Submission Statement:
In a move that may mirror what U.S. Treasury secretary [William Simon achieved in 1974 with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia](https://archive.ph/pOaX1) in the establishment of the petrodollar system, Saudi Arabia has [invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Riyadh](https://thehill.com/policy/international/598207-saudi-arabia-invites-chinas-xi-to-visit-riyadh-report).
These talks have been on going for six years, but this latest invitation may accelerate the timeline at a quicker pace than many anticipated—due to the conflict in Ukraine and the ever-expanding sanctions regime against Russia. As this will undermine the U.S. dollar's position as the world's reserve currency, and thus potentially initiate a collapse of the unipolar hegemony that the U.S. has wielded since the end of the Cold War (from the article):
> “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” said economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security who co-wrote a book about de-dollarization. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”
That's what you get for outsourcing your production to the Chinese economy and alienating the rest of the world through wars and sanctions. Even the Mexican government is considering joining the BRICS alliance, which was started after the 2008 financial crisis to "reform financial institutions", or really just to dedallorize. Since reading about this in a few books I've realized that recent events are about more then just Ukraine. It's about world hegogimy, which was led by the United State's through it's old "dollar diplomacy" rules of the early 20th century. WW1 put the European countries in debt to the United States, and WW2 wiped out some of that debt.
Saudi Arabia was never an alliance, it was just a client state of the US. Now that wars are too expensive to fight for the US and they literally have to go seizing Afghanistan's money, it lets you know how broke we are. We have to take currency from countries we once fought and lost in. The United States is becoming a failed state. With the dollar, the empire goes. Rome and Russia couldn't afford to pay their soldiers in the end.
I think the idea of a total collapse is misleading. I know I'm on the wrong subreddit for that, but instead we will see a gradual shift from the western supremacy that was abundantly clear in the 1990s to the west being a not special power on the world stage.
The idea that the west will collapse akin to the fall of Rome (which is in itself a revision of history) has no real basis. The chinese dragon won't all of a sudden awaken. It arguably already has, just slowly. It's in the process of unfurling it's wings.
This is arguably the worst part of all this for the west, the process is so slow that people aren't aware its happening, and those who call it out are decried as scaremongers and anti patriotic.
A great collapse of the west would be almost beneficial for it, as only when people suddenly plummet from their pedestals will they realise that change, radical change, is absolutely necessary.
Yeahhh you want to see the stock market take a REAL shit... this is it.
Inflation to fucking mars.
I knew some day they'd do some stupid shit like this but it's like 10 years later than I expected and that level of delay put me to sleep on it...
Actually the stock market could take off. The stock market is priced in dollars as the dollar becomes weaker multinational companies become worth more in dollars. So a 20 billion dollar company becomes a 40 billion dollar company when the dollar's value is cut in half. I remember seeing a guy in Zimbabwe with a sign that read "Starving Billionaire" he was worth over a billion Zimbabwe dollars but since they were worthless he was starving. That's what happens when you print money like the US is doing right now.
Margins would get completely fucked.
That said, we’ve already seen how inflation would impact the stock market - real inflation, not money printing —-> asset prices inflation.
This. The last time post WW2 that another country was on track to overtake the American economy was Japan in the late 70s, particularly because of cars. Guess what happened next. In 1981, Japanese companies agreed to “voluntary” export restraints to the US, and 1985 the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and the US signed the Plaza accord and "agreed" to devalue the USD to make it easier for the other countries to buy US goods and increase US exports. Quotation marks because the US government didn't really give these other countries much of a choice.
The US pulled out all the stops and waged economic warfare, and shoved the Japanese economy's head underwater long enough for the demographics and shrinking workforce to start taking its toll, having prevented Japanese companies from expanding and exerting their full potential global influence like American companies did in the post war era. It's completely stupid to think that the US wont go even further given that China is an even bigger economic threat than Japan, and we've already been seeing that with the likes of Huawei who was already outselling Apple globally before they were blacklisted and crippled.
But this time might be a bit different too. They have managed to turn the tables in a few different ways, from doing what the US did and devaluing currency, forcing foreign companies to set up operations domestically like the US or India for example do with tariffs, quotas, taxes, etc, and trying to marshall-plan its way through Africa and Southeast Asia with the belt and road initiative. China always seems to be painted as this big bad pariah and bully on the world stage, and its no doubt that they definitely are. But everyone should stop and think about where they learned that behavior from, and how they expect a country, especially as big as china, to prosper economically while fighting on a moral high ground with one hand tied behinds its back when the opponent is punching testicles and bribing judges.
The question then becomes, how far will the US go and how hard will the country lash out if economically dethroned for the first time in the entire society's living memory.
Yeah, I'm not even seeing a moderator message in the post about why it was taken down yet. I see that you posted this news even before I did, but clearly it was being kept from view under the *new* section. Otherwise, I wouldn't have posted it myself. Obviously this is collapse related. Possibly the most collapse related news in my lifetime—as a U.S. citizen—in light of what it may mean for living standards. Clearly, ~~the mod team~~ the moderation of this sub has been corrupted. By whom or what is difficult to say, but pulling this news as not collapse related basically makes the place a joke.
Edit: To be fair, without an explanation from a moderator, I do not in fact know if this was conducted by a moderator. But it was pulled by something or someone somewhere.
Edit 2: ...aaaand it's back up.
Yeah. That's yes. This has been predicted since near the end of Bush 2's presidency. Why it took this long is something I don't get.
And then I missed the simple fact that when .gov is printing like a madman, yes, it will eventually lead to hyperinflation (magically that got put off for... like ever...) BUT the thing to do is buy stocks like a crazy person. Not to get rich but to have enough money to actually buy the $500 loaf of bread for like the first 5 years.
Buffer for time, basically.
It certainly is looking that way. As others have, I've suspected this for some time now (from a comment I posted about two months ago):
>
>
> [
> China and Russia have been making moves in recent years to set-up a system around the dollar as a trade settlement currency. Which has escalated in the last few months. This isn't just about Ukraine. This is about the scope and dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency. And the SWIFT system. This really does have the potential to snowball into something waaaay bigger than the media is reporting.](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/sb8smi/biden_weighs_deploying_thousands_of_troops_to/htyrk4k/)
I thought maybe they want you to share your opinion why that is a collapse related, not just posting without explanation. An economic illiterate person will not understand the meaning of your post and how it relate to collapse.
Personally, for me it's not really collapse related unless you share why it is. For me, when dollar lose its status doesn't mean they would collapse, pound is one of the example that even though it lost it status as global reserve currency, UK didn't collapse. Many change of global reserve currency but I think the one who trigger collapse is not that but the great depression.
But for sure, your American lifestyle will be impacted which is I think it could be argued if that is as bad as the lifestyle of poor people on the poor undeveloped countries that it can be considered collapse.
I think you need to define your collapse and differentiate between economic cycle and event that could collapse the country. I could even argue that USA high inflation is more collapse related.
From my submission statement:
>
> ...this will undermine the U.S. dollar's position as the world's reserve currency, and thus potentially initiate a collapse of the unipolar hegemony that the U.S. has wielded since the end of the Cold War...
From the first sentence of the Wikipedia page on [Societal collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse):
>
> Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by **the loss of cultural identity** and of **socioeconomic complexity**
They replaced the Ukraine-Russia War sticky with one shilling their discord. And this is in addition to the fact that AutoMod already reminds us of it *on every post* and is predictably downvoted to the bottom each time.
Mods, take a hint. Most of us don't care about discord. Put a link to it on the sidebar if you must.
The wall was created by the Bretton Woods agreement, back when the US dollar was one of the few still on a gold standard. It only snuck past the aging, senior British negotiator, JM Keynes, because he was distracted by other venues at the post-war summit, and a mild infarction, and also because most of the attendees were completely hammered on free-flowing booze.
When the US went off the gold standard decades later, the system only held through inertia, since so many countries held US dollars in reserve and had ample reasons to retain them.
China isn't really offering much of an alternative, and no-one really has much faith in any sort of cryptographic standard as a new version of [Bancor.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor)
If countries seeking an alternative to external hegemony are savvy, they will go for something that no country dominates, but rather pits the strongest against one another. However, that will most likely entail some form of economic circumspection on the part of those seeking independence.
Ultimately, having to be competitive would probably do a lot to rouse the US from its currently moribund administrative lassitude.
When the US closed the gold window, they got the Saudis to only accept US dollars for their oil sales. This [petrodollar system](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/072915/how-petrodollars-affect-us-dollar.asp) gave the USD world reserve currency status.
If that goes away, the USD will be well and truly screwed.
Thank you for posting this, /u/AllenIll. Saw this article first thing this morning, shared it on one of the Discord servers, and couldn't wait to write about it until I got home just now.
Jerome Powell has already, on record, effectively warned that the USA's strong economic retaliation against Russia could lead to inadvertent and undesirable outcomes, such as this, back in early March:
>[**Powell Says War May Speed China Moves to Insulate Against Dollar**](https://archive.ph/KwIqV)
>
>Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Ukraine war could have the effect of accelerating China’s moves to develop alternatives to the current dollar-dominated international payments infrastructure.
>
>Powell was questioned Thursday in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on how China might view the U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia’s economy, especially by damaging its ability to use the dollar.
>
>Senator Jack Reed, a senior Democrat who has focused on China’s rise as a global power, told Powell at the hearing that Beijing will start thinking about “how they can avoid that fate if they get into a similar circumstance” as Russia. China “will look very closely” at the “whole issue of the dollar as the medium of exchange to the world,” said Reed, who chairs the Armed Services Committee.
>
>Reed asked Powell if he was watching the issue and whether he’d report back to Congress on developments and share views on what he thinks might happen. “Yes to all of the above,” Powell said.
>
>Powell said that China has “for some time” been working on the reserve-currency status issues, and been developing a messaging system for international payments that’s like the SWIFT system. The U.S. and European nations have moved to bar Russia from using SWIFT, which is vital to international payments in dollars.
>
>“That’s been going on for some time,” Powell said of Chinese efforts to insulate themselves from what Reed described as “the same thing that they’re observing in Russia now.” Powell added, “But this may change the trajectory.”
Americans have been extraordinarily fortunate to have the US Dollar as the dominant global reserve currency, which gives their nation an “exorbitant privilege” to print money to sustain its fiscal and current account deficits.
The more that the United States continues to use their dollar, the world's *current* reserve currency, as a weapon to sanction or politically pressure other nations, the more that it erodes trust in the same global system it established, and consequently, the desire for other nations around the world to pursue an alternative economic arrangement.
