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The Demise of the Dollar
In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading
In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning - along with China, Russia, Japan and France - to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.
The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.
The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place - although they have not discovered the details - are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."
This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil - yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.
The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power - along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system - which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.
Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.
China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq - blocked by the US until this year - and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.
Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.
Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements - the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system - America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.
The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."
Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.
The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.
"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."
Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.
106 Comments so far
Show AllSioux Rose
This fits what the astrological indications have been relaying. The US will feel the impacts well in advance of 9 years from now, starting THIS November. I wish I knew where personal savings should go? A friend of mine recommended buying foreign currency, but it seemed this is done by purchasing CDS through an American bank that negotiates other national currencies. Is that the same thing as the hard, real thing? In these days of ersatz everything from food to derivative "investment portfolios" separating the wheat from the chaff could not be more challenging.
I remember when I was told to cash my Singapore dollars for Nepalese and Indian rupees while still in Singapore. Then when I was about to leave Nepal there were all kinds of warnings posted about not taking currency out of the country in any large amounts. $400 US dollars converted to their Singapore equivalent and then to rupees seemed like a lot of money to the impoverished in Nepal. I felt like the characters in "Midnight Express" hiding my rupees in my underwear and socks... luckily I had no problem, but the idea of taking hard currency out of another nation is not without risks, sometimes MAJOR ones.
this is because those economies SAW that the way to PROTECT their currencies was in fact to limit its translated value in dollars from being flown out.
that's exactly what South Korea did for decades now...adn that's why south korea TODAY is the FIRST asian nation to have actualy "recovered" from the recession caused by the Dollar Printing Wall'street/washington machine of dollar hegemony.
of course the weaker the economy the less effective it still is to even improve their economy -- but at the very least - it is designed to KEEP the countries coffers from bleeding currency outwards some more, merely to continue to be part of the world financial system that basically "services" the US dollar and US debt.
i've told friends a long, long time ago:
regardless of the fluctuations of currencies...what one has to look at is which economy (and currency of it) is surging:
after all - an economy's currency can not be detached from its symbol of its wealth , savings, production, consumption, flow of money, transactions, , apart from its "gold holdings'" or other holdings as repository of its Sovereign credit or debt :
SO -- i often said:
if you have some money to play with - at least diversify and put some in the Renminbi and hold on tight..the south korean currency . etc...in terms of currency.
otherwise - if i had money = if i were an investor - i'd put it - of course - what else, but in oil, gas, copper, diamonds, and of course gold, and even silver.
i'd definitely be putting money - if i had any - on futures that are inevitable :
solar power, wind power..water...even urban skyscraper or "vertical farming" using advanced science to grow crops without SOIL ..and incorporating them into buildings as some very advanced architects and engineers are already proposing...as much as possible towards sustainables , ethical companies of which there are plenty across the world.
there are MANY in AMerica .
just as there are MANY americans of TRUE ethical conscience..whose companies ought to be supported .
as FDR said correctly":
"WE HAVE ALWAYS KNOWN that GREED is bad MORALS..we now know that it is also BAD ECONOMICS".
how wonderful it would be if americans can truly be exemplary in the world in showing how TRUE this can be and OUGHT to be the world's destiny - for human beings and our fellow creatures on this Mother Earth of ours that gives us SO MUCH beyond our needs, really, if only nations and people and individuals would be more Grateful for her bounty and to CARE for it and carefully, cautiously find the best ways to guide its fruits for everyone's benefit .......rather than see it as a license to RAPE her who gives us our only home.
Sioux Rose,
Google the Daily Pfenning. They give sound daily advice on currencies. I get a free daily e-mail from them. They have been accurate for the 8 years or so I've been getting their info.
Here is their pitch:
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Don't miss this unique opportunity. Deadline to buy the BRIC MarketSafe CD is Oct. 13, 2009. Apply today or learn more at http://www.everbank.com/001CertificatesMSBRIC.aspx?referId=11600
Anyway, if you want to keep your capital in more solid currencies, they know how to do it.
