At the exact moment that the US dollar loses its reserve-currency status, the US empire will cease to exist. Yes, I know, it's not going to be literally a single moment, like switching off a light bulb, but the principle still applies. The process of the US dollar losing its special--hegemonic--status has been put in train by the seizing of Russian Federation central bank assets. There's no going back now. They've given the game away that US dollar assets are entirely at the whim of empire managers no matter where dollars are deposited. They can be frozen (seized, cancelled) arbitrarily and with total impunity. The non-Western bloc major players are all making preparations to exit their US-dollar dependency. How long will it take to fell the giant once and for all? No one knows of course, but I'd give it 10 years, tops. Yes, with the demise of the main denominator of trade and assets, financial chaos will ensue, but many countries are already showing agility in building up their resilience. Without the dollar's "special powers", the US cannot maintain its sprawling empire, and I doubt it will even be able to sustain its federal system of governance in any recognisable form.
In other words, by keeping your assets in dollar denominated forms or in any western jurisdiction, you are entirely at the mercy of the whims of Uncle Sam.
Feral is right. The lack of it shown in Iraq by the killer, “shock and awe” Bush, with sanctions on much needed medical supplies being a direct cause of the deaths of children, in the hundreds of thousands.
How does that mass murderer sleep at night.? Why doesn’t the ICC earmark him for attention? Perhaps, the greatest killer in our lifetime, next to Adolph Hitler. He is as free as a breeze. Honoured daily by his countrymen.
So when the dollar loses it's control through organisations like BRICS, direct dealings by countries who will use anything but the US dollar, (and of course the 'chosen people’s’ shekel), a situation that is on the increase, the US will fast become just another country. No other responsible government will want to have any trading relationships with them. They have no loyalties, no friends. It will be time for so many countries around the globe for “payback” for past corrupt and inhumane activities, conveniently forgotten by the likes of Biden as he continues to see Ukrainians die while fighting the US proxy battles, 8,000 kilometres from mainland USA. Clever thinking, Joe.
What pleasure all countries will get from that grand opportunity…..payback.
Such is now beginning in India, Pakistan and so many others. Of course , as is the nature of the beast, before that happens and while they can, the US Neocons will do what they can to sanction those countries to death, change governments as per their 'on-the-table' schedule in India, as it has been in the past with so many other countries. Even little Australia, considered a "friend" of the US in the 1960’s ( no such thing ....ask Kissinger) had a democratic, progressive, popular Labor government changed with the assistance of the CIA. Don’t believe it? IT IS TRUE.
Yes. The very popular Prime Minister was Gough Whitlam and he dared to bring Australian soldiers back from Vietnam. 'We’ll get you for that one, Gough boy'. said the USA. And they did.
That should be enough of a memory for Aussie's to give the US a wide berth in every way they can, But no. Into bed they jump yet again, based on a decision by three US controlled Australian politicians. From this date onwards every man, women and child will end up with a future debt of $14,400 with the well AUKUSTRATED’ AUKUS sham, an arrangement being so well appreciated financially by the US and UK militarists and arms suppliers. All that, together with US bases, nuclear armed B-52 airfields and ending up with even further control over that naive country. Let’s call it US State, number 51.
What a country! It is now a tame US whore, nothing less.
I couldn’t agree more and I’m so ashamed. Damn, I loved my country when I was a kid, then came the killing of Kennedy and the napalming and horror of Viet Nam and I’ve never looked back. But I always secretly hoped we could reclaim our decency. Now I know we can’t.
"Uncle SAM" entirely encapsulates the oblivious negligence and naiveté - the mindset - the gullible HUMAN MINDS have been put under by THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN believing it can rule GOD'S CREATION.
WORDS MATTER - as they bring into existence the very thing they express.
There is NO UNCLE SAM - its the very delusion - created by THE HEADS OF THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN - ALL HUMAN MINDS THAT HAVE WALKED WILLINGLY INTO THE MENTAL PRISON CELL PREPARED FOR ALL HUMAN MINDS DEPRIVED OF FAITH INTO ITS CREATOR - AND THEY ALMOST (as it seems right now) GOT AWAY WITH IT - BUT SCRIPTURE IS CLEAR "THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY, ONE TRUTH AND ONE LIFE" - ANYTHING ELSE IS DARKNESS AND DESTRUCTION!
Even while they lose that power, they still have by far the biggest military force and with it an iron grip on the vast majority of the richest industrialised countries. In all of these countries they have thousands of troops, military bases…..and a direct tap into the domestic security services. Remember: they were caught listening to Angela Merkels calls. ALL of their “allies” are vassals under thinly veiled occupation and completely open economic occupation
That’s what NATO expansion is also about - literally occupying these countries. It’s a shift to naked power of the gun.
And the Nord Stream bombing shows the shift to naked economic occupation.
The dollar stuff is yesterday’s strategy. They’ve moved into using far more blunt and direct force.
What funds the U.S.'s military empire or the Military Industrial Complex? A printing press. If you want to harpoon that whale, you detonate the device that makes all the funding possible.
What I’m pointing out though is the are now constructing a FUTURE that is feudalistic. And the masses in the countries they control will be squeezed like oranges. Same as feudal lords did.
I'm focussing on the FUTURE. If you are worried about authoritarian trends - made possible by unlimited money creation thanks to that magic printing press - you'd want to end that system. Which is what China, Russia and other nations are figuring out. Who hasn't figured this out yet is the every-day Joe's and Jane's in America. Many don't like the erosion of freedoms and civil liberties ... and the inexorable growth of the State, but they haven't figure out what actually allows Big Brother to get so Big. Plus, they like all the "benefits" and that "safety net" that makes them feel safer. They also like the military bases and missile plants in their Congressional districts. So it will be quite the challenge to get large percentages of these people to do something that will weaken the Nanny who they think is protecting them.
If you want to brandish a stick to force compliance, and others are using carrots, that method will be difficult to sustain. Conventional arms manufacturing is dominated by the U.S., but it is contingent on the plundering of other nations which can be under a collective umbrella that the U.S. military cannot move to its whimsy. China and Russia and the global south want nothing to do with the U.S., and a system that can function outside of the U.S. purview will eventually shrink the reach of the empire, and the budget it requires to sustain it. When the dollar falls, the American population better get ready to rise, because dislocation everywhere will be the consequence.
Secession is the real elephant in the room. I think seceding states that did away with a Fed and legalized, say, silver for every-day transactions would have a great competitive advantage over countries that just kept producing more Monopoly or digital money. Also, the seceding states might decide they don't need a massive military to protect them from future invasion by Iran or North Korea or even Russia or China. Economic realities will change everything at some point. This said, big wars remain the greatest worry as they tend to happen in times of massive economic strife.
The U.S. has prospered by buying the collusion of former empires like England, France, Holland, and Italy in its hegemonic dominance of less agreeable nations with resources that it covets. As the dollar loses its clout, those former empires are less likely to be loyal at reduced incentives. Add to this the inherent difficulty in ramping up stress on the periphery when the core is overheating.
There's a reason feudalism died. The US Oligarchy is returning the US to neo-feudalism (has returned?) but it isn't going to last. Big Brother won't be able to control it.
