By Michael Hudson and posted with the author’s permission
It is now clear that today’s escalation of the New Cold War was planned over a year ago, with serious strategy associated with America’s plan to block Nord Stream 2 as part of its aim of blocking Western Europe (“NATO”) from seeking prosperity by mutual trade and investment with China and Russia.
As President Biden and U.S. national-security reports announced, China was seen as the major enemy. Despite China’s helpful role in enabling corporate America to drive down labor’s wage rates by de-industrializing the U.S. economy in favor of Chinese industrialization, China’s growth was recognized as posing the Ultimate Terror: prosperity through socialism. Socialist industrialization always has been perceived to be the great enemy of the rentier economy that has taken over most nations in the century since World War I ended, and especially since the 1980s. The result today is a clash of economic systems – socialist industrialization vs. neoliberal finance capitalism.
That makes the New Cold War against China an implicit opening act of what threatens to be a long-drawn-out World War III. The U.S. strategy is to pry away China’s most likely economic allies, especially Russia, Central Asia, South Asia and East Asia. The question was, where to start the carve-up and isolation.
Russia was seen as presenting the greatest opportunity to begin isolating, both from China and from the NATO Eurozone. A sequence of increasingly severe – and hopefully fatal – sanctions against Russia was drawn up to block NATO from trading with it. All that was needed to ignite the geopolitical earthquake was a casus belli.
That was arranged easily enough. The escalating New Cold War could have been launched in the Near East – over resistance to America’s grabbing of Iraqi oil fields, or against Iran and countries helping it survive economically, or in East Africa. Plans for coups, color revolutions and regime change have been drawn up for all these areas, and America’s African army has been built up especially fast over the past year or two. But Ukraine has been subjected to a U.S.-backed civil war for eight years, since the 2014 Maidan coup, and offered the chance for the greatest first victory in this confrontation against China, Russia and their allies.
So the Russian-speaking Donetsk and Luhansk regions were shelled with increasing intensity, and when Russia still refrained from responding, plans reportedly were drawn up for a great showdown to commence in late February – beginning with a blitzkrieg Western Ukrainian attack organized by U.S. advisors and armed by NATO.
Russia’s preemptive defense of the two Eastern Ukrainian provinces and its subsequent military destruction of the Ukrainian army, navy and air force over the past two months has been used as the excuse to start imposing the U.S.-designed sanctions program that we are seeing unfolding today. Western Europe has dutifully gone along whole-hog. Instead of buying Russian gas, oil and food grains, it will buy these from the United States, along with sharply increased arms imports.
The prospective fall in the Euro/Dollar exchange rate
It therefore is appropriate to look at how this is likely to affect Western Europe’s balance of payments and hence the euro’s exchange rate against the dollar.
European trade and investment prior to the War to Impose Sanctions had promised a rising mutual prosperity between Germany, France and other NATO countries vis-à-vis Russia and China. Russia was providing abundant energy at a competitive price, and this energy was to make a quantum leap with Nord Stream 2. Europe was to earn the foreign exchange to pay for this rising import trade by a combination of exporting more industrial manufactures to Russia and capital investment in developing the Russian economy, e.g. by German auto companies and financial investment. This bilateral trade and investment is now stopped – and will remain stopped for many, many years, given NATO’s confiscation of Russia’s foreign reserves kept in euros and British sterling, and the European Russophobia being fanned by U.S. propaganda media.
In its place, NATO countries will purchase U.S. LNG – but they will need to spend billions of dollars building sufficient port capacity, which may take until perhaps 2024. (Good luck until then.) The energy shortage will sharply raise the world price of gas and oil. NATO countries also will step up their purchases of arms from the U.S. military-industrial complex. The near-panic buying will also raise the price for arms. And food prices also will rise as a result of the desperate grain shortfalls resulting from a cessation of imports from Russia and Ukraine on the one hand, and the shortage of ammonia fertilizer made from gas.
All three of these trade dynamics will strengthen the dollar vis-à-vis the euro. The question is, how will Europe balance its international payments with the United States? What does it have to export that the U.S. economy will accept as its own protectionist interests gain influence, now that global free trade is dying quickly?
The answer is, not much. So what will Europe do?
I could make a modest proposal. Now that Europe has pretty much ceased to be a politically independent state, it is beginning to look more like Panama and Liberia – “flag of convenience” offshore banking centers that are not real “states” because they don’t issue their own currency, but use the U.S. dollar. Since the eurozone has been created with monetary handcuffs limiting its ability to create money to spend into the economy beyond the limit of 3 percent of GDP, why not simply throw in the financial towel and adopt the U.S. dollar, like Ecuador, Somalia and the Turks and Caicos Islands? That would give foreign investors security against currency depreciation in their rising trade with Europe and its export financing.
For Europe, the alternative is that the dollar-cost of its foreign debt taken on to finance its widening trade deficit with the United States for oil, arms and food will explode. The cost in euros will be even greater as the currency falls against the dollar. Interest rates will rise, slowing investment and making Europe even more dependent on imports. The eurozone will turn into an economic dead zone.
For the United States, this is Dollar Hegemony on steroids – at least vis-à-vis Europe. The continent would become a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico.
The dollar vis-à-vis Global South currencies
The full-blown version of the New Cold War triggered by the “Ukraine War” risks turning into the opening salvo of World War III, and is likely to last at least a decade, perhaps two, as the U.S. extends the fight between neoliberalism and socialism to encompass a worldwide conflict. Apart from the U.S. economic conquest of Europe, its strategists are seeking to lock in African, South American and Asian countries along similar lines to what has been planned for Europe.
The sharp rise in energy and food prices will hit food-deficit and oil-deficit economies hard – at the same time that their foreign dollar-denominated debts to bondholders and banks are falling due and the dollar’s exchange rate is rising against their own currency. Many African and Latin American countries – especially North Africa – face a choice between going hungry, cutting back their gasoline and electricity use, or borrowing the dollars to cover their dependency on U.S.-shaped trade.
There has been talk of IMF issues of new SDRs to finance the rising trade and payments deficits. But such credit always comes with strings attached. The IMF has its own policy of sanctioning countries that do not obey U.S. policy. The first U.S. demand will be that these countries boycott Russia, China and their emerging trade and currency self-help alliance. “Why should we give you SDRs or extend new dollar loans to you, if you are simply going to spend these in Russia, China and other countries that we have declared to be enemies,” the U.S. officials will ask.
At least, this is the plan. I would not be surprised to see some African country become the “next Ukraine,” with U.S. proxy troops (there are still plenty of Wahabi advocates and mercenaries) fighting against the armies and populations of countries seeking to feed themselves with grain from Russian farms, and power their economies with oil or gas from Russian wells – not to speak of participating in China’s Belt and Road Initiative that was, after all, the trigger to America’s launching of its new war for global neoliberal hegemony.
The world economy is being enflamed, and the United States has prepared for a military response and weaponization of its own oil and agricultural export trade, arms trade and demands for countries to choose which side of the New Iron Curtain they wish to join.
But what is in this for Europe? Greek labor unions already are demonstrating against the sanctions being imposed. And in Hungary, Prime Minister Viktor Orban has just won an election on what is basically an anti-EU and anti-U.S. worldview, starting with paying for Russian gas in roubles. How many other countries will break ranks – and how long will it take?
What is in this for the Global South countries being squeezed – not merely as “collateral damage” to the deep shortages and soaring prices for energy and food, but as the very objective of U.S. strategy as it inaugurates the great splitting of the world economy in two? India has already told U.S. diplomats that its economy is naturally connected with those of Russia and China. Pakistan finds the same calculus at work.
From the U.S. vantage point, all that needs to be answered is, “What’s in it for the local politicians and client oligarchies that we reward for delivering their countries?”
From its planning stages, U.S. diplomatic strategists viewed the looming World War III as a war of economic systems. What side will countries choose: their own economic interest and social cohesion, or submission to local political leaders installed by U.S. meddling like the $5 billion that Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland bragged of having invested in Ukraine’s neo-Nazi parties eight years ago to initiate the fighting that has erupted into today’s war?
In the face of all this political meddling and media propaganda, how long will it take the rest of the world to realize that there’s a global war underway, with World War III on the horizon? The real problem is that by the time the world understands what is going on, the global fracture will already have enabled Russia, China and Eurasia to create a real non-neoliberal New World Order that does not need NATO countries and which has lost trust and hope for mutual economic gains with them. The military battlefield will be littered with economic corpses.
I have waited patiently for nearly 30 years for the pathetic caricature of an alliance/”United States of Europe” to collapse under the weight of its own stupidity. The whole Euro thing was a device by the French to hoodwink the Germans into getting rid of their Deutschmark (or DOUCHEmark, as many of my students mockingly called it.)
Watching the dollar devour the Euro is second only to watching the deep state toy with our current President Rectal Probe. I loved watching Barack Obama slap Biden’s hand off of his shoulder. “I’m not one of your 8 year old girl fantasies!!!” he was no doubt saying under his breath.
“I loved watching Barack Obama slap Biden’s hand off of his shoulder. “I’m not one of your 8 year old girl fantasies!!!” he was no doubt saying under his breath.”
I can only feel sorry for Biden at this point. I liked Tucker Carlsons take on it
https://youtu.be/j58Bx0Ebppw
Great piece by Tucker. What a bunch of backslapping mobsters! Thanks for posting.
Here is a really beautifully done video of the hypocrisy of the West when it comes to war and humanitarianism. Puts the lie to benevolent smile of the “democracy” loving Five Eyes and the EU.
https://m.youtube.com/watch
The link to the video again. I’m not sure deleting the letters up to the “?” worked.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=nxv8-qnYuPg
The video on a talk by Sadhguru is about the hypocrisy of Western humanitarianism and desire for peace.