Good luck.
Sioux Rose
AGG & TEDDY: Thank you for taking the time to respond. I will look into the sites/currency you recommend. I understand gold is quite high now, although given THIS (dollar) news, it's apt to go much higher! Each day's events and the articles related on CD makes me feel I am inhabiting a strange, surreal universe! The events taken for REAL are so far from any yardsticks I'd use to qualify as such, and things are getting weirder and weirder. Maybe we're all tripping and don't even know it yet?
You are welcome.
This "experience" we are going through is all too real. It's going to be a long road through this.
I would be wary about Gold and Silver. The US Governmnet can make it illegal to own such with the stroke of a pen just as they did in the 1930's.
It was ILLEGAL for US Citizens to own gold then . The US Governmnet had the right to go into banks and open safety deposit boxes to seize gold.
If US Citizens start buying gold it will presuure the dollar downwards> The Governmnet will then set a price for gold, seize it and give paper dollars in return.
if you still want to try gold, stay away from the certificates. There are more of these out there then COMEX has gold on hand.
To any investment in a foreign Currency a lot will rely on the stability of your bank or the institution through which you invest. A Gaurentee is NOT truly a guarentee. if the firm goes under you get nada.
in terms of the investing matters SiouxRose - i had been telling people I know since a few years back, when i got more interested in these "consequences" - that likely , i thought, GOLD would "come back" into some prominence ...and that they better "buy" if they had something to "play" with. of course it was just a rough guess ..commodities always fluctuate, we know that, but REAL is REAL..just like land, water, air, a piece of banana , rice, trees....
what is MONEY? what is CURRENCY?
it's subject to what governments and their central banks and private banks and the "financial market" - as well as the "real" substances and PEOPLE movement and events dictate..even as "MONEY" or "monetarism" also influences the state of economies.
but in the end : MONEY is NOT real wealth.
it can be many things:
a holder of value, a debt instrument, a COMMODITY in itself, a promisory note, a credit giver, a symbol of a promise to be able to DELIVER upon demand what the paper or currency represents as "debt" or credit or wealth...
but in the end - money in itself is NOT real wealth.
do we really need to recall what the worth IS of germany's NAZI regime Mark? when germans ended up printing gazillions to buy a few loaves of bread? or what was Japan's YEN after it was destroyed by its own imperialism? it all became PLAY MONEY.
i even remember how as children, we in the philippines still used to find japanese money and played with them .
the dollar will not become that -- but the point is MONEY is NOT real wealth.
the real wealth is what it represents:
the ECONOMY of a nation, the PEOPLE of a nation and the GOODS that a nation produces and trades.
"THE TRUE WEALTH OF NATIONS is not Money...it is PEOPLE, without PEOPLE, there is NO economy" --- HENRY CK LIU, Asiatimesonline.
oh - and SiouxRose - a year ago - just in some moments of enthusiasm or "optimism" perhaps for the force of the good nature of people, despite the dire circumstances...i used to collect from online what I thought were ETHICAL companies , mostly in the USA - run by some very thoughtful people, ranging in businesses like clothes and shoes devoted to sustainability, fair wages, and doing well by following their own ethical principles...i studied them quite intently - but I forgot where I put the links in my favorites, !!!!!
i was in tears reading how they seemed to try so hard to be as conscientuous as possible..and MANY were started by young americans , some were by much older ones that "kept the light" through the years despite the pressures to abandon their ethical principles.
it just gives you HOPE when you read about such things...and say "ALL IS NOT Lost" ..there ARE good people out there!!!
and SO MANY in america!
i read recently about a struggling BUT "surviving the recession" restaurant in Queens, New York.
the owner said:
"I REFUSE to treat my workers unfairly. THEY are the heart and soul of my business...if i don't help them with fair , decent wages and sharing the profits properly ....and being there with them in their times of need...i won't have a good business...we are in this together".
even as they too are struggling for customers who are spending less nowadays.
you just want to hug people like that! and they are AMERICAN!
so THERE! ALL IS NOT LOST.
he and his business is part of a Coalition throughout NYC of some 200 or so small businesses who are "FOR SINGLE PAYER" health care -- who believe that treating their workers decently IS their business because it is part of the community on which their businesses depend.
these are "small forces" aligned against such MONSTROUS CRUEL systemic corruption of the Polity.
but it shows that people are TRYING to keep their ethical conscience.