I don't really know who Neil Oliver is, but folks from the UK tell me he's a neo-lib apologist, but here he is forcefully and very convincingly attacking UK neo-libs, much like Tucker Carlson is in the USA.
The USA's neo-colonial system (imperialism) is being undercut. (BRI is one example) neo-feudalism will not be able to compete. How long this takes though, that's certainly open to debate.
It may be that the argument you make is too short term for those of us who disagree with you.
That and a covert drugs trade in Cocaine from South America and Heroin in Afghanistan. The poppy fields were guarded by U.S. troops during the Gulf conflict! On abandoning Kabul, leaving behind many to certain death, intact high tech military equipment and all the flowering poppy fields were left as a parting gift.
I am not saying that you are wrong, but blunt force is for those who no longer can use more subtle means. Otherwise Rubio would not have any reason for concern, we can just involve ourselves in a million little wars and police actions. to force others to trade in our currency, sell their strategic assets for cheap and buy our junk assets at sticker price.
Similarly, the empire's increasing reliance upon overt censorship and naked repression are sure signed of weakness and not strength.
Also remember that the Chinese come from an ancient tradition of wisdom within which is stated “do not do evil the courtesy of fighting it blow for blow, for it only thinks of weapons. Instead, make energetic progress in the good.” I find this utterly compelling and can see that it is China’s approach to the maniacs that run our world.
ABSOLUTELY - the gloves are coming off by definition no matter what "subtle" (benevolent in disguise) game you pretend to play - THE TRUTH is BENEVOLENT BY DEFINITION - THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN IS THE OPPOSITE and thereby only becoming visible as of now to those so much IMMERSED IN THE LIES so they cannot see the woods for the trees
No sir. I believe you are absolutely incorrect. America does not produce the energy or any goods cheaply. All made in Asia. They still need fuel. They don't have it. The dollar is backed by nothing. So it is worth nothing.
It was. Then George W, Obama, Trump and Biden ran the debt beyond petrodollars.
So in my limited economic background, it has been said that the entire US monetary system is based off debt. Whether it is futures contracts, mortgage backed securities, loans to banks and corporation. Everything is owed and few citizens own anything. Most use leverage to gain access to prosperity.
The Petro dollar is a weak position if you dont control most of the oil. The USA does not control most of the oil. After closing Keystone, they were no longer the world's leaders in exporting oil. Saudi Arabia is hooking up with Iran and China.
So both of these key facts among the war machine draining the american citizens of every cent is adding up to a doomsday dollar scenario.
They have 300 million people. China has 1.5 billion. India the same.
American citizens foolishly believe they are still a military power. The factories that make the computer chips are in Asia. The steel is Chinese.
America is done. Still dangerous but bleeding to death.
Ogod! I love it! As I read this great explanation I got more and more hopeful that soon there would be an end to our ugly betrayal of all values big and small in our demented pursuit of…..what exactly? I don’t think anybody really knows what we are pursuing, we’re just running from our own shadow. But when you said the factories that make computer chips are in Asia, I just whooped! Talk about ahoist with our own petard! 😁😆😂🤣
But take a lesson from nature—glaciers are supposed to be I pregnable, yet when a glacier blocked the river between two mountains in Missoula Montana, the water started to eat away at the base of the glacier cresting “rotten ice”. This ice rotted more ice and pretty soon the glacial dam broke and water rushed out and down to the Pacific Ocean at 85 miles an hour, topping the cliffs of the Colombia gorge and piling up 600 ft of water in what is now Portland Or. It completely rescaped the land over 4 sates and did it all in 8hours. Never underestimate collapse!
You are describing the very result of THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN'S way of dealing with reality. By resembling it but NEVER EVER REALLY LIVING UP to THE LIES THEY HAVE SPEWED OUT to spun a WEB OF DECEPTION but in the end THE GLOVES are coming off BIG TIME as the whole THEATRE is a SHAM fro its inception.
ANY HUMAN MIND interested in how this one will end should watch THE LORD OF THE RINGS - for sure every HUMAN MIND hopes and believes being part of THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT but in REALITY VERY FEW WILL FIND THE NARROW PATH AND SMALL GATE THAT LEADS TO LIFE.
Nothing has changed in Europe after the capitalist masters sidelined democracy innFrance and even bombed Europe’s supply of cheap gas, replacing it with gas imported at 3x the price from ConocoPhilips as US company.
Europe has been militarily occupied since 1945. There are troops, bases and weapons prepositioned in Europe for more troops. Note further that as will all empires, compliant troops can be brought in from one vassal state to quench any uprising elsewhere. Do you think that Poland or Denmark or will not send in troops to “peacekeeping” in Francevof wherever, if the master sets them the job?
Resistance and rebellion. I suspect Germany will follow in near future. It seems to me that the strategic challenge is whether the revolutionary impetus will congeal in right wing Fascist politics or some form of democratic socialism.
I think we've had this discussion before. As long as the security services continue to follow orders, Macron (and Scholz and Biden) all can sleep soundly.
So far, nothing indicates that the cops and soldiers will not shoot when ordered to do so. Lord knows that France and the US have spent a lot of time and training making sure that those security services are reliable. Germany, I'm not so sure, but Germans, are, generally speaking, rule followers who are quite trusting of authority.
I’m inclined to agree. Which is why I’ve stopped believing in revolution and am working on evolution. And evolution is not as slow nor as weak as scientists like to pretend—in fact HOPE— it is.
You are confusing science and sociology/politics. You need to distinguish biological (Darwinian) evolution from social evolution. Political Revolution is like punctuated equilibrium (S J Gould).
The Suez War is generally recognized as the end of the British Empire, and this war in Ukraine could well be the marker for the beginning of the end of the U.S. empire. Unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of human beings, the American empire has displayed its contempt for human rights, and it will not go down softly.
The irony is that the United States would have a lot MORE power if it dropped the empire and relied upon soft power. At one time, rightly or wrongly, people looked up to the United States, and not because they were necessarily scared to do otherwise.
The problem is that this would require the United States to actually practice what it preaches.
In 1945, the US was simply the last man standing. 50% of world production was in the US. Therefore, they got to reorganize the world, which had been an aim of US elites at least since Roosevelt and Wilson. I imagine it was difficult, after the World Wars, to imagine that soft power would be very effective.
I would say the effective end of the British Empire was implicit in the Fall of France, Afterward, they no longer had any effective great-power allies. The Soviet Union and the US saved their bacon, but the US charged a fairly high price. See the Atlantic Charter (August, 1941).
WW II, despite Germany & Japan being defeated by Soviet’s & US, was ALSO Germany & Japan’s fatal defeat of Britain and end of British empire.
But before the end of WWII Britain was fatally wrecked corpse and on life support from US economically and militarily and by Soviet Union military. From right here in 1941:
Desire the billing as allies these countries were not even equals by the end of WWII.
All winddown was from WWII. Already by 1947 India, the biggest part of the. British empire, was free.
Suez was a looong time later and deep into the process.
In the present time, there is no parallel. Russsia has fended off USA. But US is still militarily strong and is consolidating a military and economic chokehold across its empire including Japan, Australia, Finland Sweden Germany etc.