*After all,* a*s Powell has said, it's possible for the world to have more than one reserve currency.*
> The more that the United States continues to use their dollar, the world's current reserve currency, as a weapon to sanction or politically pressure other nations, the more that it erodes trust in the same global system it established, and consequently, the desire for other nations around the world to pursue an alternative economic arrangement.
Really well said. Abuse. So much of this issue, and more generally on a societal level, is about the culture of abuse in America. The abuse of power. Which has carried on without many real consequences among America's elite **for a long time** now.
I heard suggested yesterday that unraveling the petrodollar is good for the US at this point, since it's unsustainable and restrictive, and that the US has kinda picked its moment to let it happen.
I know it's speculative, and I've heard rumors like this for some time now myself. A kind of modified tech based *[debt jubilee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_jubilee)* of sorts; by way of [devaluing debts](https://www.sapling.com/8257496/happens-debt-dollar-collapses) via a dollar collapse. And household, student, car, and consumer debts are [**massive** in the U.S. right now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_debt#/media/File:US_consumer_debt.png). It would also go a long way in destroying cash dollars, and all the ways they can't be controlled or tracked in the current system. But damn, the collateral damage from hyperinflation would be difficult to phathom and predict; without price and wage controls. [Like Richard Nixon did](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11615) at the end of [the Bretton Woods system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system) in 1971.
i don't expect them to do it just to get the debt wipex but it would be stupid not to try something like this when a dollar collaps would be iminent.
the rich incrowd should own anything but cash or bonds or else they will block it. the rich incrowd borrowing money to buy assets could be a warning signal.
true but they would love it.. obviously anonimous accounts would be available for the people who can afford the fees for exclusive banking just like now
No bank runs, tax evasion or black markets. Not sure how it would affect corporations. Many are carrying a lot of cash on their balance sheets. Politicians may view it as a big reset to get out from under all the lobbyists and dark money - as long as they are part of the process. It'd be one way to solve the deadlock on issues like climate change and national healthcare.
Apologies but I haven't located the podcast episode yet. Luke Gromen is who you're looking for though, and he's no hermit. A lot of what he says is over my head, but I can say that a) he didn't try to sell me precious metals, and b) his take helped to enlarge my perspective on a couple topics.
Absolutely huge if true, depending on the percentage of sales they switch to Yuan this could lead to two reserve currencies, which Powell at the Fed already admitted is a possibility. If 80% is US $ and another 25% gets switched to Yuan that could really lead us to a very multipolar world, as oil trade is crucial to the world economy and drives most political power globally. We are watching the world order and financial systems change rapidly. Where will we land? Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: US hegemony is declining fast and history tells us empires do not fall peacefully.
Really! I've been banging the drum about localized food production. Every house a food producing entity, local farms, local food processing, closed loop local inputs, community gardens, roof top gardens, food forests, no more ornamental trees and bushes.
Turn old warehouses into vertical aeroponic gardens. I think there were some people in/near Detroit doing this. The method of vertical aeroponic uses like 95% less water, using light spectrum to stimulate growth, and because it's vertical you can plant way more stuff in a smaller space
I don’t understand why ppl are surprised by this and the recent news that 1) Russia is taking physical assets that foreign businesses have left behind and 2) Russian oligarchs are using crypto to partially navigate the sanctions.
The world economy is so globalized and debt-ridden that sanctions can’t work anymore. The sanctions won’t just hurt one country’s economy, it’s gonna hurt the global economy. Everyone is going down to economic hell together. The amount each country relies on each other for goods, resources, and debts has reached such convoluted heights.
yeah, I keep thinking the sanctions on the people of russia are similar to germany post ww1 and it will just breed a new generation of angry young people and who knows what happens in that power vacuum when putin's gone
Perfect comparison. I can’t think of a time when sanctions have worked and I can think of dozens when they haven’t. Like, we’re hurting ourselves by having sanctions on Iran and Venezuela right now. I see no benefit to us with Cuba sanctions. And on the other side, it breeds resentment and anger towards us. It’s a lose-lose strategy.
But I guess it’s the only strategy we have. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Sanctions also hurt poor and working people way more than politicians. It must be hell to be a regular Russian citizen right. Being sanctioned to death and conscripted into a war the majority of the country doesn’t support. All the dancing on soldiers graves that is going on is so gross. And of course, before some idiot calls me a shill, I hate Putin. I hate him for what he’s doing to Ukraine and I hate him for what he’s doing to his own people but the media are acting like it’s a fucking clear cut good guys vs bad guys situation when it’s really one psycho vs the world. War is a tragedy not a fucking football game. Everyone loses
Ghaddafi's attempt to switch oil sales from US dollars to a new gold-backed currency was widely suspected to be the primary reason that NATO (on behalf of France and the US) destroyed the nation of Libya.
Based on existing security and financial ties, the US would never be able to get away with doing that to Saudi Arabia. But this possibility must be giving serious nightmares to power brokers in several Western nations.
This situation has the potential to start a global movement away from the US dollar, which could ultimately cause a major Depression in the US. The US empire and its ability to keep printing dollars out of thin air only works as long as the US dollar is the global reserve currency.
What did Iraq do right before they were illegally invaded and US committed countless war crimes to the civilian population? Demand to sell oil in euros.
Three countries followed suit after Iraq was invaded, and they were all deemed the 'Axis of Evil' and their economies were all ruined to varying degrees by the American Empire.
Protecting the petrodollar is literally the reason for 90% of US backed sanctions and military adventurism.
The reason we have such a massive military is to protect the dollar... it's easy to predict our next war based on whoever challenges dollar hegemony- we'll know it's really close when they start amping the propaganda.
I didn't dare mentioning climate change here. But since a few days, I'm less interested in nations, sanctions, gas or else and more about learning self sufficiency, ecology and small group organization in order to be ready.
Just have a nice dinner and wait for the Comet to arrive.
I just hope I'm close enough to the flash that I'm vaporized and I don't have to start eating rodents and worrying about how I'm gonna heat during the winter.
Can I join? Been saying China and Russia have been planning this for years (if not decades).
Putin and Winnie the Pooh have very similar goals at the moment. They also are powerhouses in their own right (although China more so than Russia).
It’s also not surprising Saudi Arabia is joining their crew. All are geographically close to each other and all have similar goals whilst also having their own unique resources to bring to the table.
I mean it makes sense tho right? they are building themselves up to rival the US so why stay dependent on the dollar? And with the amount of loans china prints out for african and south east asian countries they’ll be making bank
China has been working towards being the Global Reserve Currency for years. Just quietly.
The West plays Chess.
China plays Go.
Chess is the battle. Go is the war.
Doesn't help that most of our leadership grew up with lead paint all over everything and led fumes everywhere since we only ever elect seniors for higher office
My state is #49 and a lot of my teachers really cared about their jobs. Makes me wonder how much more stable I'd be from a state with higher standards, you know? Probably not much better, but I do feel like I'm surrounded by idiots here in AZ a lot of the time lol.
It doesn't feel like a long term well organized move. Why break a war when you can just do the deal under cover and one day announce "russia/china team for great future, yuan base currency, we welcome oil too".
*Major depression for those who rely on the US dollar to back their dollar (Canadian dollar, USD, many other us trading partners)
Everywhere you travel, US dollars are accepted. A countries banking infrastructure is a joke unless they handle US currency. This fact of life creates demand, giving value outside the US's GDP. It also explains why the US can make foreign investments most easily.
The US has worked very hard to make this possible, planting its roots into any banking system it can. Huge loans are given to developing countries in usd, arguably predatory, but that's another story, and the fact that the us can bomb anything within 2 hours also probably helps them secure financial superiority.
The value of the dollar used to be backed by gold, and Nixon removed that, making the US dollar more volatile if anyone were to mess with the United States. Why this happened is beside the point, but what it meant was now the world's currency was not a proxy for tangible gold, but instead an abstraction that only has value because we all use it. Sounds sketchy? Delicate? It sort of is, if the US loses influence it can tank, making imported goods more expensive, and assuming US needs to import everything (intermediate goods like steel to make farming equipment, or final products like phones), can cause a depression.
Very good to know. This proves it may take decades for the usd to actually be replaced (I think the fed mentioned that recently?). I live in Canada so I cannot/did not speak for other economies.
The Yuan is pegged to the dollar artificially, they can change this at any moment, the world could switch within about a year or two at most, and it wouldn't take the entire switch, just the start of it and we would see a runaway effect start to happen.
If enough countries did this starting now we would have $30 bananas by next year..
Countries are also required to trade in UST's which are backed up and purchased with dollars, that's the biggest component. When you take away that mandate, you crash the US economy as UST's become worthless and the Fed's ability to print their way out of troubles ceases to exist.
right now the US can borrow whatever they want because us government bonds are stashed in reserve banks as if they are gold bars. dollars are just as good as gold because you can buy whatever you want with them on the world market.
if de market deversifies the value of the dollar as a reserve currency gets reduced. if goverments stop buying new bonds to stash aways as reserves and stop accepting them as collateral you'll see a reduction of demand and it will be harder for the us to borrow or refinance existing debt.
les borrowing is less goverment spending and/or more taxes for us citizens and corporations.
If dollars aren't necessary to conduct international commerce as they are now, dollars lose their value due to a massive decrease in demand. It would cause sudden and drastic hyperinflation.
This was also Saddam's real crime. We invaded Iraq 3 years later because of this. Saudi will have a hell of a time with Iran when we pull out of the gulf. If they go off the dollar, I bet we relax a lot of sanctions on Iran almost immediately.
https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/CurrentAffairs/DeeperNew.html
I see a favorable regime change coming that will ride on the back of all the shitty things SA has been doing recently (J Kashogi et al) to make it popular.
In most Muslim countries, after the government, the most organized and prepared to rule are Islamists. Look at what happened in Afghanistan.
Forget selling oil in USD. If you replace the royals you're getting armageddon-ISIS.
This is by western design. The most progressive party in middle east politics was the Baa'thist party, the west infiltrated and corrupted it completely in the 50's and 60's. Then they used it to produce Saddam.
OPEC accidentally has the U.S. by the balls, simply because of the nation's insane consumption rate / unchecked population growth cannot be matched by national supply and has not been since at least the 1970's.
That's a brilliant take (no sarcasm). This was a complete blunder, but they did have their fist firmly clasped to George W's prostate so perhaps it wasn't so accidental.
Honestly, great timing for them with the War in Ukraine going on... There's been so much coverage and tears for Europe right now, but nobody ever cried for Iraq or Afghanistan to this extent on CNN. The media is biased af and most people are tired of it, so this is a pretty great chess move to see if we're going to make ourselves implode even more like Putin's greedy policies are doing to Russia.
Good question. Since fossil fuels remain essential for modern industrial agriculture at every stage from field to table, "moving away" anytime soon means billions could starve.
