
The answer surprised me. The British Virgin Islands have long used the USD as their official currency. So have the Caribbean Netherlands that I didn’t know even existed. Be honest, did you know where Bonaire, Sint Eustatius and Saba are?
Aside from the United States, 11 foreign countries and independent jurisdictions use the U.S. dollar as their official currency. [1]
Official Users (Foreign Jurisdictions)
These places have fully adopted the U.S. dollar (a process called official dollarization): [1, 2]
Ecuador
El Salvador
Panama (uses USD alongside local coins called balboa)
Zimbabwe
Timor-Leste (East Timor)
Palau
Micronesia
Marshall Islands
British Virgin Islands
Turks and Caicos
Caribbean Netherlands (specifically Bonaire, Sint Eustatius, and Saba) [1, 2]
I don’t know how it all works. Clearly the central bankers of these countries have decided to only follow one path: that of fiscal policy and abandoned another path, that of monetary policy. My understanding of economics is limited to the idea that countries can use both paths either in tandem or as a balancing mechanism depending on what the economy needs. Abandoning one path entirely never quite enters into the thought process if logic is employed. Yet that’s exactly what the Euro is, all the nations have abandoned their monetary policy to Brussels. Still, they have votes and representatives in Brussels. It is highly unlikely that either the US Treasury or the Federal Reserve have a representative from El Salvador amidst them. Even more surprising Costa Rica is not listed, even though it uses USD. Apparently many other countries including Liberia, Cambodia and Bahamas also widely accept USD and have their own currency as well.
There is something that is disarmingly honest here. Claude writes OpEds on the Federal Reserve meetings that I semi sort of understand, while I do not know some very basic things like those posted above.