Britain didn't need India to be its colony to still exploit it. And before the Suez War, Britain had not begun the habit of inward gazing isolation. Its relative inability to dictate the terms of Israeli-Egyptian relations was really the evidence that their day was over. And the American empire is comfortable with never winning any of its many wars, but weakening Putin is going to end up being a bitter lesson for all of the Europeans who lent a hand. The U.S. control of the U.S. is not going to be a cakewalk when its money can buy nothing.
On deck: Digital currencies, which are a euphemism for banning cash. Even with that magic printing press, the U.S. can't produce enough money to fund all of its obligations (military and social net - pensions, Medicare, Medicare, welfare, etc.)
Covid got us "vaccine passports" and digital I.D. cards ... so whether intentional or not, they are closer to where they need to be to implement the other parts of their program. And that program has nothing to do with greater "freedom" for individual citizens.
Digital currency is just a smoke and mirrors trick to extend the illusion given by the magic printing press. If I went to a bank for a mortgage and typed some zeros on my calculator for a mortgage they would laugh even with the property as collateral. The Dollar has no collateral to back it.
Meanwhile Russia and China have been buying gold and their reserves more than underwrite their currencies.
One of the plandemic aims was to introduce citizens ID cards to be carried at all times. The U.K. are still working towards this by for the first time insisting on photographic ID to vote in the upcoming local May elections. A twin attack policy as most voters without a passport or driving licence are the poor, students or inner city dwellers who would statistically vote for the left opposition. Typically, unlike the French, the British just mutter and pour another cup of tea.
Bottom line for me is that the smartest people in the CIA or Davos must know they are running out of money. They've got to have unlimited quantities of it to pacify/mollify the masses and to enrich themselves or keep their control. The maxim is correct: Always follow the money. But the money is actually counterfeit or Monopoly money. That's the ruse they can't let the masses know about. The "gold bugs" figured it out ... but they were easily labeled as "kooks" and have been ignored/dismissed. Don't listen to those "doom porn" crazies. I never believed the vaccines were "safe and effective." But what I thought didn't matter. Everyone was told "don't listen to those science-denying anti-vaxxers. Listen to us ... the experts." It works every time. We listen to and trust the crooks and dumb asses.
Good luck doing away with money as some form of mutually-acceptable form of transaction. That might be a utopian solution, but it's not going to work. There's a reason money was invented. It actually helps advance the world and the people in it (until it became too easy to game/rig). This said, once we get Weimar-Style hyperinflation, barter will be king. You can trade goods or skills. Silver and perhaps copper might still work. Gold is now too "precious." It's amazing that Monopoly money has worked as long as it has.
There will be no chaos. None. Pay in agreed currencies. Wheat, gold, rubber, cotton, copper, converted into currency, works well. It is trade. A 100lbs of copper is worth 1000 lbs of wheat. If you catch my drift. Ot bitcoin or rules. Love it.
I won't list why because the argument is never productive. Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson identify it as the ponzi scheme it is. But then they also tell us what "money" really is, another fraud, but one we cannot live without.
This is also why people are terrified of the World Economic Forum. More oligarchs letting you have paper, while they have everything else. "You will own nothing and be happy," as you get the bugs and live in the pod.
You can't go against the cool and powerful people in "the club." They all embrace pretty much the same narratives. Nobody wants to break ranks because they'll get the Assange treatment.
But it may be possible to uphold the dollar by purely military means. It won't matter then whether they've "given the game away" because the game will have changed to something quite overt.
But maybe instead of "will have" I should say "has".
I think that is the fate of all modern and many ancient empires, some more than once. Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ottoman, and so on. Not a good business.
Why is everybody always blaming Satan?!?! He was the beautiful angel who refused to serve the tyranny of Jehovah! It was the Pope who condemned the Native Americans to torture and extermination, the Pope who told Hitler, ah, it’s ok, off your Jews, they deserve it. Satan’s a good guy. And on South Park he happily has a boyfriend that Saddam is jealous of. How can THAT be bad? 🤪
The rest of the world is learning that the much-hyped "Muh property rights and Rule Of Law" is so much hot air, as the United States and its lackeys will deny both to anyone who gets crosswise with the Empire.
Very dangerous to keep one's assets in such lawless and arbitrary jurisdictions.
Canadian citizens who donated to the truckers had their bank accounts frozen.
Paypal stole $9387 from Consortium News for "spreading misinformation." After enough people terminated their accounts in protest Paypal returned the money.
One of the reasons I'd like Caitlin to consider "Buy me a coffee".
I can't possibly afford a subscription to all the good writers I pay attention to, but I certainly can reward them once in a while when they've written something excellent.
For example, I spent $100 for an annual subscription to the (loathsome) National Review. Now, assuming that it had, say, five columnists I considered worth following (yeah, just go with it here), I would like to spread that around to assemble, and compensate, my own virtual stable of commentators, including Substack posters, that I thought were truly worth reading and supporting.
For me, I could probably do about $200/yr, spread around over 5-10 writers. (Other people's mileage may vary.) That's about the cost of two typical online publications, but certainly fewer writers than two would offer up. But given the Substack subscription rates I've been seeing, $200 would cover less than 5.
Undermining the empire's ability to fund WW III is an added incentive of going off the dollar that BRICKs et al may or may not have foreseen. But I'm a fan of knocking an imperialist bully off his high horse for any reason.
America’s deindustrialized economy is kept alive by exploiting the unique US dollar inflow from surpluses and T-bill profit generated by almost every other country in the world. The dollar’s status as reserve currency lets the US export domestic economic pain by Fed money printing. It's a multi trillion dollar annual triage, and it's been going on for decades.
What Paul Volcker began in the 1970s as an ingenious way to maintain unaffordable US military spending has metastasized into an essential crutch propping up forever war and an otherwise non-viable economy.
For the past 50 years, behind a smokescreen of manipulated stockmarket indices, bogus GDP metrics, petrodollar gangsterism, debt peonage imposed on the Global South, and an army neoclassical Chicago school bullshit artists – every year has seen more of American's natural domestic economy hollowed out, corporatized, institutionalized, financialized, what’s left of productivity rearranging around the ever-extending military industrial complex.
Too late to pump the brakes, it's a conundrum no US politician has the courage or the conviction to resolve. So they follow the short-term imperative of sustaining America one more year by voting for more trillions in appropriations budgets pumped direct from the Treasury into the moribund economy. The point of no return past long ago. From here on in, it's ‘full scale dominance‘ or a Mad Max catastrophic collapse. What else can they do?
They've also rigged the inflation numbers for decades - to conceal real inflation. If it's a government-produce number, it's manipulated. I just went to the grocery store for the first time in a few weeks. I was stunned how much the price of EVERYTHING has gone up. An average size box of Mrs. Stouffer's lasagna was $10.89 when I know the same box was $4 less than a year ago. That's more than 100 percent inflation. And you can add 10-percent sales tax onto that price. You can only conceal or ignore this real inflation for so long.