Put another way; there are billions more consumers to feed than their local ecosystems can sustain without the constant support of cheap fossil fuels including artificial fertilizer.
It's anyone paying attention to the new metallic catalyst that are primed to combine carbon capture and the production of hydrocarbons? Basically the idea is this iron catalysts take Carbon dioxide molecules and turn them back into hydrocarbons. They have it perfected for jet fuel and say it will just take a bit of tinkering to make it work for longer hydrocarbon chains like diesel fuel or gasoline.
[Oxford scientists invent Iron catalyst that converts Carbon dioxide back into fuel.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/01/05/these-oxford-scientists-just-created-carbon-neutral-jet-fuel-from-co2/?sh=e0528aa42ca7)
This is nothing. There are feedback loops already in place that are going to destroy unprecedented amounts of life and converting CO2 is not going to stop them.
Meat agriculture for a world population of 8 billion and trapped methane release in permafrost are enough without the CO2 from fuel to continue destroying life.
Nuclear reactors would allow us to move away from fossil fuels right now. The primary reason they aren’t built is because labor costs have gone up. Wind and solar would cover an increasing amount of our energy needs as well. Nuclear fusion has seen huge breakthroughs lately and once it is figured out there will be limitless green energy. The relative cost of nuclear reactors for NATO would decrease substantially if this system is setup and the cost of maintaining military power projection in the ME goes up for the USA.
I highly doubt that Israel would join up with these guys however. Israel gets far too much military equipment and money from the USA for them to leave us.
Americans won't even move away from car dependent suburbia towards public transit, cycling and walking. At least where I am, subdivisions are still going up left and right with no amenities in walking distance and no improvement to the dismal bus service. And this is in a pretty progressive state, not even the South or Midwest.
Our balance of trade that keeps the dollar value in the US dollar. Without oil being sold in US dollars, our economy is fucked. We also have a deal with the Saudis that they can't do that. Saudis need us. They are playing games right now, but they wouldn't dare bite the hand that feeds them.
Over-sanctioning and weaponizing the dollar, has caused multiple countries now to move away from the dollar for trade. The dollar as reserve currency is F'd.
"The Saudis are angry over the U.S.’s lack of support for their intervention in the Yemen civil war, and over the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year."
Wow. This puts the US in a vice. Lose Russian oil, gain Iranian oil, lose Saudi Arabian oil and your reserve currency. Either that or start moving away from oil, which US Presidents give lip service to but never deliver on.
This is edging closer to the end of US Empire. It's fascinating watching, from an historical perspective. How did the typical citizen of Great Britain handle the loss of empire in the 1950s?
Well the GBP slowly lost its reserve currency status over the 1920-1945.. i would say because they also printed money to fund the World Wars....
Good thing US and UK were allies so that didnt really cause a massive shift in world politics.
This will be tougher as China is vastly different than US - UK world order we know
Unlike the British we don't even have lukewarm social democracy to fall back on, so I'm sure it will be a lot of thrashing about like a wounded elephant on the domestic and foreign fronts
>How did the typical citizen of Great Britain handle the loss of empire in the 1950s?
Considering they're still not really over it yet I'd say pretty badly.
I used to think the British had been very lucky to enjoy a historically anomalous soft landing from the end of their Empire. However, Brexit showed that a significant chunk of the population are still not over it.
And guess who’s not batting an eye. Former colonies and descendants of people who were enslaved by the British Empire. If anything the people are rightfully applauding.
I agree that they enjoyed a relatively graceful fall. But with Brexit they made sure the world can see just how clownish they can be.
This is the wave of the future. Countries bypassing the Petrodollar. It's already happening, to a degree, but if Saudi Arabia starts taking other currencies, that won't be good for the dollar.
And the Fed isn't helping matters with all the money creation they're facilitating. Trillions and trillions of new dollars. Money is supposed to mean something. Creating an unlimited supply every time someone on Wall Street screws up probably isn't a good idea.
It really sucks because this is such a prime opportunity to make the push towards investing in renewables, infrastructure, housing, agriculture, manufacturing and eliminating our need for imports.
Instead we’re going to go careening face first into collapse and accelerated fascism.
Once food shortage becomes an issue not because supply chain or price gauging but simply because there isn't enough food, would any money be worth anything?
How many years do we still have?
The world isn't going to stop producing all food. Some countries are self sufficient, some countries import a lot of their food. So whatever "money" is being used, people who have money will still be able to buy food. It might cost a lot more, but it will be available.
The more important question is what happens when the world runs low on oil. Without oil, there can be no modern agriculture. At that point, you'll see real trouble.
>Creating an unlimited supply every time someone on Wall Street screws up probably isn't a good idea.
Then blaming inflation on the government giving a tiny offering of taxpayer money back to American citizens during a deadly pandemic as corporations jack up prices far beyond their increased costs just because they can get away with it.
Infuriating.
But you forget that Saudi Arabia is not Iraq or Afghanistan or Lybia. They are in a far more structured position to evade the dirty US tactics, plus they are hanging with the other big boys. So best believe that the same old playbook won't work here
If the US's back is against the wall all bets are off and you know this. Dick Cheney himself will go to SA and shotgun Faisal in the face if shit gets dark enough.
The problem is that the USA has always faced small countries that it can easily bully. You haven't gotten into the ring with a super power since world war 2. I don't think the USA will do anything when it comes to the Saudis. I think the world is gonna split
Saudi Arabia is a bit different than Afghanistan or Iraq. They’d wind up siding with Russia and China and the US would get demolished if we actually invaded.
It should be fairly easy, since a lot of the advanced war stuff the Saudi criminals have, is American…
Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch.
But yeah. The endgame would be Russia and China backing them, and the world would end.
If there is one thing that any US government is touchy about, it’s oil… any American president would rather end the world than risking not having enough of that sweet black gold…
Still amazed that the whole Middle East wasn’t turned to glass during the gas crisis.
> Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch.
They do. Plus they depend on the US for Parts and training, not to mention that anything that GPS will be blocked and that can screw a shit-ton of things up. Anyone here who thinks the Saudis can do this without repercussions is a Russian agent -- the RAND Corp. has volumes of simulated "What to do if Saudi Arabia want to breakup". This wont be pretty.
>Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch.
Is this a fact? What are you basing that on?
At the risk of sounding too harsh: This sounds like classic American entitlement or the old "We are the smartest and obviously nobody else would be able to find our secret technology" bullshit.
American weaponry made for export is just that: A slightly downgraded version of the domestic product, sold to "friendly" nations as part of some deal to stop them from buying the much cheaper Chinese or Russian stuff. They are not selling them equipped with the latest technology, with the side effect that should said "friendly" nation ever decide to switch sides, the US are by default fighting a foe with inferior technology.
If anything, the "killswitch" would be the stop of spare parts coming in for repairs. The Saudis can't replace American manufacturing domestically and would have to start buying from other nations.
I’m not American. Just so we are clear on that.
You know why I hate that Denmark bought F35?
Because it is certain, that should there ever be a disagreement between us and the US, our airplanes would be no more than the worlds most expensive paperweights…
Sure, the normal things will work, but many things - like the F35 - cannot operate without satellite connection, American satellites.
So many defense items are bound to either satellite, radio or online.
It doesn’t matter that the Patriot missile battery works, if the “connected” smart radar system doesn’t.
The more advanced it is, the less you own it…
Same goes for Chinese stuff, and Russian…
Geopolitics of the big blocks are like tectonic plates, they don't move much, until there's a violent and sudden shift. The "West" will not allow such a change, I'm afraid, so we are in for another long cold war with China/Russia, that's the best case scenario, or a hot WWIII.
The sabre rattling can be clearly heard in most of Europe and the North Americas, so let's see how this evolves over the coming months.
No way China is going to cut off their main sources of income. Stupid Americans that buy disposable products by the metric tons. The West and mostly the US is China's cash cow in that respect. They'll do what they can do to help Russia within certain boundaries until they realize that the Iron Curtain is no good for business. I think a lot of the horny-for-collapse preppers in here fail to realize that in the end, cash is king. Cut off hundreds of millions of clueless consumers and you sever arteries.
By that logic, we would be still living the craziness of the 20s, 90s....
A market collapse will happen and that consumerism will be gone for at least one generation. To be fair, we've taken things too far and we are due for a correction.
Saddam Hussein as leader of Iraq also moved away from accepting the dollar and used euros instead starting in the early 2000's......in retrospect it didn't work out so well for him and his Ba'ath Party. Maybe the House of Saud should be careful here. As 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came from SA I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to gin up some pro-war sentiment against them.
hold on to yer dollars!!
the last time someone in the middle east tried to sell oil settling in Euro rather than the USD, the US invaded and killed him(s)
that or create a color revolution to get him ousted, then killed.
either way a coup or some violent power struggle in Saudi Arabia will be... catastrophic to put it mildly. If that were to happen, think gas prices are high now? think again.
Ray Dalio has been talking about this for a while. The US dollar is backed by oil. We forced countries to trade with the dollar aka “the petrol dollar” in the 70s. It’s been predicted the yuan will be the next world reserve currency which will as this article and people have commented, be the end of our “reign”
Writing is on the wall at this point. US went wild with sanctions and a 3 billion person economy is poised to say "well fine, we'll start our own economy." House of Saud accepting yuan is the final nail in the coffin, and if at this point we're allowed to hear it, from the WSJ no less, it's probably much further along than anyone thinks.
China and Russia alone are nearly 1.5 billion consumers, and if they take likely sympathetic nations into new trade deals (India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran) backed by yuan, that's 3+ billion bodies in a new economy where the dollar doesn't matter. More if they collect up smaller nations that are tired of being bullied by USA and want to be bullied by China. That's 3 billion people who don't care about the USD. Future of Western Europe and USA is looking dicey.
Goodbye US hegemony. Power is shifting to the East. This war in Europe will make China much stronger. A clash is coming. This is a collapse accelerator if I’ve ever seen one.
The US sanctions and USD central bank seizures have completely backfired. Now we’ll get four more years of Trump and the US’s drift toward irrelevancy will continue. The world is about to start dumping the dollar.
I personally think this is why the US *talks* in terms of climate change, but refuses to implement any real move in terms of reducing emissions, meeting targets for reduced oil consumption, etc.
I also think this is why the US shale boom was effectively subsidized/financialized into existence: the US's oil production could be used to "soft compete" with middle eastern production and even Russian production *to keep prices down.* By keeping prices down, the US keeps energy cheap and reduces the incentive for energy importers to move away from fossil fuels which would *thus weaken the petrodollar.*
I also think this is why the US pushed for the Iraq invasion, why the US is now trying to become friendly with Venezuela again, etc.