I didn’t love it. Obama went out of his way to put Biden, in his demented state, in the White House. Obama is the sinister kind of narcissist but a puppet himself all the same.
‘From the U.S. vantage point, all that needs to be answered is, “What’s in it for the local politicians and client oligarchies that we reward for delivering their countries?”’
Wrong, Mr Hudson. Please adopt the proper “Zone A” terminology or face the immediate prospect of “woke cancellation” forthwith.
Having pretty much exhausted any and all further opportunities for corporate purchases and financial sponsorship of their own domestic U.S. politicians, the question now from their viewpoint is how the ongoing spread of that universally desirable version of “freedom and democracy” can best be promoted worldwide.
You’re mistaken, Arvy. Michael Hudson is right, its money. Here’s some proof from Paul Craig Roberts:
“European governments accommodated Washington’s agenda. The reason was explained to me several decades ago by my Ph.D. dissertation committee chairman who became Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. I had the opportunity to ask him how Washington managed to have foreign governments act in Washington’s interest rather than in the interest of their own countries. He said, “money.” I said, “you mean foreign aid?” He said, “no, we give the politicians bags full of money. They belong to us. They answer to us.” PCR
Indeed it so. Doubters should have a look at at “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” by John Perkins first published 2004. Some critics try to pass it off as a novel, but it isn’t.
I wasn’t objecting to the essence of his conclusion, but rather its expression in terms that might be taken as unacceptable criticism of the “American Way” and of the altruistic spreading by its practitioners of so-called “freedom and democracy” to others.
I think it’s not exactly either, neither strictly financial nor ideological. This is the next stage of building back better. Having failed (predictably) with plan A, which required giving the clot shot to 7 billion people in order to a) get closer to the espoused goal of reducing global population by 5/6th and b) herding everyone into digital cages for better management purposes, Davos is now using economic leverage wrapped in a facade of liberal democracy to get control of at least the gullible and softened west, zone A, in hopes of contending with the irksome nationalists down the road. Like the plandemic, it will mostly not work, but the unintended consequences and numbers of “civilian” casualties will be enormous.
Don’t forget blackmail. It is well established that former FBI Director Hoover had incriminating files on *everybody* in Washington and that is why everybody was afraid of him. There is no reason to think the FBI’s Dirt Squad died along with J. Edgar.
Obviously, honey-pot sex-traffickers to the World’s Deciders (Epstein/Maxwell/MOSSAD) was not at all for money, but exactly this kind of blackmail! No nation can act against NEO-LIBERAL-CON profiterring interests without risking their societies’ holding them accountable for raping underage girls.
Just as with Assange, the first simple step was to get him accused of sex crimes, even if his alleged behaviors are perfectly legal in EVERY OTHER NATION, BUT SWEDEN!
Now he is slowly being murdered by neglect in US/NATO/UK’s worst prison for hardened terrorists.
Which World Leader is willing to risk that?
Hmmm I never thought of that. I would have thought that Gaddafi, Saddam et al would have been enough warning. However, to have a living corpse swinging in the wind for all the world to see is obviously much more effective.
That answers why no leader is prepared to cut down Assange.
A good, but troubling, point you make,
The mafia also had a photograph of FBI director Hoover in a compromising homosexual situation with his boy friend Clyde Tolson. That is why he never admitted they existed and sat on evidence they were involved in the JFK assassination in Dallas in 1963.
“Democracy” is a code word for capitalism. Any system that competes with it must be destroyed. Commuunism, socialism, Islam (where usuary is outlawed), etc.
Rule #1: Economics is everything.
Rule #2: See rule #1.
Just one of many “code words”, or perhaps more accurately distortions and obfuscations of language, misused and abused in pursuit of geopolitical goals, including the entire “woke” agenda. As just one example, a biological term (sex) gets deliberately confused with a grammatical term (gender) enabling all kinds of claims about “societal constructs”, optional self-determinations and so forth ad infinitum. In fact, the total destruction of linguistic precision has almost become a goal in itself.
your one of the few to notice
i assume you too, have disdain for ghetto language being adopted en mass.
and now the horrific urban dictionary language is simply too difficult to bother being accurate
for the current americans who wear virtual pajamas in public to match their lack of language accuracy
@Black Cloud
The banking system in North America has already de facto banned usuary. If inflation is 7.5% (low) and nominal interest on savings is 3% (high) then the real rate of return is worse than minus 4.5%.
To compete, I managed to build a portfolio of diverse dividend paying stocks that averages just over 5%. Even that is now losing to inflation.
Tell that to the 70% of Americans with virtually zero savings who are paying mortgage interest (directly or indirectly through rent), car loans, and credit card interest.
Not to mention ever-increasing fees like health insurance that are essentially an extortive pyramid scheme.
I take your point, but also Opport Knocks’s.
Many in the middle class manage their own pension plans.
In particular, many self-employed don’t have a pension (aside from Social Security) if they didn’t manage to put something away in an IRA (individual retirement account). Many self-employed have less than $100,000 or so after a lifetime’s work. I.e., not a lot of money, in the big picture.
The same goes for small businesses: The only way their owners and employees will have a pension is if the business owner set up an SEP plan for employees. Again, many of these accounts are self-managed and hold equities, mutual funds, etc.
These people are certainly in better shape than those who have nothing, but being in better shape doesn’t mean that their concerns do not merit being taken seriously. It doesn’t mean that they are rich bastards.
When this IRA option was first created by legislation, back in I think 1982, the interest rate was ca. 18%. Even in subsequent years, one could buy a CD with one’s pension money and make 5.5% or more on it.
Effectively zero interest rates mean that these people are obliged to become “personal financiers” and manage their own portfolios if they are to keep up with inflation, not to mention get any gain on their money (unless they want to lose a percentage of their meager gains to money managers).
Building up a pension portfolio that delivers 5% in annual dividends is, IMO, a worthy achievement.
You’re not correctly applying the term ‘usuary’.
This is not the seeking of interest by middle classes on relatively limited volumes of savings.
It is the demand for large, often unending interest returns by the owners of vast capital for use of their money and asset pools that everyone below them has to rent to get by. This applies even to those who have moderate savings but are stupid enough to use credit cards and similar instruments to access things they’ve been induced to believe they need in order to reinforce their personal identity and sense of worth.
Higher inflation cannot kill usury; in fact it is very conducive for usury. The rates will force the scarcity of the capital, and borrowers will be forced to borrow at very high interest rates.
prices of property will fall though
the higher the interest rates, the lower the price of property buyers can afford to pay interest for every month
and that’s what most people worry about and understand- the actual payment they need to pay every month.
So as the interest goes up, the prices go down – because most can’t afford to pay much more than what they are already paying
You confuse the term usury in a newspeak kind of fashion. It’s you who would be the usurer if you profited from your savings.
You can benefit from your savings by lending it to someone for profit sharing. That is permissible in Islam, but not lending at interest.
It’s not about communism here, its about securing the USD as the world reserve currency. It’s not communism that the US is afraid of anymore, its loosing its place as WORLDRESERVE CURRENCY. Why? They wont be able to print free money anymore.. The dollar is the center of the whole thing.
read my article which goes into depth on this subject if you are interested. The link is in the comments below. Mod.
All of this rests on the ability of the United States to buy fossil fuels on the open market using the dollar. Russia and China are arranging for that not to be the case and the fast approaching fossil fuel shortages are going to lead to the collapse of the United States. The fossil fuel shortages will lead to the collapse of global economies but not all states will be effected at the same time, the ones with fossil fuels lasting the longest. By 2050 the shit will truly have hit the fan but I’ll be dead by then so I don’t care.
Will only work if Putin stops trying to appease his haters.
Switch off the phone and then turn the gas taps off and completely pivot towards Asia. Don’t return their calls.
Get the popcorn out and sit back and just watch how weak and divided the EU is. Voters will turn on their neoliberal leaders with a vengeance. Populism will grow and grow and grow and swallow them.
Russia does not need the ” revenue” from the EU for their gas.
Gazprom and other oligarchs in Russia might moan but just nationalise it. This is a war time to act like it.
This is exactly what USA wants. Quick shutdown of gas and oil to Europe, which will hurt Russia greatly too and will cause huge economy crisis leading to major war. Putin and his advisers are playing well now around sanctions.
How will it hurt Russia ?
Gas is paid in Rubles
Russia can create as many Rubles as it likes from thin air.
Russia does not need Rubles from the EU. Gazprom does but Russia doesn’t.
Why would it cause war ?
They are trying their best to create an economic crises in Russia but Russia is not allowed to return the favour ?
Play with one leg and with their hands tied behind their backs?
No, Russia won’t start printing rubles, whenever she wants, because this will greatly rise inflation.
Economic crises are leading often to wars – Third Reich is a good example.
Russia can print Rubles because it has the natural resources to back its creation. Inflation only occurs if the money supply outstrips the resource base. This is precisely what is happening in Western Europe and the US at the moment. They have created too much money and now that their resource base is diminishing due to the sanctions, so they are getting inflation. The only way for them to control inflation is to reduce lending by having higher interest rates (as money is created as debt).
Russia has reduced their interest rates by 3% today (20% to 17%). They think their inflation is now under control and more cuts to interest rates are expected to follow.
Now that all currencies are digital i.e. a series of data entries on bank computers, it would be a simple matter to control the rate of inflation by having the taxing authority delete a fraction back out of existence as necessary.
This is exactly what banks are required to do as the principal of loans are repaid.