So!!! That's what happened to the "bailout" money!!!
Siouxrose October 5th, 2009 8:27 pm
"I wish I knew where personal savings should go?"
GOLD and SILVER - The Ultimate Stores of Value.
Here are two articles I would classify as "must read":
http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/willie/2009/1001.html#atuid-476a5291bd1d1935
http://www.mmnews.de/index.php/200910043905/Gold-Silber/Gold-vs.-Paper-Money.html
If you can FIND the time, keep in touch with articles at: http://www.professorfekete.com/articles.asp
http://www.gata.org/
If you get involved with currency trades (there are certainly short-term profits to be made there), be absolutely certain you completely trust the person who is handling your trades.
Probably real gold or precious metals is the best bet, but to get them you'll have to pay more than their present value. Paper that SAYS you own something? I don't trust it.
0_0
this is something I already mentioned months ago:
that there were already moves by these countries towards that - poohed poohed by pundits of course stating that the US dollar is SO powerful - countries have NO choice.
but no, of course not. it is simple enough:
all countries have to do - is AGREE : recognize their currencies as sufficient for debit and credit - and that's it.
it is not so complicated as economists would like to make it appear.
it is no different than that between 2 people who agree that their respective "assets" or possessions, or symbols of trust are SUFFICIENT to trade what they wish to trade with each other -- and leave OUT someone that inserted himself between them in previous times.
that's what's happening already, by degrees.
as the AsiaTimesonline Writer, Henry CK Liu said repeatedly:
paraphrase:
"it is a matter of countries using their SOVEREIGN CREDIT - simply by using the POWER of their states as the ONLY true authorities to issue their credit or accept it that the Unearned and Unjustified US DOLLAR HEGEMONY can be broken" .
that was true even when the US Economy was "dependable" and the US government and banking was DEPENDABLE to be able to pay its creditors, private or government, domestic or foreign....
but even THAT condition is no longer true.
there is a reason that the supermodel Giselle Bundchen -- once caused a stir - a year ago - for stating that she wanted her FEES to begin to be paid IN EUROS and not dollars.
governments and individuals and entities worldwide CAN choose to do so ...use OTHER currencies.
the REAL achilles heel of the US DOLLAR "hegemony" has always been its UNEARNED and UNJUSTIFIED STATUS of hegemony..and all that was needed was for foreign entities or regions to MAKE THE ACTION of demonstrating that it IS so and NEVER NEEDED to be SO.
it was what the US dollar hegemony - which is the FLOOR of the US economy's power - most of it gotten FAR BEYOND its TRUE earned value and worth - that allowed this ARTIFICIAL "indispensability" to get away without being punished in a real "free market".
This is the final nail in the coffin of the American Empire.
With the demise of the US dollar as the de-facto oil trading currency, oil pricing will become unpredictably volatile. Coupled with the rocket-like rise in gold prices, we are looking at US debt expanding exponentially. Extreme volatility of oil prices will cause a further erosion of domestic confidence in the economy, which will just add fuel to the fire of the economic down turn. This will drive prices of petroleum derived goods even higher, while ensuring their loss of market due to lack of shipping and utter loss of consumers in the first place. It's a vicious self reinforcing cycle.
The US will not sit idly by as this happens. I would hazard a guess that the renewed hostility with Iran is nothing more than a cover to strike at those who would dump the US dollar. I would be curious to know the dates of these secret meetings.