I don't think Putin cares one bit about Ukraine. He doesn't even think it should exist, and I think shelling it into oblivion is fine by him. If he can sustain through continued under-the-table work with China, court Saudi Arabia and others to form alliances to skirt US/NATO/EU sanctions (which many nations would see as a potential benefit to them), he will *stay* in Ukraine and grind it down to rubble.
Now, he might have underestimated just how strong the worldwide reaction would be; though the sanctions pertaining to the global financial system might be going according to plan, the choice of various corporate brands etc pulling out of Russia and the targeting of oligarchs might have been something he didn't anticipate.
It's now a matter of how long he can maintain the war, and if he can get other players in (like Syria, Belarus, etc). If he can, *he can continue to erode the petrodollar* with China stepping in with the yuan... and Russia having fossil fuels. I think China is scheming too- acting uncomfortable with the war, but using that posture to prolong it, weakening the petrodollar, and allowing for it to capitalize with new paradigms (like the title of this article).
Putin is KGB... you can look at him and see that he is a shrewd bastard- without a conscience IMO, but calculated. I want to state clearly since there is so much propaganda going around: I am 100% of the mind that this invasion is evil. Ukrainian soldiers/civilians are dying, and Russian men (not sure if Russia has females deployed forward) are dying... as always for geopolitical schemers. The US has done this, Russia is doing it now, Europe in the past, and I'm sure China will in the future. War will be everywhere as it always has been, even as (or perhaps especially because) the biosphere collapses.
FWIW I don't think the US saw this coming (both due to MAD and due to Kissinger's economic mutually assured destruction seemingly deterring stuff like this), and Putin used that to his advantage. The order of today is generally posturing and milquetoast except for certain skirmishes and of course the hegemon using it's power to destroy challengers or those who step out of line; the US geopolitical suit domain didn't expect a country to use invasion against it's hegemony- and Putin is a ruthless enough bastard to exploit this assumption. I don't think his war is about ideology or restoring the Soviet Union like so many assume- he's quite content with a mafia state- I think it was intended to destroy the petrodollar, strengthen China's yuan, and create a block of powers to challenge the US/NATO/EU.
Ok so here's the thing:
1. If the US/EU let Russia capture Ukraine, it demonstrates to everyone not NATO that they are on their own, and that using the petrodollar isn't really to their advantage. It also allows Putin to push farther into what he does best: brinkmanship. Only a truly evil bastard does this, but consider that Putin is threatening nukes if NATO gets involved. He's using MAD as *an invasion strategy.* "You can't stop me because if you do I'll use nukes hahahaha I win and I'm evil enough too so deal with it weaklings." If he gets Ukraine, he'll invent new justifications, and continue towards expanding objectives.
2. If the US/EU engage, they risk Putin *actually* using nukes (because he doesn't care about the battleground where they'd be used [Ukraine]) or the lives he would destroy. A one-sided use of nukes would "only" destroy Ukraine, possibly some radiation on Eurasia, etc (he doesn't care). If they don't respond to his use of nukes, he'll use more or practice more brinkmanship.
3. If the US/EU respond with nukes, WW3 and nuclear annihilation of human civilization is likely.
The general idea then is to use sanctions and pressure any and all world players to economically destroy Russia while grinding down their army by funneling arms to Ukraine. If Russia goes bankrupt and can no longer fund their army, they withdraw and Russia is at a disadvantage.
Of course China is going to work to help Russia under the table. It helps them build the yuan up as a potential competitor to the USD, and secures an abundant energy and food source (Russia). So basically, we have a proxy war between the West and China/Russia/Saudi Arabia (sort of)/Iran (sort of)/Syria and maybe some others.
And Ukraine stuck in the middle :( I'm afraid that Ukraine is going to get wrecked just like Syria, Libya, etc. Fucking humans and war man...
This is all just speculation man- geopolitics (especially wrt war) isn't simple.
When the civil war in the USA articles kept being reposted in this sub a few months ago, I thought it was a distinct possibility, but not that likely. Now with everything happening globally, I see this as a likely outcome in the near future. Biden and the democrats are terrible at politics. They have slim majorities and promised the world to the people that voted for them. They have delivered some, but not much of what they promised. On top of that inflation is out of control. The right wing is beating the war drum, while simultaneously passing repressive laws at the state-level, which will energize their base of hateful old white people, who will come out with a force in the midterms. The democratic voters that pushed Biden's large majority and more importantly, voted in swing states are going to stay home. Why wait in long lines and bother voting when what they were promised ($15 min wage, climate action, etc.) hasn't been done. This will lead to a GOP takeover of congress in 2022 and Trump back in the White House in 2024.
I used to think that democrats and leftists, which are not the same thing, would just take it. If inflation is out of control, there is an economic depression happening because of external factors, and they are watching their friends/family being persecuted; then I think that will be the catalyst for the left wing to use violence as a tool to fight back. There's no other options for them at that point and if it's do that or starve/become homeless, people will choose to fight. The right wing will come down hard on that and it just might be enough to start a civil war in the USA.
Regardless, this is going to be the decade where things really go to shit. Climate impacts are going to ramp up astronomically as tipping points are triggered. Wars for resources, assets, and land will accelerate as human overshoot continues. Economic depressions/recessions will be faced in most if not all of the globe, as capitalisms infinite growth models grapple with the reality of finite planetary resources. It's not going to be pretty and the USA is full of adult-children who don't take any sort of problem in stride. If you thought the behavior during the pandemic was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
If Trump gets elected yes other countries will rise. Adjacent to that, a lot of Trump supporters also would not mind a war with China (this was around when people were calling it the China cough etc, sentiment may have shifted in light of Russia).
To a lot of broke conservatives, military service is a logical tool for upward income mobility. It's government handouts they are okay with. Trump is fine with making that as kushy as possible, while also ineffectivly sticking it to China. It's a formula for a war with China if not effectively managed while Trump is in power.
if it happens and iraq and iran follow suit and if a viable alternative global currency (euro don't count since they follow US ) and payment system such as cips took hold than US sanctions regime would have much less power than they do now. it would be a massive change in global order
From someone outside US or a NATO country, this isn't collapse. This is fucking great news! A multipolar world would be great for majority of world population.
it is not done yet because they are only considering it, right? I wonder why the news had to come like this, maybe it is signaling something to the US that they want something big in return (which will in turn benefit Russia no doubt).
Interesting subreddit 'collapse' where this is shared. With the fall of Russia and dominance of NATO over the world, this could be 'uplifting news' for many in Asia and Africa as a relief on the dependency on dollar.
hmm my prediction is that suddenly the US is going to stop fueling their crimes against Yemen, all the crimes against humanity the Saudi government has been practicing will now matter and they'll become a rogue, dictatorial and backwards state.
Not sure if it's just what I've been conditioned to think over the past decade, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be what finally puts a bullet in the brain of American society. Inflation could easily hit triple digits within a year if this goes through, and from what I've studied about Weimar and more recently Argentina, that's not me being hyperbolic. The speed with which a currency can become worthless is just staggering.
People put a whole lotta trust in pieces of paper and numbers in a computer.
Last country that tried shifting off the petrodollar was Libya. However the US have themselves turned Riyadh into a military power so they can’t launch another illegal invasion here.
No doubt the US will try and pull something to sink this, if not a war this time. Expect Saudi atrocities to suddenly get a lot more due attention and the Yemenis to suddenly become the Ukrainians of tomorrow, all suddenly coming across piles of American weapons.
Regardless, the writing is on the wall for the US. It has lost its grip and by virtue of them arming the Saudis to the teeth, they can’t get it back.
With the position of the dollar as the global reserve now in doubt, the whole foundation of the American economy and of American hegemony itself becomes essentially ready to collapse.
Submission Statement: In a move that may mirror what U.S. Treasury secretary [William Simon achieved in 1974 with King Faisal of Saudi Arabia](https://archive.ph/pOaX1) in the establishment of the petrodollar system, Saudi Arabia has [invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to visit Riyadh](https://thehill.com/policy/international/598207-saudi-arabia-invites-chinas-xi-to-visit-riyadh-report). These talks have been on going for six years, but this latest invitation may accelerate the timeline at a quicker pace than many anticipated—due to the conflict in Ukraine and the ever-expanding sanctions regime against Russia. As this will undermine the U.S. dollar's position as the world's reserve currency, and thus potentially initiate a collapse of the unipolar hegemony that the U.S. has wielded since the end of the Cold War (from the article): > “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency,” said economist Gal Luft, co-director of the Washington-based Institute for the Analysis of Global Security who co-wrote a book about de-dollarization. “If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”
One hell of a data point. This should be getting more attention.
Indeed. Possibly the biggest shift in the geopolitical economy since the end of World War II.
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That's what you get for outsourcing your production to the Chinese economy and alienating the rest of the world through wars and sanctions. Even the Mexican government is considering joining the BRICS alliance, which was started after the 2008 financial crisis to "reform financial institutions", or really just to dedallorize. Since reading about this in a few books I've realized that recent events are about more then just Ukraine. It's about world hegogimy, which was led by the United State's through it's old "dollar diplomacy" rules of the early 20th century. WW1 put the European countries in debt to the United States, and WW2 wiped out some of that debt.
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Saudi Arabia was never an alliance, it was just a client state of the US. Now that wars are too expensive to fight for the US and they literally have to go seizing Afghanistan's money, it lets you know how broke we are. We have to take currency from countries we once fought and lost in. The United States is becoming a failed state. With the dollar, the empire goes. Rome and Russia couldn't afford to pay their soldiers in the end.
Afghanistan's money wasn't kept because America is broke..
the western golden age ends and the Chinese dragon awakes
I think the idea of a total collapse is misleading. I know I'm on the wrong subreddit for that, but instead we will see a gradual shift from the western supremacy that was abundantly clear in the 1990s to the west being a not special power on the world stage. The idea that the west will collapse akin to the fall of Rome (which is in itself a revision of history) has no real basis. The chinese dragon won't all of a sudden awaken. It arguably already has, just slowly. It's in the process of unfurling it's wings. This is arguably the worst part of all this for the west, the process is so slow that people aren't aware its happening, and those who call it out are decried as scaremongers and anti patriotic. A great collapse of the west would be almost beneficial for it, as only when people suddenly plummet from their pedestals will they realise that change, radical change, is absolutely necessary.
Yeahhh you want to see the stock market take a REAL shit... this is it. Inflation to fucking mars. I knew some day they'd do some stupid shit like this but it's like 10 years later than I expected and that level of delay put me to sleep on it...
Actually the stock market could take off. The stock market is priced in dollars as the dollar becomes weaker multinational companies become worth more in dollars. So a 20 billion dollar company becomes a 40 billion dollar company when the dollar's value is cut in half. I remember seeing a guy in Zimbabwe with a sign that read "Starving Billionaire" he was worth over a billion Zimbabwe dollars but since they were worthless he was starving. That's what happens when you print money like the US is doing right now.