Caitlin my dear - The two main economic arenas needing reform are Land and Money. Please consider advocacy for Public Banks and Land Value Taxation (commons Rent) instead of taxes on labor and production. Elite rule system stems from private profiteering in these two. Money is just a symbol system. Land, the Earth, is the Source. We must affirm that the Earth is the Birthright of All People..
"We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won't have the ability to sanction them." --lil Marco
There are limits to cops' assaults on their own people. France is approaching that limit.
The Germans are just beginning to taste the results of Neoliberal deindustrialization and the economic decline related to Nordstream sabotage, high energy prices, inflation, and the austerity that will increase under a war economy. Next winter breaks the camel's back.
''It seems unlikely to me that the emergence of a multipolar world will in and of itself produce any kind of wonderful utopia, and as Professor Richard Wolff explains the dollar's decline could potentially give rise to a lot of economic chaos and suffering. But at the very least the fall of US dollar hegemony would deprive one group of psychopaths a powerful weapon they should never have had, and could even end up impeding the empire's ability to ramp up for a global conflict between major powers — a conflict which must never occur.'' so this ALBERT WAS, IS AND IT WILL BE FOREVER RIGHT> > “Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called ‘vital’ interests.”- Albert Camus (1978). “Notebooks, 1935-1942”, Harcourt....100% RIGHT!
An excerpt from Peter Dalio's longer YouTube that talks about the cycle of empire.
Dalio is one of the Oligarchy. He is perhaps one that Nader was talking about in his book "Only the Super-Rich Can Save US". http://onlythesuperrich.org
He's mostly invested in China I guess so perhaps he's just figuring out a way of fleeing with his wealth to China. Or maybe ... Folks may want to watch his entire video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
I can't say I'm happy about events, but I sure am tired of living in a Fascist state (USA, although I think Australia, being a US vassal, it probably also).
This has always been the primary goal of U.S. policy - protecting the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, or as I call it "protecting the magic printing press." And, yes, rampant "manipulation" has been used for decades to achieve this result. That's why gold and silver "markets" have been manipulated for so long. The Status Quo Protectors know that they have to impeach/impugn people who believe in other forms of "money." Thus, these proponents of "history's money" or "real money" became gold "BUGS" - a dirty insect that should be squashed. The same tactic was used to malign critics of Covid "vaccines" as "anti-vaxxers" or "science deniers."
Yes, follow the money ... and all the money really comes from a magic fiat printing press, which would be destroyed if "faith" in the U.S. dollar somehow evaporated.
Technically, everyone's currency is fiat. The BRICS nations are trying to establish a common commodity-backed currency, but until that happens, it's all ghost money. It's just that the reserve status of the USD makes it more desirable, but not for long.
It’s their time; nations all over the world have been waiting for it. And ironically the hegemony brought all this on itself. They finally bit off more than they can chew by underestimating Russia. It took this ignorant bunch of warmongers to come along right a check their butt couldn’t cash.
The Eurasian community is forming so quickly that’s it hard to keep up, along with the speed by which the dollar is losing market. There are a half dozen countries for sure and many more are in process of using alternative currencies for trade among themselves. The last time I checked a few weeks ago the dollar had lost 40%of it’s market internationally.
So then, what do you when the body has a part with gangrene threatening to spread. That part has to be removed in order to save the rest of the body.
In the community of the world that infectious body part is our own collapsing financial system. Which as you know is no longer a industrial capitalist system but rather a financial capitalist and it’s failing. KSA said the decrease in oil is directly related to instability of the U.S. banking system.
So what to expect?
Expect Biden to announce cuts to social services programs such as SSI and Medicare after raising the minimum age of course.
Of course this will exasperate the economy but then we expect that from the maniacs in DC.
As rightly assumed by Jeff all democrat failed banks(which will be largest national banks) cities and states will certainly be rescued with bailouts.
I also add when the Walmarts, Cracker Barrel’s and McDonalds etc,start shutting down and moving out so will the other businesses such as Starbucks and smaller fast food chains.
That void will be filled with the very worst of humanity.
It was inevitable that the empire of the rules based order fall. All empires fall according to this one principle; spiritual collapse always precedes the collapse of an empire. When the internal supporting structure becomes soft with rot the external structure folds in on itself.
I’ve been reading outside the western media propaganda machine the rest of the world is making plans not be anywhere near when the U.S. falls.
This is pumped up Theatre of the Absurd, surely. When you can't keep up with sanctions , which by now must constitute a sizeable bureaucracy in itself, something has gone really wrong. And really wrong again when you studiously undermine your own world currency status, and suffer from the runaway inflation you want to inflict on others (blowing up pipelines? A Zen puzzle - they did it they didn't do it - at the same time). Well, let them figure it out. They're good at that.
At the exact moment that the US dollar loses its reserve-currency status, the US empire will cease to exist. Yes, I know, it's not going to be literally a single moment, like switching off a light bulb, but the principle still applies. The process of the US dollar losing its special--hegemonic--status has been put in train by the seizing of Russian Federation central bank assets. There's no going back now. They've given the game away that US dollar assets are entirely at the whim of empire managers no matter where dollars are deposited. They can be frozen (seized, cancelled) arbitrarily and with total impunity. The non-Western bloc major players are all making preparations to exit their US-dollar dependency. How long will it take to fell the giant once and for all? No one knows of course, but I'd give it 10 years, tops. Yes, with the demise of the main denominator of trade and assets, financial chaos will ensue, but many countries are already showing agility in building up their resilience. Without the dollar's "special powers", the US cannot maintain its sprawling empire, and I doubt it will even be able to sustain its federal system of governance in any recognisable form.
In other words, by keeping your assets in dollar denominated forms or in any western jurisdiction, you are entirely at the mercy of the whims of Uncle Sam.
But isn't Uncle Sam always for freedom and peace, and China and Russia are the "bad guys"?
Of course. Slip of the tongue.
Mercy.
Feral is right. The lack of it shown in Iraq by the killer, “shock and awe” Bush, with sanctions on much needed medical supplies being a direct cause of the deaths of children, in the hundreds of thousands.
How does that mass murderer sleep at night.? Why doesn’t the ICC earmark him for attention? Perhaps, the greatest killer in our lifetime, next to Adolph Hitler. He is as free as a breeze. Honoured daily by his countrymen.
So when the dollar loses it's control through organisations like BRICS, direct dealings by countries who will use anything but the US dollar, (and of course the 'chosen people’s’ shekel), a situation that is on the increase, the US will fast become just another country. No other responsible government will want to have any trading relationships with them. They have no loyalties, no friends. It will be time for so many countries around the globe for “payback” for past corrupt and inhumane activities, conveniently forgotten by the likes of Biden as he continues to see Ukrainians die while fighting the US proxy battles, 8,000 kilometres from mainland USA. Clever thinking, Joe.
What pleasure all countries will get from that grand opportunity…..payback.
Such is now beginning in India, Pakistan and so many others. Of course , as is the nature of the beast, before that happens and while they can, the US Neocons will do what they can to sanction those countries to death, change governments as per their 'on-the-table' schedule in India, as it has been in the past with so many other countries. Even little Australia, considered a "friend" of the US in the 1960’s ( no such thing ....ask Kissinger) had a democratic, progressive, popular Labor government changed with the assistance of the CIA. Don’t believe it? IT IS TRUE.
