Countdown to lift-off

HARDLY a week goes by without a new reason to be gloomy about the dollar. The latest scare is that members of the oil-rich Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) might loosen their links to the greenback, depriving the foreign-exchange markets of a reliable buyer of the troubled currency.
The United Arab Emirates (UAE), through its central bank governor, recently hinted that it would like to free itself from the dollar peg, but would prefer to do it in concert with the other GCC members—Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain. Last May Kuwait broke ranks and decided to track a basket of currencies. Since then, the Kuwaiti dinar has risen by nearly 5% against the dollar.