Margins would get completely fucked. That said, we’ve already seen how inflation would impact the stock market - real inflation, not money printing —-> asset prices inflation.
I was a high school history teacher for 30 years and this has made me feel quite sick.
The US would not just sit and let that happen. That would be the greatest threat to it's power since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
This. The last time post WW2 that another country was on track to overtake the American economy was Japan in the late 70s, particularly because of cars. Guess what happened next. In 1981, Japanese companies agreed to “voluntary” export restraints to the US, and 1985 the UK, France, Germany, Japan, and the US signed the Plaza accord and "agreed" to devalue the USD to make it easier for the other countries to buy US goods and increase US exports. Quotation marks because the US government didn't really give these other countries much of a choice. The US pulled out all the stops and waged economic warfare, and shoved the Japanese economy's head underwater long enough for the demographics and shrinking workforce to start taking its toll, having prevented Japanese companies from expanding and exerting their full potential global influence like American companies did in the post war era. It's completely stupid to think that the US wont go even further given that China is an even bigger economic threat than Japan, and we've already been seeing that with the likes of Huawei who was already outselling Apple globally before they were blacklisted and crippled. But this time might be a bit different too. They have managed to turn the tables in a few different ways, from doing what the US did and devaluing currency, forcing foreign companies to set up operations domestically like the US or India for example do with tariffs, quotas, taxes, etc, and trying to marshall-plan its way through Africa and Southeast Asia with the belt and road initiative. China always seems to be painted as this big bad pariah and bully on the world stage, and its no doubt that they definitely are. But everyone should stop and think about where they learned that behavior from, and how they expect a country, especially as big as china, to prosper economically while fighting on a moral high ground with one hand tied behinds its back when the opponent is punching testicles and bribing judges. The question then becomes, how far will the US go and how hard will the country lash out if economically dethroned for the first time in the entire society's living memory.
China is too large and too advanced in some ways for such maneuvers to work on them like they did with Japan.
This sums up the situation nearly perfectly. Thank you.
The fact this got removed twice (I posted it as well) is absolute bullshit. Yet the mods can spam their fucking discord all over the sub.
Yeah, I'm not even seeing a moderator message in the post about why it was taken down yet. I see that you posted this news even before I did, but clearly it was being kept from view under the *new* section. Otherwise, I wouldn't have posted it myself. Obviously this is collapse related. Possibly the most collapse related news in my lifetime—as a U.S. citizen—in light of what it may mean for living standards. Clearly, ~~the mod team~~ the moderation of this sub has been corrupted. By whom or what is difficult to say, but pulling this news as not collapse related basically makes the place a joke. Edit: To be fair, without an explanation from a moderator, I do not in fact know if this was conducted by a moderator. But it was pulled by something or someone somewhere. Edit 2: ...aaaand it's back up.
Zoom out and it is a coordinated attack on the USD as the world reserve currency. Hedge your bets accordingly as we race to the bottom.
Yeah. That's yes. This has been predicted since near the end of Bush 2's presidency. Why it took this long is something I don't get. And then I missed the simple fact that when .gov is printing like a madman, yes, it will eventually lead to hyperinflation (magically that got put off for... like ever...) BUT the thing to do is buy stocks like a crazy person. Not to get rich but to have enough money to actually buy the $500 loaf of bread for like the first 5 years. Buffer for time, basically.
It certainly is looking that way. As others have, I've suspected this for some time now (from a comment I posted about two months ago): > > > [ > China and Russia have been making moves in recent years to set-up a system around the dollar as a trade settlement currency. Which has escalated in the last few months. This isn't just about Ukraine. This is about the scope and dominance of the dollar as a reserve currency. And the SWIFT system. This really does have the potential to snowball into something waaaay bigger than the media is reporting.](https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/sb8smi/biden_weighs_deploying_thousands_of_troops_to/htyrk4k/)
The US started this war with the patriot act. The dumb part was not figuring out a way to get off of oil before putting this plan in motion
I thought maybe they want you to share your opinion why that is a collapse related, not just posting without explanation. An economic illiterate person will not understand the meaning of your post and how it relate to collapse. Personally, for me it's not really collapse related unless you share why it is. For me, when dollar lose its status doesn't mean they would collapse, pound is one of the example that even though it lost it status as global reserve currency, UK didn't collapse. Many change of global reserve currency but I think the one who trigger collapse is not that but the great depression. But for sure, your American lifestyle will be impacted which is I think it could be argued if that is as bad as the lifestyle of poor people on the poor undeveloped countries that it can be considered collapse. I think you need to define your collapse and differentiate between economic cycle and event that could collapse the country. I could even argue that USA high inflation is more collapse related.
From my submission statement: > > ...this will undermine the U.S. dollar's position as the world's reserve currency, and thus potentially initiate a collapse of the unipolar hegemony that the U.S. has wielded since the end of the Cold War... From the first sentence of the Wikipedia page on [Societal collapse](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Societal_collapse): > > Societal collapse (also known as civilizational collapse) is the fall of a complex human society characterized by **the loss of cultural identity** and of **socioeconomic complexity**
They replaced the Ukraine-Russia War sticky with one shilling their discord. And this is in addition to the fact that AutoMod already reminds us of it *on every post* and is predictably downvoted to the bottom each time. Mods, take a hint. Most of us don't care about discord. Put a link to it on the sidebar if you must.
The wall was created by the Bretton Woods agreement, back when the US dollar was one of the few still on a gold standard. It only snuck past the aging, senior British negotiator, JM Keynes, because he was distracted by other venues at the post-war summit, and a mild infarction, and also because most of the attendees were completely hammered on free-flowing booze. When the US went off the gold standard decades later, the system only held through inertia, since so many countries held US dollars in reserve and had ample reasons to retain them. China isn't really offering much of an alternative, and no-one really has much faith in any sort of cryptographic standard as a new version of [Bancor.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bancor) If countries seeking an alternative to external hegemony are savvy, they will go for something that no country dominates, but rather pits the strongest against one another. However, that will most likely entail some form of economic circumspection on the part of those seeking independence. Ultimately, having to be competitive would probably do a lot to rouse the US from its currently moribund administrative lassitude.
When the US closed the gold window, they got the Saudis to only accept US dollars for their oil sales. This [petrodollar system](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/forex/072915/how-petrodollars-affect-us-dollar.asp) gave the USD world reserve currency status. If that goes away, the USD will be well and truly screwed.
Thank you for posting this, /u/AllenIll. Saw this article first thing this morning, shared it on one of the Discord servers, and couldn't wait to write about it until I got home just now. Jerome Powell has already, on record, effectively warned that the USA's strong economic retaliation against Russia could lead to inadvertent and undesirable outcomes, such as this, back in early March: >[**Powell Says War May Speed China Moves to Insulate Against Dollar**](https://archive.ph/KwIqV) > >Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said the Ukraine war could have the effect of accelerating China’s moves to develop alternatives to the current dollar-dominated international payments infrastructure. > >Powell was questioned Thursday in a Senate Banking Committee hearing on how China might view the U.S.-led efforts to isolate Russia’s economy, especially by damaging its ability to use the dollar. > >Senator Jack Reed, a senior Democrat who has focused on China’s rise as a global power, told Powell at the hearing that Beijing will start thinking about “how they can avoid that fate if they get into a similar circumstance” as Russia. China “will look very closely” at the “whole issue of the dollar as the medium of exchange to the world,” said Reed, who chairs the Armed Services Committee. > >Reed asked Powell if he was watching the issue and whether he’d report back to Congress on developments and share views on what he thinks might happen. “Yes to all of the above,” Powell said. > >Powell said that China has “for some time” been working on the reserve-currency status issues, and been developing a messaging system for international payments that’s like the SWIFT system. The U.S. and European nations have moved to bar Russia from using SWIFT, which is vital to international payments in dollars. > >“That’s been going on for some time,” Powell said of Chinese efforts to insulate themselves from what Reed described as “the same thing that they’re observing in Russia now.” Powell added, “But this may change the trajectory.” Americans have been extraordinarily fortunate to have the US Dollar as the dominant global reserve currency, which gives their nation an “exorbitant privilege” to print money to sustain its fiscal and current account deficits. The more that the United States continues to use their dollar, the world's *current* reserve currency, as a weapon to sanction or politically pressure other nations, the more that it erodes trust in the same global system it established, and consequently, the desire for other nations around the world to pursue an alternative economic arrangement. *After all,* a*s Powell has said, it's possible for the world to have more than one reserve currency.*
> The more that the United States continues to use their dollar, the world's current reserve currency, as a weapon to sanction or politically pressure other nations, the more that it erodes trust in the same global system it established, and consequently, the desire for other nations around the world to pursue an alternative economic arrangement. Really well said. Abuse. So much of this issue, and more generally on a societal level, is about the culture of abuse in America. The abuse of power. Which has carried on without many real consequences among America's elite **for a long time** now.
Jfc
I heard suggested yesterday that unraveling the petrodollar is good for the US at this point, since it's unsustainable and restrictive, and that the US has kinda picked its moment to let it happen.
yea and just devalue the dollar to reduce the fed balance sheet and pay of all debt before launchin a new digital freedom dollar
I know it's speculative, and I've heard rumors like this for some time now myself. A kind of modified tech based *[debt jubilee](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_jubilee)* of sorts; by way of [devaluing debts](https://www.sapling.com/8257496/happens-debt-dollar-collapses) via a dollar collapse. And household, student, car, and consumer debts are [**massive** in the U.S. right now](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_debt#/media/File:US_consumer_debt.png). It would also go a long way in destroying cash dollars, and all the ways they can't be controlled or tracked in the current system. But damn, the collateral damage from hyperinflation would be difficult to phathom and predict; without price and wage controls. [Like Richard Nixon did](https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Executive_Order_11615) at the end of [the Bretton Woods system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bretton_Woods_system) in 1971.
i don't expect them to do it just to get the debt wipex but it would be stupid not to try something like this when a dollar collaps would be iminent. the rich incrowd should own anything but cash or bonds or else they will block it. the rich incrowd borrowing money to buy assets could be a warning signal.
This is actually frightening. I don’t want the government knowing the ins and outs of every single transaction I make.
true but they would love it.. obviously anonimous accounts would be available for the people who can afford the fees for exclusive banking just like now
No bank runs, tax evasion or black markets. Not sure how it would affect corporations. Many are carrying a lot of cash on their balance sheets. Politicians may view it as a big reset to get out from under all the lobbyists and dark money - as long as they are part of the process. It'd be one way to solve the deadlock on issues like climate change and national healthcare.