Yes. The very popular Prime Minister was Gough Whitlam and he dared to bring Australian soldiers back from Vietnam. 'We’ll get you for that one, Gough boy'. said the USA. And they did.
That should be enough of a memory for Aussie's to give the US a wide berth in every way they can, But no. Into bed they jump yet again, based on a decision by three US controlled Australian politicians. From this date onwards every man, women and child will end up with a future debt of $14,400 with the well AUKUSTRATED’ AUKUS sham, an arrangement being so well appreciated financially by the US and UK militarists and arms suppliers. All that, together with US bases, nuclear armed B-52 airfields and ending up with even further control over that naive country. Let’s call it US State, number 51.
What a country! It is now a tame US whore, nothing less.
I couldn’t agree more and I’m so ashamed. Damn, I loved my country when I was a kid, then came the killing of Kennedy and the napalming and horror of Viet Nam and I’ve never looked back. But I always secretly hoped we could reclaim our decency. Now I know we can’t.
"Uncle SAM" entirely encapsulates the oblivious negligence and naiveté - the mindset - the gullible HUMAN MINDS have been put under by THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN believing it can rule GOD'S CREATION.
WORDS MATTER - as they bring into existence the very thing they express.
There is NO UNCLE SAM - its the very delusion - created by THE HEADS OF THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN - ALL HUMAN MINDS THAT HAVE WALKED WILLINGLY INTO THE MENTAL PRISON CELL PREPARED FOR ALL HUMAN MINDS DEPRIVED OF FAITH INTO ITS CREATOR - AND THEY ALMOST (as it seems right now) GOT AWAY WITH IT - BUT SCRIPTURE IS CLEAR "THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY, ONE TRUTH AND ONE LIFE" - ANYTHING ELSE IS DARKNESS AND DESTRUCTION!
Wrong, wrong, wrong.
Even while they lose that power, they still have by far the biggest military force and with it an iron grip on the vast majority of the richest industrialised countries. In all of these countries they have thousands of troops, military bases…..and a direct tap into the domestic security services. Remember: they were caught listening to Angela Merkels calls. ALL of their “allies” are vassals under thinly veiled occupation and completely open economic occupation
That’s what NATO expansion is also about - literally occupying these countries. It’s a shift to naked power of the gun.
And the Nord Stream bombing shows the shift to naked economic occupation.
The dollar stuff is yesterday’s strategy. They’ve moved into using far more blunt and direct force.
What funds the U.S.'s military empire or the Military Industrial Complex? A printing press. If you want to harpoon that whale, you detonate the device that makes all the funding possible.
In the PAST.
What I’m pointing out though is the are now constructing a FUTURE that is feudalistic. And the masses in the countries they control will be squeezed like oranges. Same as feudal lords did.
I'm focussing on the FUTURE. If you are worried about authoritarian trends - made possible by unlimited money creation thanks to that magic printing press - you'd want to end that system. Which is what China, Russia and other nations are figuring out. Who hasn't figured this out yet is the every-day Joe's and Jane's in America. Many don't like the erosion of freedoms and civil liberties ... and the inexorable growth of the State, but they haven't figure out what actually allows Big Brother to get so Big. Plus, they like all the "benefits" and that "safety net" that makes them feel safer. They also like the military bases and missile plants in their Congressional districts. So it will be quite the challenge to get large percentages of these people to do something that will weaken the Nanny who they think is protecting them.
If you want to brandish a stick to force compliance, and others are using carrots, that method will be difficult to sustain. Conventional arms manufacturing is dominated by the U.S., but it is contingent on the plundering of other nations which can be under a collective umbrella that the U.S. military cannot move to its whimsy. China and Russia and the global south want nothing to do with the U.S., and a system that can function outside of the U.S. purview will eventually shrink the reach of the empire, and the budget it requires to sustain it. When the dollar falls, the American population better get ready to rise, because dislocation everywhere will be the consequence.
Secession is the real elephant in the room. I think seceding states that did away with a Fed and legalized, say, silver for every-day transactions would have a great competitive advantage over countries that just kept producing more Monopoly or digital money. Also, the seceding states might decide they don't need a massive military to protect them from future invasion by Iran or North Korea or even Russia or China. Economic realities will change everything at some point. This said, big wars remain the greatest worry as they tend to happen in times of massive economic strife.
“…..China and Russia and the global south want nothing to do with the U.S.,….”
Not really a harrier to the developing countries being manipulated, and puppeteed via coups etc. Go back to the 1950s to understand the playbook.
AFRICOM is not there for the wellbeing of Africans lets put it that way.
And for example as yourself why controlling resources of other countries is the explicit agenda of a senior general:
https://www.leftvoice.org/southcom-chief-aims-to-increase-imperialist-plunder-of-latin-americas-resources/
Last but not least, have a look at Taiwan which is being deindustrialised and the value being moved to the US.
https://thediplomat.com/2023/01/tsmcs-us-investments-spark-political-controversy-in-taiwan/
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/22/technology/tsmc-arizona-factory-tensions.html
When that’s well underway what then will be the value and role of Taiwanese population? Cannon fodder and wage slavery is what.
The U.S. has prospered by buying the collusion of former empires like England, France, Holland, and Italy in its hegemonic dominance of less agreeable nations with resources that it covets. As the dollar loses its clout, those former empires are less likely to be loyal at reduced incentives. Add to this the inherent difficulty in ramping up stress on the periphery when the core is overheating.
There's a reason feudalism died. The US Oligarchy is returning the US to neo-feudalism (has returned?) but it isn't going to last. Big Brother won't be able to control it.
I don't really know who Neil Oliver is, but folks from the UK tell me he's a neo-lib apologist, but here he is forcefully and very convincingly attacking UK neo-libs, much like Tucker Carlson is in the USA.
https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenAndPleasant/comments/12a5bfr/all_the_neoliberal_stooges_are_running_scared_now/
The USA's neo-colonial system (imperialism) is being undercut. (BRI is one example) neo-feudalism will not be able to compete. How long this takes though, that's certainly open to debate.
It may be that the argument you make is too short term for those of us who disagree with you.
That and a covert drugs trade in Cocaine from South America and Heroin in Afghanistan. The poppy fields were guarded by U.S. troops during the Gulf conflict! On abandoning Kabul, leaving behind many to certain death, intact high tech military equipment and all the flowering poppy fields were left as a parting gift.
That only funds CIA (and perhaps NED) activities. It isn't large enough to fund the US military.
I am not saying that you are wrong, but blunt force is for those who no longer can use more subtle means. Otherwise Rubio would not have any reason for concern, we can just involve ourselves in a million little wars and police actions. to force others to trade in our currency, sell their strategic assets for cheap and buy our junk assets at sticker price.
Similarly, the empire's increasing reliance upon overt censorship and naked repression are sure signed of weakness and not strength.
Perfectly put!
Also remember that the Chinese come from an ancient tradition of wisdom within which is stated “do not do evil the courtesy of fighting it blow for blow, for it only thinks of weapons. Instead, make energetic progress in the good.” I find this utterly compelling and can see that it is China’s approach to the maniacs that run our world.