That Japan is in on this little love fest is no surprise. Their economy, still shaky from the last global economic flinch, depends almost entirely on exports that are supported by massive imports.
Long story short. Lay in hand tools, and seeds for next spring. Learn to live close to home. And be ready to do what you must when (not IF) the government's jackbooted thugs come calling.
and as one can see at the end of the article:
the TRUE reason for the US invasion of iraq - as i had often told friends years ago - was because SADDAM HUSSEIN TURNED HIS BACK on his former "patron" - BY turning to the EURO and to abandon the Petro"dollar".
the ENTIRE economic structure of US global hegemony and imperial hubris has ALWAYS been founded upon the DOLLAR ..backed up by what THAT hegemony , unearned and unjustified and gotten through closed door penstrokes since world war 2 rendered other economies devastated and the US economy unscathed but actually took the REAL PRIZE of "war is the health of the state"...by what that hegemony bought artificially - at the expense of other nations and currencies propping up this hegmemony - and that is of course the US global Military Empire
as "MUSCLE ENFORCER". of its DOLLAR RACKET.
it is EXACTLY as General Smedley Butler, US MArines, 1933 speeches described:
"WE ARE A RACKETEER NATION...MONEY RACKET, BANKING, BIG CORPORATION, BIG FINANCE, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE RACKETEERS...THE TROUBLE WITH US AMERICANS IS : if our Dollar can't buy more than 6% of its value at home...we want to go abroad so it can buy 100 percent MORE...and where the DOLLAR goes...our Flag Follows, where the Flag goes, our Army follows".
that - in a nutshell is US Policy and "economics".
JAPAN, remember just voted in a less-than-previously servile Parliament - and KNOWS that ITS future lies with ASIA . what's japan going to do? continue to ATTACH itself with an umbilical cord to the country that CAUSED the global recession - and become the ODD MAN OUT of asia - just like IRELAND has become in europe until ireland learned what it's like to be the USA"s TROPHY demonstration, like ICELAND , of the "US MODEL" economics? and as a result its famous "free market, privatization, dollar-servile economy" got grounded BIGTIME in a mere 2 years - and NOW has to approach Europe on bended knees?
what's japan going to do being left out by the ASEAN nations, the other regional alliances circling their economies around "the MIDDLE KINGDOM" of china as all the centuries always had done?
JAPAN is going to CHALLENGE THAT ?
I had said it before: JAPAN , just LIKE AUSTRALIA will have to CHOOSE :
are you ASIAN or JUNIOR "Americans?" at the beck and call of a country whose policies have caused MORE regional problems that can only be matched by JAPAN's OWN attempt at imperialism?
are you going to stand on your own feet and be a proper asian neighbor - taking and giving in your own region's prosperity to YOUR own best interests as a nation - or are you going to continue to the the USA's DOG in asia - just like ISrael is in the middle east - where NEITHER of you have the natural resources to go it ALONE? and are you going to be at the behest of a big nation - the USA that even OWES YOU MONEY so you can continue to HOLD THE USA economy's collapsing system by the hand at YOUR expense and that of your neighbors who will CERTAINLY BLAME YOU for it if you continue to be an ENABLER of US "domination" in a region you belong to but has no business trying to do that as it has for generations?
that's going to be the ultimate question for japan - and australia:
ARE YOU ASIAN or are you NOT?
they can't avoid that reality forever.
My guess is that the new "left" Japanese government is no more left than Obama or Tony Blair.
As an Australian, I can confirm that Rupert Murdoch and those of his ilk still control the megaphone. We will not be told the truth about Iraq, Iran or Palestine any time soon. And so regardless of which government Australia elects, we will continue the sycophantic toadying that has defined our foreign policy up until now. That is, we will continue to do as the USA'ns and the Israelis tell us.
I agree.
We better get busy building streetcars and other mass transit that runs on electricity and building massive amounts of solar, wind and geothermal power. If we do, it won't matter so much when our dollars won't buy oil anymore.
If we don't, we will be screwed.