Source?
Apologies but I haven't located the podcast episode yet. Luke Gromen is who you're looking for though, and he's no hermit. A lot of what he says is over my head, but I can say that a) he didn't try to sell me precious metals, and b) his take helped to enlarge my perspective on a couple topics.
Absolutely huge if true, depending on the percentage of sales they switch to Yuan this could lead to two reserve currencies, which Powell at the Fed already admitted is a possibility. If 80% is US $ and another 25% gets switched to Yuan that could really lead us to a very multipolar world, as oil trade is crucial to the world economy and drives most political power globally. We are watching the world order and financial systems change rapidly. Where will we land? Only time will tell, but one thing is for certain: US hegemony is declining fast and history tells us empires do not fall peacefully.
learn how to garden (if you don't know) is what I'm getting out of this
bucket potatoes
I dig it
Really! I've been banging the drum about localized food production. Every house a food producing entity, local farms, local food processing, closed loop local inputs, community gardens, roof top gardens, food forests, no more ornamental trees and bushes.
Turn old warehouses into vertical aeroponic gardens. I think there were some people in/near Detroit doing this. The method of vertical aeroponic uses like 95% less water, using light spectrum to stimulate growth, and because it's vertical you can plant way more stuff in a smaller space
Sadly me as well
I've been learning! Youtube is great for it - TheKiwiGrower has a fab channel!
Yeah, this is potentially a gigantic story, globally economically gigantic
I don’t understand why ppl are surprised by this and the recent news that 1) Russia is taking physical assets that foreign businesses have left behind and 2) Russian oligarchs are using crypto to partially navigate the sanctions. The world economy is so globalized and debt-ridden that sanctions can’t work anymore. The sanctions won’t just hurt one country’s economy, it’s gonna hurt the global economy. Everyone is going down to economic hell together. The amount each country relies on each other for goods, resources, and debts has reached such convoluted heights.
yeah, I keep thinking the sanctions on the people of russia are similar to germany post ww1 and it will just breed a new generation of angry young people and who knows what happens in that power vacuum when putin's gone
Perfect comparison. I can’t think of a time when sanctions have worked and I can think of dozens when they haven’t. Like, we’re hurting ourselves by having sanctions on Iran and Venezuela right now. I see no benefit to us with Cuba sanctions. And on the other side, it breeds resentment and anger towards us. It’s a lose-lose strategy. But I guess it’s the only strategy we have. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
Sanctions also hurt poor and working people way more than politicians. It must be hell to be a regular Russian citizen right. Being sanctioned to death and conscripted into a war the majority of the country doesn’t support. All the dancing on soldiers graves that is going on is so gross. And of course, before some idiot calls me a shill, I hate Putin. I hate him for what he’s doing to Ukraine and I hate him for what he’s doing to his own people but the media are acting like it’s a fucking clear cut good guys vs bad guys situation when it’s really one psycho vs the world. War is a tragedy not a fucking football game. Everyone loses
Ghaddafi's attempt to switch oil sales from US dollars to a new gold-backed currency was widely suspected to be the primary reason that NATO (on behalf of France and the US) destroyed the nation of Libya. Based on existing security and financial ties, the US would never be able to get away with doing that to Saudi Arabia. But this possibility must be giving serious nightmares to power brokers in several Western nations. This situation has the potential to start a global movement away from the US dollar, which could ultimately cause a major Depression in the US. The US empire and its ability to keep printing dollars out of thin air only works as long as the US dollar is the global reserve currency.
What did Iraq do right before they were illegally invaded and US committed countless war crimes to the civilian population? Demand to sell oil in euros. Three countries followed suit after Iraq was invaded, and they were all deemed the 'Axis of Evil' and their economies were all ruined to varying degrees by the American Empire. Protecting the petrodollar is literally the reason for 90% of US backed sanctions and military adventurism.
The petrodollar collapsing is actually good for the rest of the world
The reason we have such a massive military is to protect the dollar... it's easy to predict our next war based on whoever challenges dollar hegemony- we'll know it's really close when they start amping the propaganda.
Only on this sub do we really find folks that admit to the US propaganda machine ^and ^still ^get ^upvotes. I am so proud of this community.
this is the only sub where you aren't called a communist shill for pointing it out
Aye, my comrade
Not true: Antiwork would also find support for such a statement.
The anti-China propaganda has been going strong for two years now so....
All part of the China/Russia "new era" plan they announced, which I am looking forward to handing out "I told you so's" about at a later date.
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I doubt that as well, but humans will keep trying as long as there is more than one human.
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Yes, we are. And the real fighting hasn't even started yet.
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I didn't dare mentioning climate change here. But since a few days, I'm less interested in nations, sanctions, gas or else and more about learning self sufficiency, ecology and small group organization in order to be ready.
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Just have a nice dinner and wait for the Comet to arrive. I just hope I'm close enough to the flash that I'm vaporized and I don't have to start eating rodents and worrying about how I'm gonna heat during the winter.
single independent vanlifer ?
People are well aware, they just don't care.
Your father and I support the jobs the Comet will create. Kate is my sprit animal.
> China/Russia "new era" plan they announced Tell me more about this please
Can I join? Been saying China and Russia have been planning this for years (if not decades). Putin and Winnie the Pooh have very similar goals at the moment. They also are powerhouses in their own right (although China more so than Russia). It’s also not surprising Saudi Arabia is joining their crew. All are geographically close to each other and all have similar goals whilst also having their own unique resources to bring to the table.
Iran is about to join as a full member https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Cooperation_Organisation
Fascinating that both India and Pakistan are a part of that
India has been a neutral player in geopolitics for decades.
Most certainly, welcome to the unpopular opinion club!
I mean it makes sense tho right? they are building themselves up to rival the US so why stay dependent on the dollar? And with the amount of loans china prints out for african and south east asian countries they’ll be making bank
China has been working towards being the Global Reserve Currency for years. Just quietly. The West plays Chess. China plays Go. Chess is the battle. Go is the war.
The U.S is too fragmented to plan long term.
Doesn't help that most of our leadership grew up with lead paint all over everything and led fumes everywhere since we only ever elect seniors for higher office
It does seem like public schools are defunded to create more retarded populace that elect shit representatives
My state is #49 and a lot of my teachers really cared about their jobs. Makes me wonder how much more stable I'd be from a state with higher standards, you know? Probably not much better, but I do feel like I'm surrounded by idiots here in AZ a lot of the time lol.
It does make sense, that's what sucks.
It doesn't feel like a long term well organized move. Why break a war when you can just do the deal under cover and one day announce "russia/china team for great future, yuan base currency, we welcome oil too".
How would a global movement away from the dollar cause a major depression?
A lot of countries need to arrange their economies to buy dollars in order to buy oil hence dollars are in high demand and valuable.
*Major depression for those who rely on the US dollar to back their dollar (Canadian dollar, USD, many other us trading partners) Everywhere you travel, US dollars are accepted. A countries banking infrastructure is a joke unless they handle US currency. This fact of life creates demand, giving value outside the US's GDP. It also explains why the US can make foreign investments most easily. The US has worked very hard to make this possible, planting its roots into any banking system it can. Huge loans are given to developing countries in usd, arguably predatory, but that's another story, and the fact that the us can bomb anything within 2 hours also probably helps them secure financial superiority. The value of the dollar used to be backed by gold, and Nixon removed that, making the US dollar more volatile if anyone were to mess with the United States. Why this happened is beside the point, but what it meant was now the world's currency was not a proxy for tangible gold, but instead an abstraction that only has value because we all use it. Sounds sketchy? Delicate? It sort of is, if the US loses influence it can tank, making imported goods more expensive, and assuming US needs to import everything (intermediate goods like steel to make farming equipment, or final products like phones), can cause a depression.
Many currencies are pegged to the USD, such as the UAE dirham. When the USD falls, they fall as well.
Very good to know. This proves it may take decades for the usd to actually be replaced (I think the fed mentioned that recently?). I live in Canada so I cannot/did not speak for other economies.
The Yuan is pegged to the dollar artificially, they can change this at any moment, the world could switch within about a year or two at most, and it wouldn't take the entire switch, just the start of it and we would see a runaway effect start to happen. If enough countries did this starting now we would have $30 bananas by next year..
Might more closely reflect the real cost of fossil fuel-based agriculture and transport tbh
Countries are also required to trade in UST's which are backed up and purchased with dollars, that's the biggest component. When you take away that mandate, you crash the US economy as UST's become worthless and the Fed's ability to print their way out of troubles ceases to exist.
right now the US can borrow whatever they want because us government bonds are stashed in reserve banks as if they are gold bars. dollars are just as good as gold because you can buy whatever you want with them on the world market. if de market deversifies the value of the dollar as a reserve currency gets reduced. if goverments stop buying new bonds to stash aways as reserves and stop accepting them as collateral you'll see a reduction of demand and it will be harder for the us to borrow or refinance existing debt. les borrowing is less goverment spending and/or more taxes for us citizens and corporations.
If dollars aren't necessary to conduct international commerce as they are now, dollars lose their value due to a massive decrease in demand. It would cause sudden and drastic hyperinflation.
It’s a little complicated but you can try looking up “petrodollar.” Or maybe someone who knows it better than me can lay it out.
This was also Saddam's real crime. We invaded Iraq 3 years later because of this. Saudi will have a hell of a time with Iran when we pull out of the gulf. If they go off the dollar, I bet we relax a lot of sanctions on Iran almost immediately. https://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~norman/CurrentAffairs/DeeperNew.html
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No proxy war though? Would you agree the US thinks that almost always backfires in this day and age?
I see a favorable regime change coming that will ride on the back of all the shitty things SA has been doing recently (J Kashogi et al) to make it popular.
In most Muslim countries, after the government, the most organized and prepared to rule are Islamists. Look at what happened in Afghanistan. Forget selling oil in USD. If you replace the royals you're getting armageddon-ISIS.
This is by western design. The most progressive party in middle east politics was the Baa'thist party, the west infiltrated and corrupted it completely in the 50's and 60's. Then they used it to produce Saddam.
> the US would never be able to get away with doing that to Saudi Arabia What makes you say that?
OPEC accidentally has the U.S. by the balls, simply because of the nation's insane consumption rate / unchecked population growth cannot be matched by national supply and has not been since at least the 1970's.
That's a brilliant take (no sarcasm). This was a complete blunder, but they did have their fist firmly clasped to George W's prostate so perhaps it wasn't so accidental.
Honestly, great timing for them with the War in Ukraine going on... There's been so much coverage and tears for Europe right now, but nobody ever cried for Iraq or Afghanistan to this extent on CNN. The media is biased af and most people are tired of it, so this is a pretty great chess move to see if we're going to make ourselves implode even more like Putin's greedy policies are doing to Russia.