Well, the Saudis have more or less ended their war on Yemen.
Blinken seethes.
ABSOLUTELY - the gloves are coming off by definition no matter what "subtle" (benevolent in disguise) game you pretend to play - THE TRUTH is BENEVOLENT BY DEFINITION - THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN IS THE OPPOSITE and thereby only becoming visible as of now to those so much IMMERSED IN THE LIES so they cannot see the woods for the trees
No sir. I believe you are absolutely incorrect. America does not produce the energy or any goods cheaply. All made in Asia. They still need fuel. They don't have it. The dollar is backed by nothing. So it is worth nothing.
Isn’t it a petro dollar now? Backed by oil?
It was. Then George W, Obama, Trump and Biden ran the debt beyond petrodollars.
So in my limited economic background, it has been said that the entire US monetary system is based off debt. Whether it is futures contracts, mortgage backed securities, loans to banks and corporation. Everything is owed and few citizens own anything. Most use leverage to gain access to prosperity.
The Petro dollar is a weak position if you dont control most of the oil. The USA does not control most of the oil. After closing Keystone, they were no longer the world's leaders in exporting oil. Saudi Arabia is hooking up with Iran and China.
So both of these key facts among the war machine draining the american citizens of every cent is adding up to a doomsday dollar scenario.
They have 300 million people. China has 1.5 billion. India the same.
American citizens foolishly believe they are still a military power. The factories that make the computer chips are in Asia. The steel is Chinese.
America is done. Still dangerous but bleeding to death.
Ogod! I love it! As I read this great explanation I got more and more hopeful that soon there would be an end to our ugly betrayal of all values big and small in our demented pursuit of…..what exactly? I don’t think anybody really knows what we are pursuing, we’re just running from our own shadow. But when you said the factories that make computer chips are in Asia, I just whooped! Talk about ahoist with our own petard! 😁😆😂🤣
Yet people still worship it. Apparently the only mitigating factor is going to be Lord Acton's rule.
But take a lesson from nature—glaciers are supposed to be I pregnable, yet when a glacier blocked the river between two mountains in Missoula Montana, the water started to eat away at the base of the glacier cresting “rotten ice”. This ice rotted more ice and pretty soon the glacial dam broke and water rushed out and down to the Pacific Ocean at 85 miles an hour, topping the cliffs of the Colombia gorge and piling up 600 ft of water in what is now Portland Or. It completely rescaped the land over 4 sates and did it all in 8hours. Never underestimate collapse!
That’s supposed to say creating nit cresting!
Iron grips are illusory.
You mean non permanent.
But they are real and they oppress, destroy lives and Jill people. That’s no illusion.
You are describing the very result of THE SYNAGOGUE OF SATAN'S way of dealing with reality. By resembling it but NEVER EVER REALLY LIVING UP to THE LIES THEY HAVE SPEWED OUT to spun a WEB OF DECEPTION but in the end THE GLOVES are coming off BIG TIME as the whole THEATRE is a SHAM fro its inception.
ANY HUMAN MIND interested in how this one will end should watch THE LORD OF THE RINGS - for sure every HUMAN MIND hopes and believes being part of THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT but in REALITY VERY FEW WILL FIND THE NARROW PATH AND SMALL GATE THAT LEADS TO LIFE.
France is the model for how that US strategy will play out.
Nothing has changed in Europe after the capitalist masters sidelined democracy innFrance and even bombed Europe’s supply of cheap gas, replacing it with gas imported at 3x the price from ConocoPhilips as US company.
Europe has been militarily occupied since 1945. There are troops, bases and weapons prepositioned in Europe for more troops. Note further that as will all empires, compliant troops can be brought in from one vassal state to quench any uprising elsewhere. Do you think that Poland or Denmark or will not send in troops to “peacekeeping” in Francevof wherever, if the master sets them the job?
So no nothing has changed in France and it won’t.
Model: Velvet Revolution, 1989
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Václav_Havel
At that point, the elites in Czechoslovakia were no longer invested in the then-current system.
Explain, please.
Resistance and rebellion. I suspect Germany will follow in near future. It seems to me that the strategic challenge is whether the revolutionary impetus will congeal in right wing Fascist politics or some form of democratic socialism.
I think we've had this discussion before. As long as the security services continue to follow orders, Macron (and Scholz and Biden) all can sleep soundly.
So far, nothing indicates that the cops and soldiers will not shoot when ordered to do so. Lord knows that France and the US have spent a lot of time and training making sure that those security services are reliable. Germany, I'm not so sure, but Germans, are, generally speaking, rule followers who are quite trusting of authority.
I’m inclined to agree. Which is why I’ve stopped believing in revolution and am working on evolution. And evolution is not as slow nor as weak as scientists like to pretend—in fact HOPE— it is.
You are confusing science and sociology/politics. You need to distinguish biological (Darwinian) evolution from social evolution. Political Revolution is like punctuated equilibrium (S J Gould).
Kudjoe, I have the horrible sense that you are right. Hadn’t thought about that. Thank you, I guess??
The Suez War is generally recognized as the end of the British Empire, and this war in Ukraine could well be the marker for the beginning of the end of the U.S. empire. Unfortunately for hundreds of thousands of human beings, the American empire has displayed its contempt for human rights, and it will not go down softly.
The irony is that the United States would have a lot MORE power if it dropped the empire and relied upon soft power. At one time, rightly or wrongly, people looked up to the United States, and not because they were necessarily scared to do otherwise.
The problem is that this would require the United States to actually practice what it preaches.
Quite right. They don’t practice what they preach.
The American dream was actually being practiced in Scandinavia:
https://www.oecd.org/newsroom/obstaclestosocialmobilityweakenequalopportunitiesandeconomicgrowthsaysoecdstudy.htm
And Taiwan was the democracy that the U.S. claimed to be:
https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/en/news/4438637
https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/mgilens/files/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_theories_of_american_politics.doc.pdf
All of them are wrecked now as the U.S. is dragging them down to oligarchy, global conflict and and militarism.
In 1945, the US was simply the last man standing. 50% of world production was in the US. Therefore, they got to reorganize the world, which had been an aim of US elites at least since Roosevelt and Wilson. I imagine it was difficult, after the World Wars, to imagine that soft power would be very effective.
The US also was the last one standing at the end of the Cold War, and look what they chose to do with their hegemony.
I would say the effective end of the British Empire was implicit in the Fall of France, Afterward, they no longer had any effective great-power allies. The Soviet Union and the US saved their bacon, but the US charged a fairly high price. See the Atlantic Charter (August, 1941).
One could go back as far as Versailles to see the writing on the wall. Or British dependence on US financing during WWI itself.
“Generally recognised” ? Nope.
Britain’s empire was sunsetting before that.
WW II, despite Germany & Japan being defeated by Soviet’s & US, was ALSO Germany & Japan’s fatal defeat of Britain and end of British empire.
But before the end of WWII Britain was fatally wrecked corpse and on life support from US economically and militarily and by Soviet Union military. From right here in 1941:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Desire the billing as allies these countries were not even equals by the end of WWII.