Given the level of activity on repairing/rebuilding your infrastructure:
Yeah, you're screwed.
Remember it was General Motors (now bankrupt) that worked so insidiously to undermine public transportation and rail travel.
You mean we'll have to give up our petro-economy for a real economy? You mean we'll have to do meaningful work for a change, and make stuff that actually serves our basic needs, instead of unnecessary garbage? That's freaky!
Uh-oh!
What a short yet very accurate way of saying; we are so freakin' screwed.
Can you imagine how many dollars it's going to take to buy the Euros needed to buy a barrel of oil? At least twice as many. This is terrible news.
The whole premise is w-a-y alarming. Thanks for validating my original comment, aremagen. I am not looking forward to the fallout on this.
The destruction of the dollar may be what it takes for America to regain it's senses.
That will be good but painful in making all our retiree's savings worth less or worthless.
Will the Euro be next with Tony Blair at the helm?
Side bar- WHY on earth would The Joker (aka Tony Blair) be in line to become President of the EU ? Was the big eared buffoon not thoroughly discredited and forced to step down in not-at-all-Great Britain ?
If Fisk is correct, this would be the most critical step in dismantling the Anglo-American empire which is based on economic rather than military aggression.
As significant, American military aggression has always been for the sake of stabilizing economic rather than military domination.
Before everybody starts dancing around singing "Ding Dong the Witch is Dead", realize that American and Israeli Imperialists will not go quietly into the night. This could be the start of WW III.
Poet
... and the dollar, remember, is backed up by nothing when we went off the gold standard in the time of Richard Nixon.
If you haven't, please take time to read the following:
>>> www.scribd.com/people/documents/2169400-ep-heidner <<<
Collateral Damage Part I & Part II, and you'll be asking who is holding all that gold?
And whatever happened to the treaty deal [Congress not informed] made by George W. in 2005 with Canada and Mexico to form The North American Union and all the plans for Texas firms to build nightmare super highways & freight-train tracks connecting Mexico [eventually Central America] and Canada? The dollar was to become passe, with the planned and already designed currency, the Amero.
What? Is that Mexico going on a Single Payer Health System, and is that Mexico, our #3 oil supplier, beginning to balk?
The Bigger they are, the Harder they fall.
Interesting ride, this.
/cm
EXACTLY .
i have always said that this is the case - the USA Dollar "strength" is really about FAITH, and TRUST in the US ECONOMY and its financial health...and therefore the LAST resort "backer" the US government, treasury and any savings or REAL earnings.
when the entire economy rests on manipulated "phantom wealth" - make believe "values"...and illusionary "prosperity"
this is what happens....it was standing on toothpicks...where if you just take the effort to BLOW for real rather than be DISTRACTED by the sideshows proclaiming how "great the economic model is"....
it WILL fall down.
basically -- the other countries have begun to "blow" at the rickety foundations - based on suppressed , unjust wages to enrich the few - which creates a DEBT RIDDEN economy that consequently has to "create" wealth
out of pure thin air and CLAIMS....
such as we have seen with the bubbles.
and NOW it is going to be the US GOVERNMENT ITSELF that will be called to show its "dependability" to service the debt of the USA to the REST of the world, whether they are "american investors" or sovereign wealth funds of other governments or banks or other entities .
the other governments basically are now PULLING THE RUG from under the USA's "DOLLAR AWASH" feet..and no matter how much the USA FLOODS the world with Dollars - when countries and other entities REFUSE to trade IN IT....what good is it?
it's just another WASTE of PRINTING INK representing
"much ado about nothing" at all......
in real "economy" terms - I think that this is the equivalent of the USA being REDUCED , outside of its power, CLOSER to the REAL worth of the US economy and US "prosperity" and US " model of success".....
and that this TRUE worth - whatever it is - was REALLY NEVER AS GREAT as America Boasted, nor as americans believed -- AND imposed on others to ACCEPT.