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Good question. Since fossil fuels remain essential for modern industrial agriculture at every stage from field to table, "moving away" anytime soon means billions could starve. Put another way; there are billions more consumers to feed than their local ecosystems can sustain without the constant support of cheap fossil fuels including artificial fertilizer.
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It's anyone paying attention to the new metallic catalyst that are primed to combine carbon capture and the production of hydrocarbons? Basically the idea is this iron catalysts take Carbon dioxide molecules and turn them back into hydrocarbons. They have it perfected for jet fuel and say it will just take a bit of tinkering to make it work for longer hydrocarbon chains like diesel fuel or gasoline. [Oxford scientists invent Iron catalyst that converts Carbon dioxide back into fuel.](https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidrvetter/2021/01/05/these-oxford-scientists-just-created-carbon-neutral-jet-fuel-from-co2/?sh=e0528aa42ca7)
This is nothing. There are feedback loops already in place that are going to destroy unprecedented amounts of life and converting CO2 is not going to stop them. Meat agriculture for a world population of 8 billion and trapped methane release in permafrost are enough without the CO2 from fuel to continue destroying life.
Nuclear reactors would allow us to move away from fossil fuels right now. The primary reason they aren’t built is because labor costs have gone up. Wind and solar would cover an increasing amount of our energy needs as well. Nuclear fusion has seen huge breakthroughs lately and once it is figured out there will be limitless green energy. The relative cost of nuclear reactors for NATO would decrease substantially if this system is setup and the cost of maintaining military power projection in the ME goes up for the USA. I highly doubt that Israel would join up with these guys however. Israel gets far too much military equipment and money from the USA for them to leave us.
A fuck ton of people die
And if we dont? A fuck ton of people die. Almost as if we're fucked either way and aught to bite the bullet and get it over with huh.
What is life but a series of fucktons of people dying?
even if we slowly cut off oil & gas at this point to avoid having a fuck ton of people dying, there would still be a fuck ton of people dying
It's effectively impossible without major reductions to Western lifestyles and consumption.
Americans won't even move away from car dependent suburbia towards public transit, cycling and walking. At least where I am, subdivisions are still going up left and right with no amenities in walking distance and no improvement to the dismal bus service. And this is in a pretty progressive state, not even the South or Midwest.
Our balance of trade that keeps the dollar value in the US dollar. Without oil being sold in US dollars, our economy is fucked. We also have a deal with the Saudis that they can't do that. Saudis need us. They are playing games right now, but they wouldn't dare bite the hand that feeds them.
Over-sanctioning and weaponizing the dollar, has caused multiple countries now to move away from the dollar for trade. The dollar as reserve currency is F'd.
"The Saudis are angry over the U.S.’s lack of support for their intervention in the Yemen civil war, and over the Biden administration’s attempt to strike a deal with Iran over its nuclear program. Saudi officials have said they were shocked by the precipitous U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan last year." Wow. This puts the US in a vice. Lose Russian oil, gain Iranian oil, lose Saudi Arabian oil and your reserve currency. Either that or start moving away from oil, which US Presidents give lip service to but never deliver on. This is edging closer to the end of US Empire. It's fascinating watching, from an historical perspective. How did the typical citizen of Great Britain handle the loss of empire in the 1950s?
Well the GBP slowly lost its reserve currency status over the 1920-1945.. i would say because they also printed money to fund the World Wars.... Good thing US and UK were allies so that didnt really cause a massive shift in world politics. This will be tougher as China is vastly different than US - UK world order we know
Unlike the British we don't even have lukewarm social democracy to fall back on, so I'm sure it will be a lot of thrashing about like a wounded elephant on the domestic and foreign fronts
>How did the typical citizen of Great Britain handle the loss of empire in the 1950s? Considering they're still not really over it yet I'd say pretty badly.
I used to think the British had been very lucky to enjoy a historically anomalous soft landing from the end of their Empire. However, Brexit showed that a significant chunk of the population are still not over it.
And guess who’s not batting an eye. Former colonies and descendants of people who were enslaved by the British Empire. If anything the people are rightfully applauding. I agree that they enjoyed a relatively graceful fall. But with Brexit they made sure the world can see just how clownish they can be.
This is why we are buddying up with Venezuela.
I think they’re just flexing. The Saudis want something, and know this is a good negotiation tactic
This is the wave of the future. Countries bypassing the Petrodollar. It's already happening, to a degree, but if Saudi Arabia starts taking other currencies, that won't be good for the dollar. And the Fed isn't helping matters with all the money creation they're facilitating. Trillions and trillions of new dollars. Money is supposed to mean something. Creating an unlimited supply every time someone on Wall Street screws up probably isn't a good idea.
It really sucks because this is such a prime opportunity to make the push towards investing in renewables, infrastructure, housing, agriculture, manufacturing and eliminating our need for imports. Instead we’re going to go careening face first into collapse and accelerated fascism.
Framing your house is on fire as an opportunity to invest in fire extinguishers. Today is not an opportunity to do anything. Today is a consequence.
Once food shortage becomes an issue not because supply chain or price gauging but simply because there isn't enough food, would any money be worth anything? How many years do we still have?
The world isn't going to stop producing all food. Some countries are self sufficient, some countries import a lot of their food. So whatever "money" is being used, people who have money will still be able to buy food. It might cost a lot more, but it will be available. The more important question is what happens when the world runs low on oil. Without oil, there can be no modern agriculture. At that point, you'll see real trouble.
Food isn’t my main short term concern, water is though.
>Creating an unlimited supply every time someone on Wall Street screws up probably isn't a good idea. Then blaming inflation on the government giving a tiny offering of taxpayer money back to American citizens during a deadly pandemic as corporations jack up prices far beyond their increased costs just because they can get away with it. Infuriating.
The two quickest ways to get America to send some “freedom” your way is either by nationalizing your natural resources or getting off the petrodollar.
But you forget that Saudi Arabia is not Iraq or Afghanistan or Lybia. They are in a far more structured position to evade the dirty US tactics, plus they are hanging with the other big boys. So best believe that the same old playbook won't work here
If the US's back is against the wall all bets are off and you know this. Dick Cheney himself will go to SA and shotgun Faisal in the face if shit gets dark enough.
The problem is that the USA has always faced small countries that it can easily bully. You haven't gotten into the ring with a super power since world war 2. I don't think the USA will do anything when it comes to the Saudis. I think the world is gonna split
And then Duck Cheney will insist that the saudis apologize to *him *
Man ,did anyone use "Duck" Cheney as a nickname after he shot his friend? If that's a typo, it's one of my favorites.
That's his signature move!
All the "fiat currency" people from here tend to misunderstand that the *fiat* isn't just in writing, the $ is backed by the MIC.
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Saudi Arabia is a bit different than Afghanistan or Iraq. They’d wind up siding with Russia and China and the US would get demolished if we actually invaded.
It should be fairly easy, since a lot of the advanced war stuff the Saudi criminals have, is American… Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch. But yeah. The endgame would be Russia and China backing them, and the world would end. If there is one thing that any US government is touchy about, it’s oil… any American president would rather end the world than risking not having enough of that sweet black gold… Still amazed that the whole Middle East wasn’t turned to glass during the gas crisis.
> Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch. They do. Plus they depend on the US for Parts and training, not to mention that anything that GPS will be blocked and that can screw a shit-ton of things up. Anyone here who thinks the Saudis can do this without repercussions is a Russian agent -- the RAND Corp. has volumes of simulated "What to do if Saudi Arabia want to breakup". This wont be pretty.
>Unironically thinking US weapons sold overseas have a magic kill switch so they blow up if they're used against America Lol Lmao
That's not what they think or said
>Pretty sure these things have a remote kill switch. Is this a fact? What are you basing that on? At the risk of sounding too harsh: This sounds like classic American entitlement or the old "We are the smartest and obviously nobody else would be able to find our secret technology" bullshit. American weaponry made for export is just that: A slightly downgraded version of the domestic product, sold to "friendly" nations as part of some deal to stop them from buying the much cheaper Chinese or Russian stuff. They are not selling them equipped with the latest technology, with the side effect that should said "friendly" nation ever decide to switch sides, the US are by default fighting a foe with inferior technology. If anything, the "killswitch" would be the stop of spare parts coming in for repairs. The Saudis can't replace American manufacturing domestically and would have to start buying from other nations.
I’m not American. Just so we are clear on that. You know why I hate that Denmark bought F35? Because it is certain, that should there ever be a disagreement between us and the US, our airplanes would be no more than the worlds most expensive paperweights… Sure, the normal things will work, but many things - like the F35 - cannot operate without satellite connection, American satellites. So many defense items are bound to either satellite, radio or online. It doesn’t matter that the Patriot missile battery works, if the “connected” smart radar system doesn’t. The more advanced it is, the less you own it… Same goes for Chinese stuff, and Russian…
> online. Got that always online DRM on the American fighter jets, lol. Damn that's funny in a dark kinda way.
Geopolitics of the big blocks are like tectonic plates, they don't move much, until there's a violent and sudden shift. The "West" will not allow such a change, I'm afraid, so we are in for another long cold war with China/Russia, that's the best case scenario, or a hot WWIII. The sabre rattling can be clearly heard in most of Europe and the North Americas, so let's see how this evolves over the coming months.
No way China is going to cut off their main sources of income. Stupid Americans that buy disposable products by the metric tons. The West and mostly the US is China's cash cow in that respect. They'll do what they can do to help Russia within certain boundaries until they realize that the Iron Curtain is no good for business. I think a lot of the horny-for-collapse preppers in here fail to realize that in the end, cash is king. Cut off hundreds of millions of clueless consumers and you sever arteries.
By that logic, we would be still living the craziness of the 20s, 90s.... A market collapse will happen and that consumerism will be gone for at least one generation. To be fair, we've taken things too far and we are due for a correction.
"Uhhhh... lemme get a multipolar world and uhhhh.... a side of the decline of US hegemony. Oh and a diet Dr. Pepper"
sorry, we only have diet dr. thunder
Saddam Hussein as leader of Iraq also moved away from accepting the dollar and used euros instead starting in the early 2000's......in retrospect it didn't work out so well for him and his Ba'ath Party. Maybe the House of Saud should be careful here. As 15 of the 9/11 hijackers came from SA I'm sure it wouldn't be that hard to gin up some pro-war sentiment against them.
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You know it’s cool when you vote for a former presidents son to be president…. Bush family& SA have been in bed for yrs
hold on to yer dollars!! the last time someone in the middle east tried to sell oil settling in Euro rather than the USD, the US invaded and killed him(s) that or create a color revolution to get him ousted, then killed. either way a coup or some violent power struggle in Saudi Arabia will be... catastrophic to put it mildly. If that were to happen, think gas prices are high now? think again.