“No, Russia won’t start printing rubles, whenever she wants, because this will greatly rise inflation.”
Not if the demand is abroad – that’s one of the effects of controlling your own currency.
As the US dollar hegemony have demonstrated.
Add in Russias rescources, and the only thing that can stop them is a lack of manpower.
Andrew
“Russia won’t start printing rubles, whenever she wants, because this will greatly rise inflation.”
Cutting taxes can cause inflation.
Bank lending can cause inflation
Government spending can cause inflation
The key is you have enough skills and real resources to absorb it so inflation does not happen.
Here’s the Third Reich you talk about and why the inflation actually happened in the Wiemar Republic.
https://gimms.org.uk/2020/11/14/weimar-republic-hyperinflation-through-a-modern-monetary-theory-lens/
Money printing = inflation is very lazy thinking.
It doesn’t help that the models they use are wrong because of the assumptions they attach to their models.
https://realprogressives.org/money-growth-does-not-cause-inflation/
I agree with Billy’s sentiments i.e. cutting the Euroweenies off completely, possibly leading to regime change, especially in the bankrupt corrupt south like Greece, Italy … (PIGS). However there are major costs, consider resulting unemployment in these export sectors in Russia. Therefore this should be done over a (small) period of time till the exports are redirected. If the Russians had been smart they would have thought of this earlier. But they were not. Same with the UN vote today, they are just incapable of using their soft power of exporting food and fertilizers.
The USA wants a compliant Europe that is beaten enough to do what it is told but rich enough to be a market for the USA. Note that as part of the recent deal of USA supplying gas to Europe the Europeans also conceded sovreignity over European data.
Russia (and China) want a stable, rich Europe without military aggression (NATO) as a trading partner.
Russia currently enjoys weapons superiority (hypersonics) over the USA – this will not be forever.
Europe will (probably) not deal with Russia while there is war in Ukraine so USA wants a protracted war and Russia wants a quick one.
It will take some years for Europe to build the infrastructure to import LNG – even if the USA could satisfy the demand of approx 150-200 bcm per year.
So Russia wants to (my assumption) end the active military operation, keep Europe from having enough money to quickly build alternative-energy infrastructure (including LNG ports), ensure Europe does not financially collapse, and gradually peel Europe away from the USA in order to remove the threat of NATO.
It looks like the best way to do this would be to collapse the dollar. The USA is facing record inflation so now the Fed is trying to combat that by stopping printing money and gently hiking interest rates. However, if China now started to flood the market with Treasuries (of which it has about 1 trillion – possibly 1.5) then the Fed will either have to start buying them or allow the dollar to plunge in value.
The key thing to notice is that all these things (and probably a lot more that I just don’t know about) are dynamic – constrained by time. Russia cannot wait until the USA catches up militarily, nor until Europe does not need Russian energy. China cannot wait until Russia falss before acting decisively on Russia’s behalf. The USA cannot let Russia end the war and start negotiating energy and security with Europe.
“Russia (and China) want a stable, rich Europe without military aggression (NATO) as a trading partner.”
Actually, it makes no difference to them at this point. Russia has been trying to keep Europe alive for a while now, and, after so many handouts they have given up. Russia only gets slapped in the face every time they do something good for Europe. They are done with Europe at this point. If it falls, they can rebuild it together with China.
I think the plan is to not collapse EU regimes because you risk those becoming the next ukraines the US can fling at Russia. Collapsing neoliberal regimes in eu don’t guarantee you end up with neutral or more friendly regimes. You might get a bunch of extremist nazi regimes even more rabid and controlled by the Empire of lies.
Instead of cutting them off Russia is leaving them an option to backstab their hegemon by paying with Rubles which would damage the foundations of the empire’s financial system if they accept and damage their legitimacy with their people if they refuse.
Come on.
How can anyone seriously believe these in 20 years wagging poodle and crybaby countries of EU will wake up or change their tame passive wimp papagayo behaviour to some logical and sound actions for their own survival.
“The USA wants a compliant Europe that is beaten enough to do what it is told but rich enough to be a market for the USA.”
Wasn’t that pretty much the plan right here in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century?
I.e., pay workers enough so that they can afford to purchase the products that came off the assembly lines?
Excellent post.
Point is that Russia should cut EVERYTHING. By the time the West could to ANY physical Action against Russia (except missiles) their Countrys already devastated by the Russian sanctions. That is what Russia needs to understand. The western economic is SO fragile that any serious sanction will cripple it within months if not Weeks.
The thing is, EU sellouts want to block instantly all energy resources from Russia, so this could shock Russia’s economy. They are ready to destroy their own countries even for a slight chance of creating trouble for Putin.
Washington forces them to commit economic suicide for a reason.
Take a map and investigate which countries border with Russia and which of them need Russian carbohydrates. Don’t forget to check the size of their populations.
Saudi Arabia will be pressured to sell oil & gas to Europe, not China and Asia. The Carter Doctrine will be invoked and attempts made to buy OPEC compliance. But most Saudi military personnel are Pakistanis. What will they do when they see Pakistan suffering, and India prospering with Russian and Chinese help? What will common Saudis do if they feel abused by the ‘Great Satan’? The House of Saud could find themselves living off rapidly depreciating US currency and T bonds (due to hyperinflation) while living in London, and being despised for their wogness. They will wonder if the US will seize their assets on any convenient pretext. Or just jail them for ‘pedophilia’ after the latest version of ‘Taken’ comes out.
There seems to be some misconception about Gazprom in this sub-thread. In terms of nationalization, Gazprom is already majority owned by the Russian government. So they get the annual dividends from their shares, plus the 15% withholding tax that ADR shareholders have to pay.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/273267/shareholder-structure-of-gazprom/
This hybrid socialist/capitalist model is common in both Russia and China and, frankly, it makes liberal western governments look very bad. It allows Russia to have a flat 13% income tax and low debt to GDP ratio.
No wonder they are trying so hard to destroy it.
Norway are using the same model for their oil-industry, but it don’t work as well when you’re reliant on the dollar.
Most hydro-electrics are also publicly owned. The new windmills, not so much.
Deeply interesting. But why is the splitting of the world into the Sino-Russia New World Order and the older dollar system seen as the “real problem”? Bring it on!
That split is occurring and once the Eastern bloc and new financial system are properly established other countries will gradually join, leaving the USA enjoying its paper dollars while the East enjoys oil, grain, coffee, manufactured goods etc.
When the US has brought Russia to its knees, then it will be ready to infiltrate China :-(
The following is a bit OT, so, moderators, just turf it if you so desire.
What a difference a year makes! Don’t you sometimes wish that you could be a Winston Smith and modify comments you’ve made in the past and have them be “the original” for future readers? I sure do. If only. For example, here’s a comment I made on April 7, 2021, exactly one year ago today.
/washington-is-misreading-russia-at-the-worlds-peril/#comment-924214
If I could, I’d only change one word in one sentence and leave all the rest as-is:
Original: “Russia had the opportunity to much more actively intervene in the events both before and after the coup.”
The new original: “Russia had the opportunity to much more actively intervene in the events both before and during the coup.”
Yeah, if only I could today replace that non-specific word “after” with the word “during” …….. which now gives me a foot-in-the-door opportunity to do some 20/20 hindsight speculation, which, I know, people really hate …………….. but which I have absolutely no doubt will be done by a great many people a lot more important than me for decades into the future. Russia did not cause “this”. The US did. But how could Russia have possibly prevented “this” from getting to this point today?
Had Russia intervened – had it done a “Special Little Operation” (SLO) in Ukraine before the Maidan riots escalated, or even during the escalation, to the point of Molotovs and gunfire (for example, a bunch of “people” literally dragging Vickie and McWar off the stage before they delivered their speeches and handed out cookies, and transporting them and their “security” back to either the US embassy or the airport) and kept Yanukovich and his government in power by “whatever it took” (and I do not think that that “whatever it took” would have been all that much; part of which would have been to order the US “embassy” closed and its “diplomats” to immediately leave the country) the world may very well be different today. (But I must say that I might very well be wrong on this. Only Russia knows for sure what effort would have been required to keep Y in office before and during the violent riots and how much military equipment and mercenaries were already in Ukraine to oppose Y; if , that is, Russia was not caught completely “flat-footed” during that critical period and didn’t know how to respond, if at all. But Y was in fact elected, so he must have had considerable support among the population and in the police and military forces. Yes, Russia may not, in 2014, have been able to do what it is able to do today, but the forces opposed to Y ALSO were not able to do in 2014 what they were capable of doing, and controlling, in early February 2022 – after 8 years of “build-up”, fortification, nazification and overall preparation for provoking Russia to the point that Russia had to do what it has been doing since Feb. 24, 2022.)
After all, the political/police/military structure in 2014, pre-Maidan Ukraine was already in place to allow all of that Russian intervention to happen “legally”. I’m near certain that the Kiev police force would have really welcomed a few hundred, or thousand, plain-clothed reinforcements “working in the crowd”, quite possibly “neutralizing” each and every nazi provocateur – to “nip the coup in the bud”.
I believe that Russia doing that, at that crucial time, would have avoided a lot, if not all, of what has happened in Ukraine ever since Maidan, including the increasingly-insane “sanctions” that the West is imposing on Russia this very day. Would the West at that time have imposed on Russia all of the sanctions that it is imposing on Russia today if Russia had merely helped the democratically-elected Yanukovich govt. remain in power? I doubt it. And if the West had imposed any sanctions on anyone, that “anyone” would most likely have been Ukraine itself, with maybe some relatively minor ones on Russia ….you know, for just existing as a non-slave nation outside of the US Empire of Lies And Hate.