All winddown was from WWII. Already by 1947 India, the biggest part of the. British empire, was free.
Suez was a looong time later and deep into the process.
In the present time, there is no parallel. Russsia has fended off USA. But US is still militarily strong and is consolidating a military and economic chokehold across its empire including Japan, Australia, Finland Sweden Germany etc.
Not in any way similar to Britain.
Britain didn't need India to be its colony to still exploit it. And before the Suez War, Britain had not begun the habit of inward gazing isolation. Its relative inability to dictate the terms of Israeli-Egyptian relations was really the evidence that their day was over. And the American empire is comfortable with never winning any of its many wars, but weakening Putin is going to end up being a bitter lesson for all of the Europeans who lent a hand. The U.S. control of the U.S. is not going to be a cakewalk when its money can buy nothing.
On deck: Digital currencies, which are a euphemism for banning cash. Even with that magic printing press, the U.S. can't produce enough money to fund all of its obligations (military and social net - pensions, Medicare, Medicare, welfare, etc.)
Covid got us "vaccine passports" and digital I.D. cards ... so whether intentional or not, they are closer to where they need to be to implement the other parts of their program. And that program has nothing to do with greater "freedom" for individual citizens.
Digital currency is just a smoke and mirrors trick to extend the illusion given by the magic printing press. If I went to a bank for a mortgage and typed some zeros on my calculator for a mortgage they would laugh even with the property as collateral. The Dollar has no collateral to back it.
Meanwhile Russia and China have been buying gold and their reserves more than underwrite their currencies.
One of the plandemic aims was to introduce citizens ID cards to be carried at all times. The U.K. are still working towards this by for the first time insisting on photographic ID to vote in the upcoming local May elections. A twin attack policy as most voters without a passport or driving licence are the poor, students or inner city dwellers who would statistically vote for the left opposition. Typically, unlike the French, the British just mutter and pour another cup of tea.
Bottom line for me is that the smartest people in the CIA or Davos must know they are running out of money. They've got to have unlimited quantities of it to pacify/mollify the masses and to enrich themselves or keep their control. The maxim is correct: Always follow the money. But the money is actually counterfeit or Monopoly money. That's the ruse they can't let the masses know about. The "gold bugs" figured it out ... but they were easily labeled as "kooks" and have been ignored/dismissed. Don't listen to those "doom porn" crazies. I never believed the vaccines were "safe and effective." But what I thought didn't matter. Everyone was told "don't listen to those science-denying anti-vaxxers. Listen to us ... the experts." It works every time. We listen to and trust the crooks and dumb asses.
"buying gold"
It is a waste of time except perhaps for international trade, but even then, if you read Ellen Brown's book "The Web of Debt", it is just money.
Money is an utter fraud perpetrated on an unsuspecting world. The only problem is, the world cannot imagine how to deal with one another without it.
Good luck doing away with money as some form of mutually-acceptable form of transaction. That might be a utopian solution, but it's not going to work. There's a reason money was invented. It actually helps advance the world and the people in it (until it became too easy to game/rig). This said, once we get Weimar-Style hyperinflation, barter will be king. You can trade goods or skills. Silver and perhaps copper might still work. Gold is now too "precious." It's amazing that Monopoly money has worked as long as it has.
Out of mere curiosity, but what skills do you think would be valuable enough in such a situation?
Growing your own food would be a good skill to have.
There will be no chaos. None. Pay in agreed currencies. Wheat, gold, rubber, cotton, copper, converted into currency, works well. It is trade. A 100lbs of copper is worth 1000 lbs of wheat. If you catch my drift. Ot bitcoin or rules. Love it.
bitcoin is a complete fraud.
I won't list why because the argument is never productive. Richard Wolff and Michael Hudson identify it as the ponzi scheme it is. But then they also tell us what "money" really is, another fraud, but one we cannot live without.
This is also why people are terrified of the World Economic Forum. More oligarchs letting you have paper, while they have everything else. "You will own nothing and be happy," as you get the bugs and live in the pod.
You can't go against the cool and powerful people in "the club." They all embrace pretty much the same narratives. Nobody wants to break ranks because they'll get the Assange treatment.
But it may be possible to uphold the dollar by purely military means. It won't matter then whether they've "given the game away" because the game will have changed to something quite overt.
But maybe instead of "will have" I should say "has".
"uphold the dollar by purely military means"
See Dalio's short clip I posted above. Every empire that has depended solely on the military has collapsed anyway.
I think that is the fate of all modern and many ancient empires, some more than once. Great Britain, France, Spain, the Netherlands, Portugal, Italy, Sweden, Russia, Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Ottoman, and so on. Not a good business.
Why is everybody always blaming Satan?!?! He was the beautiful angel who refused to serve the tyranny of Jehovah! It was the Pope who condemned the Native Americans to torture and extermination, the Pope who told Hitler, ah, it’s ok, off your Jews, they deserve it. Satan’s a good guy. And on South Park he happily has a boyfriend that Saddam is jealous of. How can THAT be bad? 🤪
The rest of the world is learning that the much-hyped "Muh property rights and Rule Of Law" is so much hot air, as the United States and its lackeys will deny both to anyone who gets crosswise with the Empire.
Very dangerous to keep one's assets in such lawless and arbitrary jurisdictions.
Canadian citizens who donated to the truckers had their bank accounts frozen.
Paypal stole $9387 from Consortium News for "spreading misinformation." After enough people terminated their accounts in protest Paypal returned the money.
One of the reasons I'd like Caitlin to consider "Buy me a coffee".
I can't possibly afford a subscription to all the good writers I pay attention to, but I certainly can reward them once in a while when they've written something excellent.
My thoughts, too.
For example, I spent $100 for an annual subscription to the (loathsome) National Review. Now, assuming that it had, say, five columnists I considered worth following (yeah, just go with it here), I would like to spread that around to assemble, and compensate, my own virtual stable of commentators, including Substack posters, that I thought were truly worth reading and supporting.
For me, I could probably do about $200/yr, spread around over 5-10 writers. (Other people's mileage may vary.) That's about the cost of two typical online publications, but certainly fewer writers than two would offer up. But given the Substack subscription rates I've been seeing, $200 would cover less than 5.
Undermining the empire's ability to fund WW III is an added incentive of going off the dollar that BRICKs et al may or may not have foreseen. But I'm a fan of knocking an imperialist bully off his high horse for any reason.
America’s deindustrialized economy is kept alive by exploiting the unique US dollar inflow from surpluses and T-bill profit generated by almost every other country in the world. The dollar’s status as reserve currency lets the US export domestic economic pain by Fed money printing. It's a multi trillion dollar annual triage, and it's been going on for decades.
What Paul Volcker began in the 1970s as an ingenious way to maintain unaffordable US military spending has metastasized into an essential crutch propping up forever war and an otherwise non-viable economy.
For the past 50 years, behind a smokescreen of manipulated stockmarket indices, bogus GDP metrics, petrodollar gangsterism, debt peonage imposed on the Global South, and an army neoclassical Chicago school bullshit artists – every year has seen more of American's natural domestic economy hollowed out, corporatized, institutionalized, financialized, what’s left of productivity rearranging around the ever-extending military industrial complex.