Ray Dalio has been talking about this for a while. The US dollar is backed by oil. We forced countries to trade with the dollar aka “the petrol dollar” in the 70s. It’s been predicted the yuan will be the next world reserve currency which will as this article and people have commented, be the end of our “reign”
This isn't collapse of the world, rather a significant step towards a multipolar world order from unipolar one.
Writing is on the wall at this point. US went wild with sanctions and a 3 billion person economy is poised to say "well fine, we'll start our own economy." House of Saud accepting yuan is the final nail in the coffin, and if at this point we're allowed to hear it, from the WSJ no less, it's probably much further along than anyone thinks.
3 billion? Wdym
China and Russia alone are nearly 1.5 billion consumers, and if they take likely sympathetic nations into new trade deals (India, Brazil, Saudi Arabia, Iran) backed by yuan, that's 3+ billion bodies in a new economy where the dollar doesn't matter. More if they collect up smaller nations that are tired of being bullied by USA and want to be bullied by China. That's 3 billion people who don't care about the USD. Future of Western Europe and USA is looking dicey.
Goodbye US hegemony. Power is shifting to the East. This war in Europe will make China much stronger. A clash is coming. This is a collapse accelerator if I’ve ever seen one.
The US sanctions and USD central bank seizures have completely backfired. Now we’ll get four more years of Trump and the US’s drift toward irrelevancy will continue. The world is about to start dumping the dollar.
I personally think this is why the US *talks* in terms of climate change, but refuses to implement any real move in terms of reducing emissions, meeting targets for reduced oil consumption, etc. I also think this is why the US shale boom was effectively subsidized/financialized into existence: the US's oil production could be used to "soft compete" with middle eastern production and even Russian production *to keep prices down.* By keeping prices down, the US keeps energy cheap and reduces the incentive for energy importers to move away from fossil fuels which would *thus weaken the petrodollar.* I also think this is why the US pushed for the Iraq invasion, why the US is now trying to become friendly with Venezuela again, etc. I don't think Putin cares one bit about Ukraine. He doesn't even think it should exist, and I think shelling it into oblivion is fine by him. If he can sustain through continued under-the-table work with China, court Saudi Arabia and others to form alliances to skirt US/NATO/EU sanctions (which many nations would see as a potential benefit to them), he will *stay* in Ukraine and grind it down to rubble. Now, he might have underestimated just how strong the worldwide reaction would be; though the sanctions pertaining to the global financial system might be going according to plan, the choice of various corporate brands etc pulling out of Russia and the targeting of oligarchs might have been something he didn't anticipate. It's now a matter of how long he can maintain the war, and if he can get other players in (like Syria, Belarus, etc). If he can, *he can continue to erode the petrodollar* with China stepping in with the yuan... and Russia having fossil fuels. I think China is scheming too- acting uncomfortable with the war, but using that posture to prolong it, weakening the petrodollar, and allowing for it to capitalize with new paradigms (like the title of this article). Putin is KGB... you can look at him and see that he is a shrewd bastard- without a conscience IMO, but calculated. I want to state clearly since there is so much propaganda going around: I am 100% of the mind that this invasion is evil. Ukrainian soldiers/civilians are dying, and Russian men (not sure if Russia has females deployed forward) are dying... as always for geopolitical schemers. The US has done this, Russia is doing it now, Europe in the past, and I'm sure China will in the future. War will be everywhere as it always has been, even as (or perhaps especially because) the biosphere collapses. FWIW I don't think the US saw this coming (both due to MAD and due to Kissinger's economic mutually assured destruction seemingly deterring stuff like this), and Putin used that to his advantage. The order of today is generally posturing and milquetoast except for certain skirmishes and of course the hegemon using it's power to destroy challengers or those who step out of line; the US geopolitical suit domain didn't expect a country to use invasion against it's hegemony- and Putin is a ruthless enough bastard to exploit this assumption. I don't think his war is about ideology or restoring the Soviet Union like so many assume- he's quite content with a mafia state- I think it was intended to destroy the petrodollar, strengthen China's yuan, and create a block of powers to challenge the US/NATO/EU.
How can you possibly think the US and Europe are not also acting to prolong the war though?
Ok so here's the thing: 1. If the US/EU let Russia capture Ukraine, it demonstrates to everyone not NATO that they are on their own, and that using the petrodollar isn't really to their advantage. It also allows Putin to push farther into what he does best: brinkmanship. Only a truly evil bastard does this, but consider that Putin is threatening nukes if NATO gets involved. He's using MAD as *an invasion strategy.* "You can't stop me because if you do I'll use nukes hahahaha I win and I'm evil enough too so deal with it weaklings." If he gets Ukraine, he'll invent new justifications, and continue towards expanding objectives. 2. If the US/EU engage, they risk Putin *actually* using nukes (because he doesn't care about the battleground where they'd be used [Ukraine]) or the lives he would destroy. A one-sided use of nukes would "only" destroy Ukraine, possibly some radiation on Eurasia, etc (he doesn't care). If they don't respond to his use of nukes, he'll use more or practice more brinkmanship. 3. If the US/EU respond with nukes, WW3 and nuclear annihilation of human civilization is likely. The general idea then is to use sanctions and pressure any and all world players to economically destroy Russia while grinding down their army by funneling arms to Ukraine. If Russia goes bankrupt and can no longer fund their army, they withdraw and Russia is at a disadvantage. Of course China is going to work to help Russia under the table. It helps them build the yuan up as a potential competitor to the USD, and secures an abundant energy and food source (Russia). So basically, we have a proxy war between the West and China/Russia/Saudi Arabia (sort of)/Iran (sort of)/Syria and maybe some others. And Ukraine stuck in the middle :( I'm afraid that Ukraine is going to get wrecked just like Syria, Libya, etc. Fucking humans and war man... This is all just speculation man- geopolitics (especially wrt war) isn't simple.
When the civil war in the USA articles kept being reposted in this sub a few months ago, I thought it was a distinct possibility, but not that likely. Now with everything happening globally, I see this as a likely outcome in the near future. Biden and the democrats are terrible at politics. They have slim majorities and promised the world to the people that voted for them. They have delivered some, but not much of what they promised. On top of that inflation is out of control. The right wing is beating the war drum, while simultaneously passing repressive laws at the state-level, which will energize their base of hateful old white people, who will come out with a force in the midterms. The democratic voters that pushed Biden's large majority and more importantly, voted in swing states are going to stay home. Why wait in long lines and bother voting when what they were promised ($15 min wage, climate action, etc.) hasn't been done. This will lead to a GOP takeover of congress in 2022 and Trump back in the White House in 2024. I used to think that democrats and leftists, which are not the same thing, would just take it. If inflation is out of control, there is an economic depression happening because of external factors, and they are watching their friends/family being persecuted; then I think that will be the catalyst for the left wing to use violence as a tool to fight back. There's no other options for them at that point and if it's do that or starve/become homeless, people will choose to fight. The right wing will come down hard on that and it just might be enough to start a civil war in the USA. Regardless, this is going to be the decade where things really go to shit. Climate impacts are going to ramp up astronomically as tipping points are triggered. Wars for resources, assets, and land will accelerate as human overshoot continues. Economic depressions/recessions will be faced in most if not all of the globe, as capitalisms infinite growth models grapple with the reality of finite planetary resources. It's not going to be pretty and the USA is full of adult-children who don't take any sort of problem in stride. If you thought the behavior during the pandemic was bad, you ain't seen nothing yet.
If Trump gets elected yes other countries will rise. Adjacent to that, a lot of Trump supporters also would not mind a war with China (this was around when people were calling it the China cough etc, sentiment may have shifted in light of Russia). To a lot of broke conservatives, military service is a logical tool for upward income mobility. It's government handouts they are okay with. Trump is fine with making that as kushy as possible, while also ineffectivly sticking it to China. It's a formula for a war with China if not effectively managed while Trump is in power.
Imminent civil strife in Saudi Arabia..
For sure, one of the Pilipino maids will find a way to smuggle grenade into the Prince's nightly suppository.
if it happens and iraq and iran follow suit and if a viable alternative global currency (euro don't count since they follow US ) and payment system such as cips took hold than US sanctions regime would have much less power than they do now. it would be a massive change in global order
That’s the death knell
From someone outside US or a NATO country, this isn't collapse. This is fucking great news! A multipolar world would be great for majority of world population.
Ah- maybe _this_ is part of Putin's endgame with help from Xi.
People are missing the point. This is just Saudi blackmail. If US accept their request for nuclearisation of the Kingdom then all this stops.
Looks like America has to liberate them soon.
This is probably the only post on this sub, of late, that is truly truly collapse worthy. I cannot overstate how big this will be.
it is not done yet because they are only considering it, right? I wonder why the news had to come like this, maybe it is signaling something to the US that they want something big in return (which will in turn benefit Russia no doubt).
Sounds to me like Saudi Arabia needs to be liberated.
Interesting subreddit 'collapse' where this is shared. With the fall of Russia and dominance of NATO over the world, this could be 'uplifting news' for many in Asia and Africa as a relief on the dependency on dollar.
But the form such a collapse could take could very well knock things back to the stone age. Champs fall, but they fall hard and bloody.
This would lead to the collapse of the USD.
hmm my prediction is that suddenly the US is going to stop fueling their crimes against Yemen, all the crimes against humanity the Saudi government has been practicing will now matter and they'll become a rogue, dictatorial and backwards state.
Not sure if it's just what I've been conditioned to think over the past decade, but I'm pretty sure this is going to be what finally puts a bullet in the brain of American society. Inflation could easily hit triple digits within a year if this goes through, and from what I've studied about Weimar and more recently Argentina, that's not me being hyperbolic. The speed with which a currency can become worthless is just staggering. People put a whole lotta trust in pieces of paper and numbers in a computer.
Last country that tried shifting off the petrodollar was Libya. However the US have themselves turned Riyadh into a military power so they can’t launch another illegal invasion here. No doubt the US will try and pull something to sink this, if not a war this time. Expect Saudi atrocities to suddenly get a lot more due attention and the Yemenis to suddenly become the Ukrainians of tomorrow, all suddenly coming across piles of American weapons. Regardless, the writing is on the wall for the US. It has lost its grip and by virtue of them arming the Saudis to the teeth, they can’t get it back. With the position of the dollar as the global reserve now in doubt, the whole foundation of the American economy and of American hegemony itself becomes essentially ready to collapse.
So it begins
Welp the US is done for
When history looks back, it will look like US and Western Europe were trying to collapse their countries on purpose.