THE EMPEROR has NO CLOTHES - is its revelation.
in Statecraft and Statehoods...
POWEr is only power according to how much of it is TOLERATED.
I guess we're through.
"anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system"
You mean US elites, drunk with chutzpah, overplayed their hand again? Oh "lord have mercy" on their shriveled little souls. Didn't we on the far-left predict that the USA would lose its ass in the past eight year campaign of imperial over-reach, along with the lives of one million innocent Iraqis?
We also noted that the growth of mega-godzilla China is "made in the USA". That's right. USan elites pushing US industry overseas against the will of the people has not only left USans without decent livelihoods, but has created a gargantuan monster hostile to their interests. But PLEASE keep ignoring the third party option and keep voting elite candidates back into public service, disaster after disaster. We need our opiates - don't stop the flow!
A brilliant article by Mr. Fisk, and so many excellent posts at CD.
It is just so dam sad that it has come down to this. It didn't have to be this way. GREED isn't good! Hence, this pernicious plan of a New World Order, and continued US hegemony and the demise of the dollar.
This could be worse than the Great Depression? Add to that any foolish and henious attack on Iran, (who no longer trades oil in dollars) would be catastrophic. Sending the price of oil through the roof, with the probable closing of the Strait of Hormuz. Sigh!
It is time to "Bring back America "peacefully" and right this sinking ship. It is imperative that "We the People" begin to make the necessary changes, or risk seeing the balkanization of our once great country.
Very dark and surreal times indeed.
If you support a dominant dollar, then you also support US hegemony and US imperialism.
Not to worry! If the Fed can't print money faster than the inflation rate, they can always outsource it offshore to China.
The imperialists that have potentially trillons of $ at risk will not let this happen with out one hell of a fight, mark my words! This is exactly the thing that could trigger WWIII as there is just too much at risk for the people,corporations, big oil, and international financiers that have so much wealth to lose.
... and with a WWIII, Paul Revere, which of course will let loose nuclear arsenals from everywhere, all that wealth will not be worth a penny. Can't take it with you last I understood.
peace, cm
This is definitely the news the 'dollar' doesn't need and as predicted by people such Chalmers Johnson, that if the arabs decided to stop trading oil in dollars it would collapse the american economy before the end of the day on wall street.
After reading of this plan or these negotiations this possibly won't happen as quick but it also makes me think that the crooks on wall street and banks and the federal reserve had to know of this and thus the unwavering task of stealing as much money in dollars as could be done so as to convert it to the stonger currencies of the world would keep the 'bastard' class sitting/shitting pretty.
But who knows? I just know that it now really appears the dollar is crashing and that this will bode ill for the people still left here in the U.S.A. and it most likely is a way of the world finally slamming the door on the U.S.A. just as immediately bumping chicago from the 2016 olympics was an act of definance against the biggest and most agressive terrorist nation on the planet, the United States of America, thank you NOT AT ALL CORPORTATE AMERICA!!!!
although I certainly don't understand economics well enough - my personal suspicion only is that:
being the case clearly that these "economists" running the US system - geithner, summers, fedbankers, treasury department, etc.. as well as their cohorts in the corporatocracy and US chamber of commerce and of course their "lawfulness" makers in congress - in their mass of a cabal REALLY do understand these consequences . they are not entirely the "idiots" that people think but KNOW the consequences of their policies.
so - my opinion is that -- the DISASTERS they have caused through policies (formerly known as "free market" and all its variations such as "privatization", "deregulation"..."globalization" , ...."financial products, instruments" , "innovation", etc)
are DESIGNED to cause the kind of chaos and suffering - the joblessness, the "emergency" of the financial , economic collapse...
in order to PAVE THE WAY for a "new and reformed" economy --
in which the resulting LOSS of dollar value systemically puts in place a "new" reality :
that of people, americans in particular (where the USA can have ANY control directly as opposed to countries like china or others that are showing signs of being able to fight back) -- who NOW
as a RESULT of the crisis of unemployment, low wages...