“But”, as I wrote in that comment a year ago, “that was then and this is now” ………….and I would not change a word of what I wrote after that phrase as advice for Russia today (I know, as if those words are going to affect anyone or any thing).
All very well and good Ishkabibble – But as Andrei has written recently, and I suspect you know well, for Russia to have done so in 2014 would have meant getting into a fight with the Empire before it had gathered to itself the strength and resources needed to prevail. If you are going to go up against a powerful bully first you have to know the terrain and be confident you are in a position to prevail. Know the enemy and know yourself. Realistically preparation time was vital. But now Russia-China-Iran are jointly prepared. This makes the decisive difference does it not?
2022 is the year when the Empire of Lies begins its visible dance with its own cosmic destiny. And three great civilizations are now working together to expose that destiny to the world.
Agree. Absolutely. Wisdom, painfully maintained, has prevailed in the Kremlin. And Russia’s leaders were living with the sacrifices being made to quell their no doubt heartfelt urges to respond sooner. That takes a lot of ‘sand.’
And is also why they are the best possible leaders in this war for civilization. They are up against monsters and they always knew it. It was only their own elevated and sophisticated outlook that allowed them to maintain the necessary fiction of “our partners.” Such is the seriousness and complexity of this living chess game.
@ Snow Leopard
I general agree with yours and Ishkabibble’s assessment of the conditions surrounding the Maidan events; but differ with your view that “for Russia to have done so in 2014 would have meant getting into a fight with the Empire”.
Not necessarily. The overall geopolitical environment was very different then. Surely the “colour revolution” copybook was being played, the sanctions were deployed, etc. but a Russian more robust intervention was expected as natural and even legal under international law had Y. asked for help to quell the rebellion as a peace-keeping operation. It is the right, even a duty, of a state to defend itself, including the assistance of a friendly power to restore the constitutional order particularly when the rebellion was orchestrated from abroad by an aggressive power.
Secondly, there was the moral ground for intervention to bring peace to a sister-country, which was widely supported by the Russian people and, I believe, was translated then into a loss of popularity to VV Putin’s government and internal squabbling.
Thirdly, the Hegemon was not in a position to oppose Russian intervention. True, Russia did not have the advantage of the the hypersonic argument then, but the proof of the Hegemon’s inability to prevent a Russian move resides in the very fact that it did next to anything, apart from the expected sanctions and demonization, in response to the actions of the “polite men” in Crimea and the “little green men” in Donbass.
At the time I was of the opinion that VV Putin lost a great opportunity of being “presidential”, enhance his popularity and stature as a statesman, get rid of the timorous Atlanticist crowd as unpatriotic and preserve the Ukraine as a sister-country.
Now I think it was a catastrophic failure, unless there were other considerations – apart from Messrs Kinzhal, Zircon & Co. – such as, setting up a rake for the Hegemon to trip on.
You are not taking into account two important factors, the Sochi Olympics and the Maidan sniper massacre. Russia could not have predicted the massacre — a totally unexpected military attack on Russia by NATO. Besides, the massacre was timed to happen during the Olympics.
Read what I wrote on the topic on February 7, 2014, two weeks before the massacre and coup.
Also note two things:
1) A Russian intervention would have mandated a partitioning of Ukraine, with the west most parts split off from Kiev.
2) The sanctions are not because of the Russian annexation of Crimea, but because of MH17. No one could have predicted that either. (Or maybe one could. On the evening of July 16, 2014 I was expecting a NATO miracle to fall from the sky and save Ukraine. MH17 was shot down the next day.)
Would have … could have … what if … etc.
What will be will be, and that is determined by fate, and we know what America’s fate will be, because there is a kharma of nations and America’s kharma is bad.
Russia has now publicly stated and on the ground acted on thier policy of not allowing color revolutions to be carried out on their sphere of influence neighbors. I suspect that the passage around the world of laws requiring reporting of foreign funding by individuals and NGOs will go a long way in making color revolutions more difficult to fund and staff.
Not just gas…..
Turn the taps off on everything the EU needs – the stuff the EU have been scared to sanction
Then then off the phone.
Sit back and watch the European Union implode and question EU and NATO membership.
Russia is not a heartless monster that wants the ignorant masses to suffer because of their criminal masters. She won’t punish Europeans, US Americans, or Ukrainians. But she will punish the criminals.
IMO it would not be “heartless” but an act of selfless goodness if Russia were to immediately shut off the energy supply to Europe – thereby possibly preventing WW3 by destabilizing the European puppet governments and breaking up NATO.
Amen. It would be an ironic reversal of “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we hang them.” Why would Russia sell Europe or anybody else the means to manufacture weapons to be used against it?
“She(Russia) won’t punish Europeans, US Americans, or Ukrainians. But she will punish the criminals.”
She don’t have to – we are more than capable to do that ourselves, while we blame Putin.
If NATO declared war today, my people would cheer it on – because of their ignorance.
I am grateful to have read Harald Ofstad “Our Contempt for Weakness: Nazi Norms and Values—and Our Own”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harald_Ofstad
It gave me a much needed perspective.
This is what I fear. What is the solution, then? Russia has already said that they intend to finish their intervention in Ukraine soon. Obviously, as sson as they finish the nazis in Mariupol, and perhaps in Odessa too. Then, it will be up to the DPR and LPR to prepare for a possible civil war. But Russia will be out — at least the army will be out. Ukraine may then split because of internal conflict.
One solution, which many Republicans are too clueless and joined at the hip of the deep state to try (e.g. Romney) is to plainly and simply campaign on this question:
“Do you want your sons and daughters to die in one of the worlds’ most corrupt third world shitholes just so that Joe and Hunter Biden’s Burisma scandal stays out of the news? “
Better to make it clear who the bad guys are by letting the US puppet governments sacrifice their citizen’s interests. This will inspire internal regime change.
An uphill battle without a doubt, especially with the depth of infiltration of western intelligence into European elections.
A different view from Zoltan Pozsar of Credit Suisse :
Bretton Woods III? China Begins Buying Russian Coal And Oil In Yuan
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/bretton-woods-iii-china-begins-buying-russian-coal-and-oil-yuan
Bretton Woods 1, FDR’s solution in 1944, rebuking Lord Maynard Keynes of the London School of Economics, was killed by Nixon in 1971, opening the door to the Petrodollar in 1974.
There is a major shift going on, well explained by Putin advisor Glazyev here at this site.
Key is bank separation, Glass-Steagall, which Clinton dumped in 1999, followed by endless crashes and the Sep. 2019 disaster which let to the inflation we see right now. Russia knows full well , and why wait?
With all strategic scenarios it is beneficial to identify where the power contradictions lie.
In Ukraine? Certainly not; Ukraine has little power to speak of at this juncture.
In Russia? No, Russia’s domestic politics have been bolstered and unified under a “siege mentality”, and it is safe from a MAD perspective.
In America? Not really. The uniparty and their propaganda apparatus is unambiguous with its interests.
In the EU? Here we go; specifically the major economies. We are witnessing significant social unrest in some countries, as Hudson mentioned. We also see a blame-game being played within the EU parliament; irrelevant countries are principally attacking Germany for not toeing Washington’s line. Macron’s prospects in the election are dwindling.
So let’s zoom in on Germany as a representative example. How will these power contradictions, between German industry and real economy, and Washington’s ideological pursuit of global domination, ultimately resolve?
Events that will benefit Washington: More false flag atrocities. Probably a “chemical attack”. Fearmongering & controlling EU public opinion.
Events that will benefit Moscow: Continued deterioration of the European economy and the negative effects it will have on public trust.
Washington is on a timer, and things could get very ugly in the following months.
When a bunch of dollars are not needed for foreign trade far away from the USA, that bunch of dollars will come back to the USA and get spent, on things Americans wanted to buy. 70% of all US dollars are held outside the US, and 30% are inside the US. If the value of the US dollar starts to drop significantly some folks who were just holding dollars will see losses and get out of dollars too. This will result in huge inflation inside the USA. And this prognosis is not yet considering the inevitable debt defaults resulting from Western Banksters not paying half a trillion dollars Russia owns and will spend on owed debt to the West that the Banksters don’t follow through on the payment transactions to pay the debts Russia owes. (“frozen” currency debt/money owned by Russia)
Do you know who owns the debt that Russia pays with its “reserves” the Banksters claim are “frozen” and thus while Russia has paid the transaction is not completed by Western Banksters???
I do not predict a change like flicking a light switch. America will not starve this year. But the Old World Order does not play by the rules. Who knows if the cyber polygon test run will take out the interwebs and electric grid. There are lots of folks who’s job it is to prevent this sort of thing, but Puerto Rico just lost all electricity so I’m not ruling anything out.
I own a Morgan Out Island 33′ sailboat. New rigging and sails. Enough food to last 6 month without fishing, and fishing kit to beat the band. I still have some things I’d like to do, like replace diesel with electric motor, and hard plastic top to replace 8′ by 11′ bimini fabric, but it is good to go now if need be.
When the stuff hits the fan, I won’t be around to take part.
“America will not starve this year.”
https://www.youtube.com/c/SoftWhiteUnderbelly
https://www.youtube.com/c/InvisiblePeople
Mod: Please respect the sites policy by not only posting links, add a few comments illustrating their relevance to your opinion.
/moderation-policy/
Carl, keep in mind all those cruising the 7 seas, – it will be quite adventures… Having thinking about the same but how to reach save bays will be a problem. Maybe further down the South of the Americas, but Asia has tough waters already. Places like Penang, save now will also be effected by global poverty and famine.
