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Sorry, I have to disagree with most of this. Having worked with some very major banks in both the equities and foreign exchange areas I have seen some of what goes on, and why it goes on.
Having a global currency would change nothing, be it based on gold, shells, sand or anything else. If you think about it, why does the currency need to be based on gold? You cant eat it, you cant drink it, you cant sleep on it (comfortably), heck its even a bugger to carry around. What makes Gold special? Might as well base the currency on turnips, at least you can eat them when times are tough(at a pinch). So if it doesnt matter what the currecy is based on, then anything is as good as the next, and in our case it just happens to be the USD. Mostly. Funny enouh for Wool its actually the Assie $ that is the base currency.
Anyway simply having a base currency be it Gold or the USD, does not prevent the USD for falling. As it stands the USD falls quite regularly, you see it in the price of the AUD. 6 Mths back the USD was falling like a stone, and hence the AUD was up around 90c. The difference is that its not so obvious when the USD is falling as you need to know what to look for. There are two things that can make the AUD rise, and that is a change in our economic outlook, ie people investing in AUD because they think we are doing things well, in which case the AUD rises, both against the USD and all other currencies, or a fall in teh USD. This however is different to the USD falling, in which case the AUD will rise, but so will every other currency.
As an example of the above, even though 6mths back the AUD was worth about 90c, it was still worth about 2.5 GBP, or 2EURO. Today its much the same, hence it wasnt anything we were specifically doing well, but rather a change in the USD that changed our value.
So in short if you want the AUD to do well against not only the USD but other currencies, then there needs to be a reason for people to buy it. More people buy it, the more its worth. One reason to buy it is higher interest rates, but as we just got a 1% drop that is no longer the case, another reason is expected growth, or a boom area specific to Australia such as mining. Again none of these are expected. So while the Government / Industry / Regulators etc do nothing to change this, our AUD will be seen to fluctuate in relation to the rise n fall of the USD. But that does not mean it must.
Oh in relation to fixing the AUD. That is a disasterous move, that would simply bankrupt the country. This is what occured both in the UK and here. This is what occurs... the Government fixes the AUD at say $0.5 USD. Australia finds some new super metal for example, only found in Australia (hence one of the reasons for the AUD to rise) and people/investors overseas start buying AUD, its cheap, you get 2 AUD for 1 USD, and the Australian government must supply it. Hence the Australian Government dips into its reserves of cash and sells it off. Soon the reserves are empty. This puts more upward demand on the AUD. What can the Government do? A. Print Money, putting up inflation. or B. Restrict sales of the new metal, putting us into a false economy (ie the Wool market), or C. Float the AUD. This is essentially what occured in both the UK and Australia before they both floated the $.
And yes that is the short version of what occurs...
Sorry fixing the AUD or using a central currency is not a solution.
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