will be FORCEd to ACCEPT what amounts to 3rd world level wages fighting for a job.
it's like:
instead of merely MAINTAINING the 30-year old FLAT wages since reagan - they have found a way to CREATE joblesness through the :"financial collapse" ...and then , in the "recovery" what appears is a "job creation" or "job recovery" and "economic recovery"
where americans have effectively been made to swallow not JUST
maintaining the 30-year old wage suppression and flat line...
but actually WAGE CUTS across the board....
only -- it doesn't come by presidential , administrative, congressional or federal order or bills.
it simply is "part of the recovery" .
and so americans are then forced to work for wages LOWEr than ever before...to work for the SAME job an american had just a year ago - before being "job cut" - but having "returned" to the job market at a PAY CUT for that same job because OTHERS
are now competing for the "chance to recover with a job".
whatever it is, regardless of whether my guess is right or wrong.....roughly ....
this is the most SINISTER thing any nations' leadership could perpetrate against its own people.
"and so americans are then forced to work for wages LOWEr than ever before...to work for the SAME job an american had just a year ago - before being "job cut" - but having "returned" to the job market at a PAY CUT for that same job"
*Remember Free Will.* We can just say no, not participate in this scheme, and keep building the small farms and coops and ignore the above. We need to stop looking to masters for jobs and protection. Local communities need to be built.
One example is Nancy Oden (Odin)? in Maine starting a new sustainable way of living. That model could be extended to existing neighborhoods.
This spirit could not be suppressed for long.
It's called "Disaster Capitalism!" Naomi Klein described it well in her book. The Freidmanites plan is being carried out here in our own USA....and we all just let it happen. We didn't think they'd come for us....but they did! The Multi-National Corporations don't care about US citizens. The leaders of these corporations are probably not even "Americans." We are, and have been for a long time...already owned by Saudi Arabia and China.
"The Multi-National Corporations don't care about US citizens. The leaders of these corporations are probably not even "Americans." We are, and have been for a long time...already owned by Saudi Arabia and China."
Why should anybody care about US citizens????? Did or do American "multi-nationals" care about citizens of other countries, when they control their resources? And do you think money has Citzenship?
What do you think "American" is? Just? Caring? Morally superior? More deserving? And when a Zionist can choose his passport by his mother's religion, are you sure he's "American", or is he an Israeli or just another Jew. Were the indingenouse Americans "American" a few hundred years ago?
When you think hard about what you are writing about you may realise that this is how the elite divide people by race, by religion and this variety is called Xenophobia. It's what gives bankers their best business opportunities for "disaster capitalism", WAR.
Your tax dollars is bringing just that to the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, with the complements of our sponsors Halliburton, Raytheon, and the Boeing Corporation.
Stay tuned and we will bring you back to the next exciting episode of our program.... "Those dangerous Mullahs of Iran, What next?".
Just think and look over the walls you want to build.
Better sell those cars and start building some trains while your money's still worth something...
This is appearing as one of those things that the vaunted american msm is not reporting as I just checked and will continue to check at least msnbc about this round of meetings and decisions to end the dollar and as I said just like slamming the door on o's attempt to get the 2016 olympics in chicago because the rest of the world is goddamn sick and tired of american hegemony.
The story is there now, on msnbc, with Fisk mentioned. It is not a large banner headline, and the story is mostly pooh-poohed. The basic idea of a weakening dollar, over a period of time, is and has been in the cards for some time now.
What will the oligarchs employ to sustain their economic supremacy in America after the dollar is diminished? The MIC is my guess, and a possible World War. Food and water are also in the running. When America slips into a depression, war is the most likely choice. The forces of Nature may intervene as well creating a hellish existence.
Start a war? We already got three or so goin' already--and that's the problem as the Chinese pointed out in their China Daily newspaper just a few days ago. The USA's War OF Terror and its GROSS financial mismanagement--aka GREED--has created the conditions for this event.