While America is on this orgy of plunder and subjugation will Russia be sitting on the sidelines?
Next false flag NATO provocation in Ukraine, Poland & Romanian greet Mr Kinzhal.
Hello – Goodbye Al Tanf – North-Eastern Syrian oil theft – Persian Gulf closes
Where then does the Energy to fight a protracted war with Russia come from?
Fracking, money printing and the sheeple. You can always count on the sheeple in all countries all over the world, their eager servility to jump around and blow themselves up on a market place for $200.
So we will keep hearing ameritard complain about migration while starving and looting even more ferociously with gun in hand in order to stay fed and reminded of how “great” they are. Pathetic
Kudos! This article seems to fit in with your broader argument. https://www.ekathimerini.com/opinion/interviews/1181725/focus-on-lng-not-pipelines-us-official-tells-kathimerini/
This is true as far as it go. Why not join the Schiller Institute online conference process on April 9th and 10th. It is easy enough to google. If we organize people in the United States, they can understand that the tradition of the American Revolution means to break with the Empire of off-shore centers, or the so-called Global Britain. Europe is getting destroyed, but if you are willing to risk nuclear war, really everyone is getting destroyed.
Schiller Institute conference will include the Russian ambassador to the United States, so we are talking to everyone. We just don’t think that mass murder and depopulation is the result no matter what. And yes, the Chinese landbridge, the belt and road is part of it. Lyndon LaRouche wrote about that a long time ago, and now the United States and Western Europe have to break out of the straight jacket and join these efforts for world development.
I think this explains a bit on some of US actions which at face value looks irrational. That US seeks to keep Europe enslaved to its dollar and be dependent on it for oil/gas and foodstuffs is all fine. However there is still the question on why US would instigate economic war that leaves Eurasia free of dollar hegemony whereas Russia/China were slow, even reluctant, to outrightly drop the dollar. Now they have no other choice but to accelerate and who knows in a year or so how many countries will have followed. It is quite a gamble.
Their goal isn’t to win, it’s to pass the torch to Eurasia. They will squeeze out everything they can, in the meantime, out of the US/EU banking systems to make it seem that they are fighting for the people….It’s been coordinated by the globalists a while back. US/EU will plunge into insane inflation, starvation, deaths, and provide a reason to instigate absolute totaliraism (as it has been done in stages already).
To understand (which I don’t claim to) you must first understand the eurodollar system.
The eurodollar is now the dominant currency of the world’s financial system. It is a digital currency. It is an innovation of the banks. The banks control the world’s currency, not governments, especially not the US govt. Governments cannot just print money. The banks can print money but they are liable for the loan the money was created for, so there is risk involved.The eurodollar is reserveless. Its value is equal to the $US.
This shadow banking started in the 1950’s and has evolved to become the dominant currency beyond even the understanding of government, possibly beyond the understanding of the banks. The concept of what money is has changed because of it as it is a reserveless, cashless monetary system with many derivative products and without external regulation.
This is a lot to swallow and the implications may help to explain the world today.
“All wars are bankers wars” will prove itself again is my guess.
With Saudis now selling oil to China in RMB yuan and Russia the other key player in OPEC we should expect the US$ to lose its role in the oil market unless the US finds some way to take control of oil & gas supplies from Russia and Saudis to resell only in US$ to their client states the EU. Fracking in US cannot deliver volumes for export and the domestic market in anything like enough to replace Russian supplies especially in the crucial diesel grade.
With the current world surplus of US$ Treasury Bills already being bought up by the Fed from foreign sellers plus the unwinding of US$ derivatives the World Economic Forum goal to collapse both $ & € looks very likely to be successful in the next 2 years allowing them to issue a new digital single currency to replace both and regional EU + 5 eyes currencies.
“To be an enemy of America can be dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal.” ~ Henry Kissinger
What I find so amazing about this is how transparent it all was.
From 2015:
The American Empire, as seen by a Major General of the PLA, China
“Now, It Is Time to Harvest China: If we acknowledge that there is a U.S. dollar index cycle and the Americans use this cycle to harvest from other countries, then we can conclude that it was time for the Americans to harvest China. Why? Because China had obtained the largest amount of investment from the world. The size of China’s economy was no longer the size of a single county; it was even bigger than the whole of Latin America and about the same size as East Asia’s economy.”
“The Americans realized that it was too difficult for them to harvest China, so they looked for an alternative.”
“Where else did they target? Ukraine, the connection between the EU and Russia. Of course there were some problems under Ukraine President Yanukovych’s administration, but the reason that the Americans picked it was not simply because of his problem. They had three goals: teach a lesson to Yanukovych who didn’t listen to the U.S., prevent the EU from getting too close to Russia, and create a bad investment environment in Europe.”
“Why did the Americans do this? People tend to analyze it from the geo-political angle, but rarely the capital angle. After the Ukraine crisis, statistics showed over US$1 trillion in capital left Europe. The U.S. got what it wanted: if it couldn’t get dollars out of China, it would get dollars out of Europe.”
https://fabiusmaximus.com/2015/10/21/qiao-liang-sees-china-vs-america-90041/
It is a 4 part series, worth the whole read. IMHO
So, the Europeans let the CIA foment a war with Ukraine, turn Europe Eastern Europe into a battle zone (like: Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, Yemen), inundate Western Europe with waves of refugees, cut off Europe’s energy supply, drain Europe of dollars, force it to buy US weapons and strangle its trade???
And instead of Europeans being aware of what the United States was doing they thought they were going to save the world from Climate Change and lead the world into a new Green Energy Revolution?
I used to think Europeans were smarter and more educated than the average American, but it appears most of them are dumb as bricks.
And it is now time to HARVEST EUROPE.
“F-ck the EU” ~ Victoria Nuland
You are wrgon one one thing.
The EXACT SAME actiosn EU is doing ref. Climate change are 80% or more aligned to gaining physical energy independence from the US who (still) rules the seas and by that controlls Europe’s energy import arteries.
EU could not openly say they do not trust the US to keep their SLOCs open.
So they invented this “Climate change” false reason to do the actions they needed without admitting it publicly.
Sure, A LOT of people believe the “Green” narrative in the EU. But the real decision makes do not.
Besides … try blowing up a wind far during a war … or a decentralised solar mini-plants network. Well, good luck with that!
If we lose the China trade, Walmart, Targets, Kohl’s, Sam’s club, Costco, the dollar stores will all close. If you go to an American restaurant during peak time, take everyone in there out to the parking lot, strip them bare and examine their clothes and possessions there won’t be more than a dozen items made in the US. If Walmart collapses it would be a mortal wound to America.
No it wouldn’t. For every Wal-Mart that collapsed a hundred small stores would open in their place, each specializing in a certain item. Too many people on this site cannot see the forest for the trees. The Japanese made this mistake in 1941 and nearly lost their country as a result. The only mortal wound to America would be a metorite strike; same is true for any continental nation. Even the effects of nuclear warfare is overhyped. Russia, China, India, Brazil, the U.S. and many of the African nations are pretty much untouchable in the grand scheme of things.
You might have a thousand small stores opening post-Walmart, but if those stores cannot obtain stock, they’ll close.
US Manufacturing (with the sole exception of military) has been entirely off-shored. You don’t have the capability to rebuild in an acceptably short time frame (that’s months, not a decade) and you certainly do NOT have the people with the necessary skillsets in sufficient numbers. A few “boutique” specialists are not going to make any measurable difference.
Then, there’s the problem of raw materials (including tooling). For just one example, deliberate de-industrialisation has seen a massive decrease in US steel production, and even “mothballed” plants will take over a year to bring back on line (assuming, again, availability of suitable numbers of trained and capable staff – this is an area where “Office-workers need NOT apply” for obvious practical and safety reasons). Most of your carbide tooling is produced overseas, and it will take a considerable time to establish a home-grown capability with sufficient quantity and quality to replace import losses.
As to “the effects of nuclear war are overhyped”, consider that a SINGLE modern 550kt warhead detonation over a decent sized metropolitan area will immediately produce more casualties than the peacetime capability of your entire health system. Russia alone has about 350 RS35M2 ICBS, each carrying ten such warheads, with yields between 550 -750kt). Their RSM-56 (Bulava) SLBMs carry a comparable number of smaller warheads (“only” 100kt), each of which, again, is capable of producing more immediate casualties than your health care system can manage.
As to the longer term effects of fallout, the US Castle Bravo fiasco might be a good starting point. That single miscalculation has cost the US treasury $50 million in compensation so far, and was described as a “second Hiroshima” by the Japanese (who probably know what they are talking about).
You’re right in your assessment of US manufacturing. When I was growing up in the late 1950’s, 95% of all consumer items were produced & consumed right here in the US. Very few items were imported. Keep in mind, most of Europe was still recovering from World War II along with Japan. That includes auto, clothing, consumer electronics, sporting goods, etc. The same with industrial products like machine tools, farm implements like tractors, mining equipment, etc. That all changed after the 1969-71 recession when de-industrialization began & has continued to this very day. Another item that changed, was foreign ownership of long time US companies in the manufacturing sector, with England, Germany & Japan leading the way.
As someone who lived through the Cold War & remembers the Cuban Missile Crisis during the month of October, 1962 like it happened minutes ago, let’s put it this way. The effects of nuclear war are not “overhyped”, per se. The weapons are more lethal & devastating today than they were 60 years. Most fallout shelters constructed in the 1950’s & 1960’s are for the most part, worthless in 2022. I don’t know were TRIME came to that conclusion. I keep up on all the latest developments in civil defense which includes NBC warfare & the consensus if just the opposite.
