This week Russia is hosting the first summit of BRIC nations in Yekaterinburg, which is the third summit in a row in under a week – all of which do not include any participation of North American or Western European countries.  It appears that Russia living up to its promises to built a “new global architecture” of multilateralism. 

We think that this is a positive trend, and that the world can only benefit from the foundation of greater rule-based international institutions, especially among non-traditional powers.  We also think that it would be even better if Russia and its new rising star partners had a clearer idea of what they wanted to accomplish, but the fact that these meetings are happening is indisputably important and noteworthy.

For example, President Dmitry Medvedev (who appears to be getting pushed aside this one photo), has called out for the creation of a “fairer global economic order.”  That sounds awesome – sign me up – but I do wonder what steps that may include.  Aha, it means substituting the dollar as a global reserve currency (check out a vigorous series of debates on this subject kicked off by our guest editor and former currency strategist, El Maestro.)