BRICS currency gambit a timely warning to the buck

On the sidelines of the recent BRICS gathering in Cape Town, South Africa, officials contemplated as rarely before the five most dangerous words in economics: things are different this time.

For years now, Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa and other emerging economies hoped to break the dollar hegemony that complicates geopolitical calculations. In Cape Town, BRICS foreign ministers presided over what might be remembered as the moment the anti-dollar movement grew genuine legs.

In the lead-up to the confab, BRICS members urged the bank that the grouping set up to study how a joint currency might work — logistics, market infrastructure and how sanctions against Russia play into things.