This country you are dreaming about is not the ole country, you remember.
You are ONE significant event away from general martial law – imposed or voluntary. Your society is so segmented, it is absolutely impossible to rally along a single line.
When that happens, J6 will look like a celebration. And I am not talking left or right here.
I am not gonna lie to ya – that day I will open a bottle of something special to celebrate…and mourn…
Mark my words.
I have always looked forward to reading Michael Hudson, for he like few others are objective. But like others, I see a slightly different position of late, where the resurrection of dying America can be done.
That European politicians are all bought by America is a fact. So is Turkey, Pakistan, some African countries and oligarchs in central Asia. In Russia as well, but that will end soon.
The hope that America and Europe will somehow continue to rape and plunder Africa is a hope, but not reality. Soon, the resources needed to keep the west fed, heated and technologies will have to come from the “international community”. The vast majority of Africans have stated most clearly that Russia is their friend, like China, and renounce imperialism. The bribes and threats will be replaced by Russian mercenaries in Mali, where the French were kicked out. We will see Russian, Chinese, north Koreans, Iranian, syrians, hizbollah and others join the struggle to liberate Africa. Mercenaries I mean, and they are itching to confront you.
Most of you have no idea of the hatred people have for Israel led America has in store for it. You believe that people forget, just like in North America,where we have been taught to forget after 2 days. No, they have suffered, died,starved under you and now it is pay back time.
The arrogance, ignorance and hatred in the west is overwhelming, but who are you convincing? Yourselves.
The Russians have committed less than a third of their forces in Ukraine. The rest is for us, and all them jokers who tell you that Russia is losing is the same fiction that you look at in Hollywood, Netflix’s or America got talent whatever..
Seeing this double down madness,it seems that the few that control us , believe that they can go nuclear, as a last resort. You will face nuclear missiles from Russia, China, Pakistan and north Korea simultaneously, and Iran will launch thousands of missiles into the leader of the “International community”.
I bemoan the fact that Russia is politely putting up with all this hatred, but I see why they have to protect civilians. They west is counting on the fact that Chinese and other nationalities live in the west, so they can always use them as cover. Much like their trained and armed Nazis in Ukraine are doing.
But I will tell you a fact, the Russians lost 27 million in WW2 and the Chinese lost millions too. If you think that Russia can and will ever back down; you will face reality for the first time in your life.
I say it again what Vladimir Putin told you: “if you go too far, you will face something that you have never experienced in your history”! The rest of this world does not need the west and that is why they tout climate change. But that is for another story.
Yes. To get back to reality from all the conspiracy bs, one only needs to read Putin’s last speeches. It cant be said more clearly: NO ONE NEEDS THE WEST! NO ONE!
But we badly need Africans, Latins, Moslems/Persians, Chinese and Russians. People with soul and spirit!
Besides that, you must admit that Sylvester Stallone won all his battles in all his movies, and that we havent even asked Dr. Manhattan who is on US side, to assist America!!
America always win as we are a nation of winners a light on the hill who cant loose! If we can do it, we can dream it.
I think it’s not exactly either, neither strictly financial nor ideological. This is the next stage of building back better. Having failed (predictably) with plan A, to a) get closer to the espoused goal of reducing global population by 5/6th and b) herding everyone into digital cages for better management purposes, Davos is now using economic leverage wrapped in a facade of liberal democracy to get control of at least the gullible and softened west, zone A, in hopes of contending with the irksome nationalists down the road. Like the pandemic, it will mostly not work, but the unintended consequences and numbers of “civilian” casualties will be enormous.
Rely nice Michael. Have read your latest édition of “Super Imperialism..” and like your views on the futur we can expect, especially the importance of the économic driver of all this: clash between social industrialism and the rentier economic system. Wow!. Gives us time to adjust to futur changes, especially when we’re from America.
“That makes the New Cold War against China an implicit opening act of what threatens to be a long-drawn-out World War III.” – Pepe Escobar (as are all other quotes unless stipulated otherwise.
In my opinion, there is No Cold War – it is a Hot War. And, it will not be “drawn-out”, it will be quite swift; there are not year for this to occur – check the pace of events.
“Many African and Latin American countries – especially North Africa – face a choice between going hungry,” Yes they will and so will Western countries including the USA. Many, if not most, people have no idea what is coming.
“What is in this for the Global South countries being squeezed – not merely as “collateral damage” to the deep shortages and soaring prices for energy and food, but as the very objective of U.S. strategy as it inaugurates the great splitting of the world economy in two?” It is a process of imposing starvation and death – setting aside “strategy” it’s simply evil.
“The real problem is that by the time the world understands what is going on, the global fracture will already have enabled Russia, China and Eurasia to create a real non-neoliberal New World Order that does not need NATO countries and which has lost trust and hope for mutual economic gains with them. The military battlefield will be littered with economic corpses.” The “battlefield” will indeed be littered with corpses – the cause of death will be manifold – famine, combat, “medically induced”, mental fracture, and so on.
Humans are being assaulted on may fronts; solution? None are guaranteed; best recommendation – become system independent and connect with God.
Thanks Michael for painting the big picture. My feeling is that the American new world order project was created just to keep the US collecting money from other countries, somewhat like a thug would do by taxing local businesses. That is not something new from the US but the technique has now been perfected to the point of mass production of color revolutions. There is one currently going on in Taiwan.
It’s all really quite simple: the Ukrainian war is Thucydides trap, the great reset was the desire of the hegemon to regain what power it once had, it is losing the war in Ukraine and the economic war, it is therefore retreating and extracting all of the wealth from it’s innermost imperial holdings in Europe, as a collapsing empire does.
This will go on for some time, how long I do not know, Europe will elect nationalist politicians, they will throw off the yoke of America, America will cease being able to pillage Europe, America will then collapse.
You are right about everything except the last part. America will not collapse.
It already has.
Resurrect an imaginary guy from the 1950s and drive them around in ANY population center. Do it with a doode from b4 Y2k…
It`s gone man. It`s ebt-s, opioids, quickie lube and financial instruments.
north of a hundred thou military personal dead from suicides alone – with all it`s derivatives.
Look at Your commander in diapers. Look at that…eh…wherever You look, it is pure evil staring back at ya.
Well…good luck friend – you`ll need it.
“The result today is a clash of economic systems – socialist industrialization vs. neoliberal finance capitalism.” Let’s take this down to a more fundamental level, the level of evolutionary social-psychology…What we have is clash between collectivist-oriented (on the average, with minor exceptions) peoples and individualist, and the underlying causes for this dichotomy lie in geographical conditions…ways of living that were suited best to the climate and fauna. Now, these differences have become embodied in the elite classes of both sides (have become their holy lies) reflected in their management style, although the conditions that led to the dichotomization are not so valid anymore due to technological changes that have taken both sides toward the essentially the same ways of life…toward modernity, a way of life based on advancing technology and exosomatic energy sources. So, it may very well be that, given more time, we will see a homogenization, and in fact it is already very much the case that neither side is as purely socialist or capitalist as it once was. Where will this process ultimately lead? Will one side become the dominant hegemon and swallow-up the other, or will they destroy each other?
All wealth is created by the workforce using industrial capitalism for mass production.
Financial capitalism is merely parasitic on industrial capitalism and the workforce.
In 2015, in Cayman Islands where I lived for a while, over lunch, cigars and scotch with 7 friends, I brought up my prediction that we will see a global war in our lifetime due to fall of the dollar.
Five of them, mainly financial planners, rolled their eyes and laughed at me and carried on with mindless conversation. One looked at me with anger as to how dare I predict such garbage.
The only person who stayed quiet was a wise old man, an ex-MI6 retired there, whom after 2-3 minutes asked me quietly why I thought that would happen. What was telling was his body language and demeanor which validated my prediction, as if telling me that yes it will happen but how the hell do you know that?
IMO, the WW3 is a forgone conclusion. It will happen. I just hope that the sheep will wake up early enough to maybe, just maybe, prevent it from going any further. Alas, the sheep will remain sheep.
Evil always eats its own. Always.
The euro for intent and purposes been absorbed by the USD at this point, can’t buy food, energy, commodities from Russia, nor buy the same items from the US whom demands USD, eventually will have to buy chinese goods in Yuan. so what’s the point of the Euro anymore? in one fell swoop the US has completely neutered and absorbed EU completely into its empire and for which there is no painless escape.
Uncle Sambo is holding the Eurobots hostage…..and the Eurobots are in awe of their captors.
Stockholm Syndrome anyone?
Definitely:
https://www.history.com/news/stockholm-syndrome
By the second day, the hostages were on a first-name basis with their captors, and they started to fear the police more than their abductors. When the police commissioner was allowed inside to inspect the hostages’ health, he noticed that the captives appeared hostile to him but relaxed and jovial with the gunmen. The police chief told the press that he doubted the gunmen would harm the hostages because they had developed a “rather relaxed relationship.”
Patty Hearst is the funniest one:
https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/patty-hearst-captured
In April, however, the situation changed dramatically when Patty Hearst declared, in a tape sent to the authorities, that she was joining the SLA of her own free will. Later that month, a surveillance camera took a photo of her participating in an armed robbery of a San Francisco bank, and she was also spotted during the robbery of a Los Angeles store.
The time has come for concentration camps for US citizens in Europe.
If they don’t want that, they all leave and go home, immediately.
All US citizens must henceforth be banned from working in financial services in Europe. Every single US financial services organisation will be denied licenses to work in Europe and execution without trial is entirely appropriate for those who transgress.
The oil sector is banned from dealing with any US organisation and all oil and gas trading henceforth will be in any currency but dollars.