And just what would you fight for--to force your fellow earthlings to use the USA's currency or else? Isn't that EXTORTION? It's certainly NOT democratic. How would you sell it to the public?
If folks are smart and can afford to, they'll buy and hold a percentage of their cash in the currencies comprising the basket, just as folks worldwide for decades held onto dollars. Yes, unless policies are drastically changed, this event on top of what's happened so far and what's likely to still happen economically will further destabilize the US economy. And it should be said that the policies needing to be changed are US Imperial policies and the wars they generate that benefit no one but the filthy rich and their valets.
The most heroic act Obama could undertake is the unilateral, wholesale rollback of the US Empire in order to prepare the domestic economy for the very daunting challenge of retooling the country to face the Climate Crisis.
War seems consistent with recent history.
The States made a severe chronic error in not moving towards an egalitarian system while they were in some sense at the head of it. They're probably still erring, even from the POV of pure self-interest, even of the elites, by not moving towards it now.
The options are diminishing.
But it's hard to find that tragic when so little advantage was taken.
Hmmm.... Let's see now.... The Corporate US Empire wages war on China where all of its factories are, where its profits are coming from?
This is not the end of the empire. It is part of the war on the middle-class. The empire is willing to sacrifice its own citizens to protect its profits. The same as they have been doing since 1492.
Hoa binh
i quite agree. it is not yet the end of that empire. what it is , is the empire's Viciousness and Exploitation will just become more VIOLENT and BRAZEN - and THEN perhaps the denouement , however long that takes - five years, ten years, two decades, 50 years - whatever - will result in even more violence until america really destroys itself - in a VERY violent way...not without first also dragging other nations .
the VICIOUSNESS of this system practically guarantees that. it's just a question of how SOON the really overt, widespread violence by the corporatocratic,fascistic TOTAL and baldfaced tyranny will arrive and cover the entire USA landscape.
but i also think that its overextension will lead this Empire to "gather" its efforts much, much more into openly , physically violently waging its war IN the United States against americans themselves.
in other words:
facing what will be increasing constraints on ITS power ABROAD from other "rival" regions - and continually FAILING to dominate - it will be forced to use its incredible Fascism and warmaking and all its tools:
Police, Spying, Jailing, Secret detentions, Torture, Kangaroo courts , control of movement, control of "employability", control of bank accounts, even control of FOOD and "purchase" EVEN of necessities ..not to mention the rationing of "health" care - all under threat UNLESS one "behaves like a patriotic american" ....
ON the american soil itself.
having found NO SUCCESS or "victory" elsehwere outside its borders - and no longer able to sustain its overextension - it will begin to train its focus ON the American people
and thus achieve the complete subjugation of americans -= always openly with the FEAR .
it will turn upon itself (or at least its most CAPTIVE victims -- the american people itself)...
and of course other countries aren't going to "invade" to "save the american people" who WILL NEED to be saved from their own Fascist Masters.
there will be NO "allied front" comparable to the "Allies" of world war 2 to destroy germany and liberate europe...
countries will simply move on, and watch as america's OWN Elites and Powerful and the MIC practice upon the americans what that same "Empire" class of masters will be FAILING to do elsewhere because other countries will have found ways to counter it , EFFECTIVELY.
the USA , imo, if things go as they keep going, will be like a
family - wherein - the Authoritarian Father who previously had gotten away with beating up people in the neighborhood could no longer do so - because others began standing up to him...and SO
out of frustration and to SPEND his energies and cruelty which is his only remaining reason for being
WILL GO HOME and BEAT UP his own wife and children. until he ends up killing them and then committing suicide himself - if for nothing more than for the knowledge that he NOW lacks ANYONE OUTSIDE that he could intimidate and beat up without HIMSELF being beaten up
just like the COWARD that he was all along.
this is what I fear will happen to america.
and then perhaps - what is left of it will THEN be taken over by others..when they see that he and his "america" is effectively and completely destroyed - by his own hand.