Too late to pump the brakes, it's a conundrum no US politician has the courage or the conviction to resolve. So they follow the short-term imperative of sustaining America one more year by voting for more trillions in appropriations budgets pumped direct from the Treasury into the moribund economy. The point of no return past long ago. From here on in, it's ‘full scale dominance‘ or a Mad Max catastrophic collapse. What else can they do?
They've also rigged the inflation numbers for decades - to conceal real inflation. If it's a government-produce number, it's manipulated. I just went to the grocery store for the first time in a few weeks. I was stunned how much the price of EVERYTHING has gone up. An average size box of Mrs. Stouffer's lasagna was $10.89 when I know the same box was $4 less than a year ago. That's more than 100 percent inflation. And you can add 10-percent sales tax onto that price. You can only conceal or ignore this real inflation for so long.
Who's going to save their money in a bank that will steal it all whenever they feel like it?
Building an alternative SWIFT doesn't seem that hard. 99% of the effort will be in securing it from incessant cyberattacks from the USA.
Xrp. Faster cheaper smarter. Andthe USA is doing whatever it can to block it.
Caitlin my dear - The two main economic arenas needing reform are Land and Money. Please consider advocacy for Public Banks and Land Value Taxation (commons Rent) instead of taxes on labor and production. Elite rule system stems from private profiteering in these two. Money is just a symbol system. Land, the Earth, is the Source. We must affirm that the Earth is the Birthright of All People..
❤❤❤
"We won't have to talk about sanctions in five years, because there'll be so many countries transacting in currencies other than the dollar that we won't have the ability to sanction them." --lil Marco
There are limits to cops' assaults on their own people. France is approaching that limit.
The Germans are just beginning to taste the results of Neoliberal deindustrialization and the economic decline related to Nordstream sabotage, high energy prices, inflation, and the austerity that will increase under a war economy. Next winter breaks the camel's back.
''It seems unlikely to me that the emergence of a multipolar world will in and of itself produce any kind of wonderful utopia, and as Professor Richard Wolff explains the dollar's decline could potentially give rise to a lot of economic chaos and suffering. But at the very least the fall of US dollar hegemony would deprive one group of psychopaths a powerful weapon they should never have had, and could even end up impeding the empire's ability to ramp up for a global conflict between major powers — a conflict which must never occur.'' so this ALBERT WAS, IS AND IT WILL BE FOREVER RIGHT> > “Every time I hear a political speech or I read those of our leaders, I am horrified at having, for years, heard nothing which sounded human. It is always the same words telling the same lies. And the fact that men accept this, that the people’s anger has not destroyed these hollow clowns, strikes me as proof that men attribute no importance to the way they are governed; that they gamble – yes, gamble – with a whole part of their life and their so called ‘vital’ interests.”- Albert Camus (1978). “Notebooks, 1935-1942”, Harcourt....100% RIGHT!
How Empires Collapse, pretty accurate to challenges we are facing right now https://www.reddit.com/r/chomsky/comments/12aaj07/how_empires_collapse_pretty_accurate_to/
An excerpt from Peter Dalio's longer YouTube that talks about the cycle of empire.
Dalio is one of the Oligarchy. He is perhaps one that Nader was talking about in his book "Only the Super-Rich Can Save US". http://onlythesuperrich.org
He's mostly invested in China I guess so perhaps he's just figuring out a way of fleeing with his wealth to China. Or maybe ... Folks may want to watch his entire video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xguam0TKMw8
I can't say I'm happy about events, but I sure am tired of living in a Fascist state (USA, although I think Australia, being a US vassal, it probably also).
This has always been the primary goal of U.S. policy - protecting the reserve currency of the U.S. dollar, or as I call it "protecting the magic printing press." And, yes, rampant "manipulation" has been used for decades to achieve this result. That's why gold and silver "markets" have been manipulated for so long. The Status Quo Protectors know that they have to impeach/impugn people who believe in other forms of "money." Thus, these proponents of "history's money" or "real money" became gold "BUGS" - a dirty insect that should be squashed. The same tactic was used to malign critics of Covid "vaccines" as "anti-vaxxers" or "science deniers."
Yes, follow the money ... and all the money really comes from a magic fiat printing press, which would be destroyed if "faith" in the U.S. dollar somehow evaporated.
Thank you Caitlin - timely as always. The odious uniparty at display, once again.
I enjoy Tucker Carlson but always cringe that disgusting Hannity follows him daily
Instead of making friends and promoting peace, America continually ramps up rhetoric for war. Financial then physical.
The world finally realized that America's money is ghost money. It doesn't exist.
We don't need your permission to live our lives in peace, America. Just go away.
Technically, everyone's currency is fiat. The BRICS nations are trying to establish a common commodity-backed currency, but until that happens, it's all ghost money. It's just that the reserve status of the USD makes it more desirable, but not for long.
It’s their time; nations all over the world have been waiting for it. And ironically the hegemony brought all this on itself. They finally bit off more than they can chew by underestimating Russia. It took this ignorant bunch of warmongers to come along right a check their butt couldn’t cash.
The Eurasian community is forming so quickly that’s it hard to keep up, along with the speed by which the dollar is losing market. There are a half dozen countries for sure and many more are in process of using alternative currencies for trade among themselves. The last time I checked a few weeks ago the dollar had lost 40%of it’s market internationally.
So then, what do you when the body has a part with gangrene threatening to spread. That part has to be removed in order to save the rest of the body.
In the community of the world that infectious body part is our own collapsing financial system. Which as you know is no longer a industrial capitalist system but rather a financial capitalist and it’s failing. KSA said the decrease in oil is directly related to instability of the U.S. banking system.
So what to expect?
Expect Biden to announce cuts to social services programs such as SSI and Medicare after raising the minimum age of course.
Of course this will exasperate the economy but then we expect that from the maniacs in DC.
As rightly assumed by Jeff all democrat failed banks(which will be largest national banks) cities and states will certainly be rescued with bailouts.
I also add when the Walmarts, Cracker Barrel’s and McDonalds etc,start shutting down and moving out so will the other businesses such as Starbucks and smaller fast food chains.
That void will be filled with the very worst of humanity.
It was inevitable that the empire of the rules based order fall. All empires fall according to this one principle; spiritual collapse always precedes the collapse of an empire. When the internal supporting structure becomes soft with rot the external structure folds in on itself.
I’ve been reading outside the western media propaganda machine the rest of the world is making plans not be anywhere near when the U.S. falls.
BRAVO !!!
https://thedreizinreport.com/2023/04/02/tranny-agenda-bs-is-nothing-new-just-another-classic-american-hysteria/ -- dreizinreport on April 2, 2023
with Daria Stavrovich: “Circles on the Water” -- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wGjcJTrG4uc&t=233s
This is pumped up Theatre of the Absurd, surely. When you can't keep up with sanctions , which by now must constitute a sizeable bureaucracy in itself, something has gone really wrong. And really wrong again when you studiously undermine your own world currency status, and suffer from the runaway inflation you want to inflict on others (blowing up pipelines? A Zen puzzle - they did it they didn't do it - at the same time). Well, let them figure it out. They're good at that.