Every single US embassy in Europe has every single US citizen expelled with no right to return.
That is what is required and we all know that the USA would start bombing its NATO satrapies if it actually happened.
Why?
Because the USA has only ever been an organised crime syndicate.
It has never represented freedom, bravery nor integrity.
It is a societal two year old demanding to be head of the family.
About time that its parents told the two year old that it can scream and shout all it wants, throw tantrums all day long, but the only answer it is going to get is NO.
Now as the USA has behaved exactly like that to others for 80 years, it’s about time it had a continent-wide pushback.
No doubt the Polish prostitutes will disagree…..
3000 LNG tankers trips just to replace Nord Stream 1 that will not happen , for a start there is only 600 LNG tankers on earth
Not only that, but according to Qatar the total (non contractually bound) non-Russian LNG available is a miniscule proportion of what Europe would require. The US allegedly does not even possess sufficient gas.
Whether there are large long term contracts in Asia or elsewhere shortly due to expire that might change that by 2024 I have no idea – but in any case Asia is more productive and can afford to pay a higher price than bankrupt Europe, so how could Europe outbid for such contracts?
Its not a bidding war, its approaching a global resource war.
We are witnessing a bifurcation of the World’s energy supply. Western Europe will source its energy from its client states like UAE, Saudi Arabia while Asia will source it from Russia. The transition will take a few years to unfold as old contracts expire and new ones get drawn up. WW3 is brewing, with this bifurcation there will be winner and a loser. Win-lose strategies always end up as lose-lose outcomes.
I’m a little bit puzzled by this piece of yours, Mr Hudson, and by your reasoning. A weird US plan in my view if you are right. If Oncle Sam destroy Western Europe’s economy, what’s the good for him? Who is going to buy his products? Not Europe because she will be dead, certainly not China, not Russia, not India, not Pakistan, not Indonesia, Not Iran, not… Japan so? South Corea? Israel? … well, good luck with that. I’d rather bet on US panic, idiocy, incompetence or/and corruption than on machiavellianism. It looks like more as a slightly deferred suicide.
But I agree on one point : whatever the real plan of the US, if they have one, Western Europe is doomed.
Oh, and I forgot in my list of Uncle Sam’s sins the main ones: hubris and arrogance.
What will Europe do? Begin to vote for populist and nationalist candidates. Let’s see how things play out in France first, and go from there.
But what is in this for Europe?
Why didn’t you ask what is in this for Russia and China, the key players?
Frankly, I don’t understand why Russia should be allowing the US to devour Europe for lunch, as doing so only prolongs the US aggression towards Russia – if indeed that is what Russia will do; they haven’t yet announced the counter sanctions, so the cards are not yet shown on the table.
President Putin has said that in the event of missiles being launched against Russia, Russia will respond not just to knock out the incoming missiles but to destroy the decision-making centres that ordered their launch, i.e. within the continental USA. He should apply exactly the same principle to sanctions. It is the US that planned these sanctions, it is the US that planned the Ukraine war that was intended as false flag for the sanctions, it is the US that forced the Ukrainian nazis to sacrifice themselves and their country to create an existential threat to Russia, and provided the drugs on which the nazis are permanently high.
Therefore it is the US – and the US dollar, and the capacity of the US to control its proxies – that needs to be destroyed by Russian contra-sanction policies. It is the US that is an existential threat to Russia – and to China – not the EU, So why on earth should Russia fall in line with all the meticulous and convoluted plotting of the US, and allow the US to benefit from their insane eveil? I don’t believe they will do so.
In an act of supreme judo, this is the perfect time to take all the energies of the US evil actions and intentions and hit them squarely back on the US. With such colossal control of globally natural resources and commodities at their disposal between Russia, China, Belarus, Kazakhstan and other Central Asian countries, they can with carefully engineered measures hit specifically the US with such colossal force that they will not only be floored, but crash right through the floor.
They can do this not only with resources/commodities themselves, but by controlling ratios of short/long futures in conjunctrion with manipulating the availability of those resources over time, they can smash all the big time Western financial players once and for all by eradicating them through their exposures to futures.
In addition, by allowing the “Friendly Countries” (Global South) to have a competitive advantage over the “Unfriendly Countries” (traditional leaders in exploitation and financial manipulation) in the purchase of energy and resources/commodities with their own currencies at discounted exchange rates, while “Unfriendly Countries” have to buy using expensively obtained Rubles, or with gold at an artificially expensive Ruble/gold exchange rate. This has the potential to totally turn the tables between the Global South and the “Unfriendly Countries” (see here for more details). It is a too good opportunity to miss.
On futures: by controlling ratios of short/long futures – such as what the Chinese did recently with nickel by controling huge stocks of nickel, then manipulating availability over time to reverse outcomes of short vs long futures.
Makes sense.
Russia has to start to develop within its own borders.
Everything is focused on trade at the moment and you don’t hear much about what it is going to do within its own borders.
Export to growth isn’t a very good economic model. It has to be more balanced.
How do you replace job losses from exporting sectors while the adjustment takes place ?
Introduce a job guarentee. Anybody who wants a job can have one. At a living wage with a pension and good benifits.
That sets the floor that the private sector has to compete against to attract labour.
The people learn new skills on the job guarentee. Show they can turn up for work and transition into the private sector more easily as Russia starts an economic boom within its own borders.
As the adjustment continues anybody made unemployed by the private sector as the private sector invests in New machinery and becomes more productive will be caught by the job guarentee.
Keeping aggregate demand up and Russia at full employment at all times.
Between 1935 and 1943, the WPA literally built the infrastructure of modern America, including 572,000 miles of rural roads, 67,000 miles of urban streets, 122,000 bridges, 1,000 tunnels, 1,050 fifty airfields, and 4,000 airport buildings. It also constructed 500 water treatment plants, 1,800 pumping stations, 19,700 miles of water mains, 1,500 sewage treatment plants, 24,000 miles of sewers and storm drains, 36,900 schools, 2,552 hospitals, 2,700 firehouses, and nearly 20,000 county, state, and local government buildings with unskilled workers.
Unskilled workers built modern day America.
Far more productive than sitting at home unemployed because the private sector wouldn’t hire them.
Moved into private sector jobs more easily afterwards and became entrepreneurs and started their own companies.
In the US twenty-seven million get the Earned Income Tax Credit, because they hold low-wage or come-and-go jobs. Another several million get unemployment insurance—in a good year. Forty million or so get food stamps—it was over seventy million in the 2008 crisis. How many millions take Social Security early or have applied for disability because they couldn’t find work?
The public payroll pays a lot of people for not working. Much of this “burden”—not all, but a lot—would shrink under a job guarentee.
Not to mention the crime rates and divorces and drug problems caused by long term unemployment. The effect it has on children.
The Job Guarantee wage is only paid to people working in Job Guarantee jobs. The more people on the scheme the more government spending. When they move to private sector jobs that payment stops — which automatically reduces government spending.
It is an ‘auto-stabiliser’. Spending goes up when the economy is down, and spending goes down when the economy is up.
So because it is carefully targeted at only the people that need it, and it automatically self-adjusts based upon need, there is no requirement to correct any over spend via taxation on the other side.
The result of that is straightforward. The current low tax rates can stay.
Not only is it a brilliant automatic stabiliser it is a fantastic price anchor also.
A crucial point is that the JG does not rely on the government spending at market prices and then exploiting multipliers to achieve full employment which characterises traditional Keynesian pump-priming.
It works like any Monopoly price setter you set the price and let it float.
Full employment, brilliant automatic stabiliser and a fantastic price anchor. That would set the standard that the private sector has to compete for labour.
You can even attach free childcare along with a decent pension to it. As it works from the ground up not the top down.
Would allow Russia the time to move away from export led growth. Without any job losses.
It really is a no brainer…….
BM,
The key being the minimum standard for work can be anything you want it to be.
The transition job designed to move between the public sector and private sector more easily can be anything you want it to be.
Living wage for a change
Decent pension
Free childcare
Free healthcare
You can attach anything you like to the minimum standard.
The private sector has to match the minimum standard. Or invest in becoming more productive use high tech to produce output.
Anybody made unemployed will be caught by the minimum standard transition job. Giving them time on a living wage to learn new skills rather then sit unemployed doing nothing for years. Keeping their families safe.
As Russia moves to a more productive economy. Away from the export to growth model to a more balanced economy.
You balance the economy not the budget.
Making sure you have enough skills and real resources available to avoid inflation. Making education free also to fill the skill gaps.
If any European want to know what’s going to happen to them, just ask a South or Central American colleague: once the dollar crushes the Euro, your governments will start selling state-owned companies and services to the first or more influential (not the highest) US bidder – remember Bechtel privatizing water distribution in Bolivia and apply this concept to NHS, high speed railways, public education, healthcare…
Also, your own 5th/6th columns in the Judiciary System, most of them blackmailed a la Dominique Strauss-Kahn, will start dismantling your private industries and the political system – remember Alston, Siemens, Volkswagen Dieselgate, Samsung, Huawei, ENI, Petrobras, Operation Clean Hands in Italy, Operation Car Wash in Brazil…
Summarizing: US shareholders will own everything and your function in the society will be to ensure fat dividends for them, while carrying a heavier tax burden to make up to the tax exemptions given to them.
When will Russia ends this circus? The West has already declared war to Russia and is sending all kind of weapons to Ukraine…they are treating Russia like the famous frog in boiling water, sending ever more lethal weapons. Russia must clearly say that they will target any weapon delivery to Ukraine from the West no matter when they are located, even if outside Ukraine. So, are they in Poland near the borden? They should target them there. These countries are not neutral anymore and Russia should take a stance. NATO is using Ukraine as cannon fodder to decimate the Russian army’s resources as much as possible. Send missiles inside Poland to where they store these weapons to give them a clear warning not to interfere or the West will become ever more aggressive and in the future they will send fighter jets and missiles too.
This is why I come here – for concise commentary that slices through the morass of competing disinformation in the western ‘media space’. For us in the west, we need insight and reminders, beyond the soft power, media, pro-NATO propaganda thrown at us daily, to recognize that NATO is an imperial political and military structure, based entirely around USA interests. Under this structure, the USA determines and manages the foreign and economic policies of the NATO member states.The USA ensures lesser NATO members are compliant with their Geo-strategic directives through the carrot and stick approach, but increasingly, the two are fused, and it’s getting very hard to tell the carrot from the stick!
It is 72 Roubles for a USD now…
I read scenarios like the one now unfolding in the mid-90s.
This is way longer than one year.
Interestingly, Russia is acting perfectly according to plan of quarter a century ago.
Actually, the plan wants Russia to ally with China which then attacks Taiwan and marches through Russia to overrun Europe. Alternatively, Russia should be made to attack Europe alone.
All this only to get rid of Europe being “tired of war” and re-rising “heroism” of uniformed hordes.
Hope, this won’t go according to plan. This would be bad for Europe and Russia. In case for China, too.
The drumbeats of war, climate change, the false flag of the COVID19 pandemic, and cyberattacks are used to instill fear and cover up the bankruptcy of global corporate government and the impending global currency reset.
https://twitter.com/NestorBAguilar3/status/1438032139438604289 …
Karen Hudes has not been employed by the World Bank since 2007.
I don’t agree with you regarding North African countries. Algeria, for example, is clearly a friendly state to Russia (and China) and they clearly do not have any problems to import the necessary goods from Russia as the latter has ensured that no shortage will happen to friendly states.
Moreover, there is plenty of petrol and natural gas in Algeria for heating (if need be, because winter is clearly not the same as in Germany or Poland) and relatively little debt.
The biggest looser is really Europe (Switzerland very much included).
D Peskov must go or be fired:
Message from the editorial staff of the Russian media Readovka (and which calls on the other patriotic media to do the same), which now refuses to publish the statements of Peskov, which are oriented to demoralize the population. The editorial staff also wonders when he really speaks for Putin. Especially when in his last interview with Sky News, he places Mariupol in … LNR, insists on the great losses of the Russian army and while the Russian soldiers are being tortured hopes that everything will soon end with negotiations. See here, the elite divide takes shape –
https://readovka.news/news/93143?fbclid=IwAR1p39QeOJTouGH9mQxKl5gD19kX7msnZ4Dis6TQL72q2NbeyWvenYsZdyM
1. Michel Hudson succinctly and expertly maps out the descent of Europe into economic servitude to the Globalist Neoliberal Financial elite. The characteristic Regulatory and Protectionist institutions of the EU are unlikely to survive its relegation to a dollar indebted and disempowered regional globalisation project as predicted by MH forcing its exposure to more extreme radical neoliberal policies in a more volatile and unstable US dominated global economy beset by unsustainable contradictions. Under these conditions how long can it maintain the delicate economic and political balance before the forces of barbarism rooted and strengthened by the EU in Ukraine spread amidst the disintegration of Europe into weak dislocated competing states?
It is worthwhile to read Martin Armstrong again. It’s tough stuff, but he usually gets it right. We have some very tough years ahead of us.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/ukraine/the-end-of-ukraine-the-cyclical-view/
Hudson is quite wrong in asserting that Europe will be able to buy its missing energy and food from the United States..The US has an energy deficit, and all of its LNG is spoken for, while its food surplus is already being bought up by China and others…However, that food surplus is greatly endangered by the embargo on Russian fertilizer, and declining availability of fertilizer worldwide…Europe will suffer greatly if this madness continues…
Michael is an accomplished economist, but his knowledge about international trading of commodities and their logistics, lacks practical experience and that is quite understandable.
You can’t ship LNG across the Atlantic during wartime. Have these people never heard of “torpedoes”? The insurance alone wuld be insanely expensive.
One has to suspect that the people pushing this agenda are heavily vested in energy and insurance as well as arms production.
I am puzzled by this article.
1. Europe adopting dollar? That’s ludicrous! It’s one thing for a small country/economy adopting
foreign currency (Montengero adopting EUR, Ecuador adopting USD), but for a large entity like EU
adopting a currency they cannot control?
2. Dollar hegemony? Most of the people think that dollar hegemony is a huge privilege. It is, but
it’s also a huge curse and a burden. If dollar loses the status and becomes just one of the reserve currencies, I think this will be good in the long run for the US. They’ll be able to sort out
their economy, balance of payments and their budget. The US economy is very dynamic
and flexible (unlike the EU), so they’ll adjust ad do well in the future.
Both the US dollar aka federal reserve notes and the Euro currency are created ex nihilo as debt by private banks. The central bank of the US and the central banks of the Eurozone are controlled by exactly the same exclusive group of people who are at the top of the power pyramid, you know the one with the eye at the apex.
How quickly the `western` world understands what’s going on also depends on whether people are allowed to alternative sources of information from the other side of “new iron curtain”. Starting from the operation in Ukraine.
here is a real good summ up of the role of Germany as profiteur between the fronts, maybe some Russian/German speakers are interested
https://www.freie-radios.net/114885
“There has been talk of IMF issues of new SDRs to finance the rising trade and payments deficits. But such credit always comes with strings attached. The IMF has its own policy of sanctioning countries that do not obey U.S. policy.”
The IMF and World Bank are nothing but instruments to create and maintain national debt-slavery all around the world; it’s all they’ve been about for decades:
A national “elite” loots its country into the ground; it applies for and gets international loans to keep the gravy-train running; the debt, along with “austerity,” is saddled on the looted; and if they prove “uppity,” the looters’ financiers demand the looters show “political resolve” (terrorism, tanks in the streets).
I immediately tune out anyone who conflates plutocracy and capitalism:
Capitalism is a set of business-techniques; plutocracy is corruption and authoritarianism.
You can’t ship LNG across the Atlantic during wartime. Have these people never heard of “torpedoes”? The insurance alone wuld be insanely expensive.
Richard Childers on April 08, 2022 · at 3:58 pm EST/EDT
You’d have to issue guvment-insurance, or more likely, esply in America, farm it out to crony-corporations, with guaranteed mimimum profits.
“For the United States, this is Dollar Hegemony on steroids – at least vis-à-vis Europe. The continent would become a somewhat larger version of Puerto Rico”
Was this why Brittain decided to leave EU? Seems to me that Britain was in on this plot since its beginning.
Excellent analysis, but the world will go through a great depression before Michael Hudson’s prediction comes true.
Suggestion. In respect to the site that originally posted this and other articles you post, please provide the source link. Respectfully….
https://michael-hudson.com/2022/04/the-dollar-devours-the-euro/
In politics there are no accidents.
In politics there are no accidents
Ozone on April 09, 2022 · at 11:56 am EST/EDT
The 2016 US Presidential election, where the MSM quickly made it a Hillary v. Trump race, the latter of whom was destined to be the orange carpet over which Hillary would sweep to her coronation.
Unfortunately, just as in 2020, 60% of the electorate couldn’t stomach voting for either candidate, so that took it down to the 20% each “Party” can command (members, patronage, and “straight-ticket” morons).
.
I think how it will play out hopefully is that EU will delink from empire of lies. I cant understand in all honesty how can EU commit suicide for protection of imperial interests. And only hope EU can do it is by not splitting up. Atomistic micro states are more manipulable by empire of lies.
Hope this understanding evolves soon. Empire of lies attitude reminds me of a child who when starts losing at trade and economic competition game, picks up the ball and leaves the stadium. If you keep looting long enough, it increases the cost of production, and when it does you loose competitive advantage and competitors emerge. Now that China and Russia have started emerging, the empire wants to wrap up the rules based world order and trade and all that crap, and want to wrap the game up.
The result is decided. There will be transfer of production and thus wealth from the empire to developing world. You can sure try to stop it by restructuring capital flows through violence, but escalating cost of violence will plunge the world in stagflation, low productivity low growth trap.
How far the empire is willing to keeps its exorbitant privilidge is something to be seen yet. I hope it does not lead to total destruction. I used to laugh at Chomskys minutes to midnight analogy, but it seems real now.
I can’t understand in all honesty how can EU commit suicide for protection of imperial interests.
Xafer on April 09, 2022 · at 5:52 pm EST/EDT
Substitute “elite” for “imperial.”
The US is creating DEMAND for the USD and destroying any threats to this demand. Nordstream 2 was a threat to the USD as was Iraq’s selling of oil w/o USD and Quaddafi’s attempt to establish an African gold backed Dollar which would be the only currency traded for African oil. As long as the US has a hold on the world using the USD as reserve currency, it can print at home freely without heavy inflation.
Read my article where I go deeper into the dynamics of this,
https://robertrothbart.substack.com/p/the-great-restructuring?s=w
Well, I’m very happy to hear all this! Glad to hear that the USA, my country, has such a great plan to take over the world! If only the Russians has been smart enough to not invade Ukraine, they could have prevented it, but it’s too late now! Go USA!
There is no socialist economy in China. You got that very wrong.
Very interesting and well-written piece.
Just one quick question. How about British Ponds in your view. Where does it stand. Of course there are non-Euro European countries as well.
Thank you very much
Fereydoun