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Turd_Ferguson's avatar

This is a great comment, and proof that I can't write worth a crap. haha. All true. The problem however is this. Most of our safety is already a thing of the past. The Dollar is about to be bounced out of it's reserve currency status, and when that day finally arrives? That's when the true masters will be revealed. My money is on it still being the Davos crowd, but I guess we'll see, since I won't have any money left like 99.5% of the rest of you assuming you live in the US.

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feldspar's avatar

The rumored displacement of the dollar as the world's reserve currency. If I had a dollar for every time I've heard this I'd be in possession of my own reserve currency. The dollar ain't goin' nowhere anytime soon.

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Turd_Ferguson's avatar

Perhaps. I've been hearing it for 5 decades myself. But recent actions have sort of made it closer to a reality with the BRICS and even the EU moving away from Oil for Dollars. Really, that's it. If Oil is no longer paid for in dollars, and our military can't just go into whatever nation has a crazy leader that says they are going to start paying in gold and bomb them to the stoneage.. well.. that's when it will actually happen.

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feldspar's avatar

Gold? The Rub? The Ren? No viable alternative exists that could possibly replace the dollar currently. The whole "backed by the U.S. military" aspect of the dollar's strength is overdrawn---the dollar is effectively the world's reserve currency by default. U.S. soft power is the dollar's strength, especially the ready supply of reliably safe U.S. Treasury bonds--this alone continues to make the dollar more attractive than any other currency by a long shot. All subject to change, of course, by previously unseen events.

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Minsky's avatar

It’s likely going to eventually happen, but the doomerism surrounding it is stupid. It’ll likely look similar to the way Great Britain lost reserve currency status. The US will lose more of its already waning hegemony, but in the long term it will be fine. If the doomers were right the UK ought to be a barren hellscape right now; instead it’s an imperfect, but fairly prosperous developed country.

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Smiley Fusco's avatar

"imperfect" .. that's my laugh for the day.

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feldspar's avatar

More than likely the dollar will be joined by a basket of currencies, each with specific functions, some functions greater than others. We're already on the way to this scenario. Financially, the world still requires a single dominant currency to settle accounts across borders.

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Minsky's avatar

I don’t think there’s any reason global finance couldn’t function off of a system of currency blocs, each with a regionally dominant currency used to settle cross-border trade. I don’t think you necessarily need *one* dominant currency. I think that could be what the post-dollar world looks like.

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feldspar's avatar

"Currently." I believe a single currency is currently necessary (and crucial given the political instability seemingly playing itself out everywhere at once). But yes, I was alluding to an arrangement similar to a "system of currency blocs," regional in nature. Perhaps even specific commodities denoted in specific currencies--oil, minerals, major grain crops, etc., depending on a variety of factors.

Factors of influence: the presumed slowing of globalization, rise of nationalism and reordering of nations' industrial capacity and output, unmanageable trade surpluses or deficits, global response to climate change and the coming transformation of the world's energy portfolio, and the big one--all the interesting political and cultural shifts taking place inside nations and between nations.

Who knows? Will it be relatively smooth going or calamitous or something in between?

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Ernie Boxall's avatar

Read Ayn Rand's 'Anthem'

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feldspar's avatar

No thank you.

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Ernie Boxall's avatar

And yet Ayn Rand perfectly outlined the end game of the globalists and the Marxists leading the charge in America today...It also has historical context.

In Briton AD 61 many celtic/pagan tribes had their own coin and traded.

But, they were under Roman occupation and Rome decided to outlaw local coin and demand that all trade be done in one currency (Roman). At one fell swoop Rome controlled who had coin and who did not. Who traded and who did not. Who travelled and who did not.

It lead, amongst other things to the outbreak of rebellion led by Queen Boudica and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of people.

Ayn Rand's 'Anthem' is the end game of all people owning nothing and being 'happy'. 'Anthem' is just that. A call for the American people to know that their children and grandchildren will own nothing, only produce what they been told to produce and never question the central committee.

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Danno's avatar

One thing the US can depend on is other countries' capacity to debase their own currency as quickly as the Fed does. The biggest threat to the dollar is that the market for T-bonds collapses in times of inflation, and the Fed has to raise interest rates to keep up. Once that happens, Congress needs to borrow more money just to pay the vig. Since there's nowhere to borrow it, it has to be created, which means more money chasing the same goods and services, which, of course, results in even higher inflation, etc. etc. Once that fire is lit, it becomes harder and harder to put out.

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Maeve's avatar

Deliberate. It is all deliberate. Brilliant strategy of divide and conquer, creating increasingly absurd wedge issues so that when one national controversy abates, another ginned up one seamlessly takes its place. This continues ad nauseam, exhausting the body politic and distracting them (us) from the civilization changing moves which are taking place, largely without scrutiny. They are nearly finished with their work, whoever "they" are. It might be Davos centered, but with true power comes a practiced anonymity. Horrible and heartbreaking to see so many Americans living completely unaware that they will someday be slaves, where once we were free.

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bestuvall's avatar

you will own nothing and be happy

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Turd_Ferguson's avatar

You will eat bugs, own nothing, and be happy.

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Ernie Boxall's avatar

Not if you read 'The Fountainhead': 'Atlas Shrugged' and 'Anthem' by Ayn Rand.

Not if we are all prepared to write about the Marxist slide of the DisUnited States so well planned by the Obama regime.

Are you prepared to keep writing about America's tragic path even as citizens are being imprisoned for 22 years for NOT being at the Capitol Building on Jan 6th?

Are you prepared to push back against the armed FBI banging down your door with guns drawn?

Are you going to be like the cowards at Fox who see the destruction of their country; who sit on comfortable seats, whine and then go home to their comfortable houses to write stupid books?

Or are you willing to risk everything for your kids, your work, your home, your family and your freedom?

Your fathers and grandfathers did it in world wars, civil wars and let President's send them on proxy war.

Your mothers and grandmothers did it to keep the family together as the menfolk died...What are you prepared to give up for your kids and your country?

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feldspar's avatar

We got a better shot with Marx than with that Rand lady.

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Ernie Boxall's avatar

By "shot" you mean it literally. As President Trump's popularity rises (particularly amongst the Black and Hispanic Americans) shots will be fired. Civil unrest will be created by the Obama-led government officials and then the National Guard ordered to put it down.

Shots will be fired by the thugs in Antifa and Black Lives Matter.

Many who know FBI policy now believe that shots will be fired by the CIA on a Presidential candidate if all else fails.

That is the whole premise of 'Atlas Shrugged' by "that Rand lady".

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feldspar's avatar

I own very little and am growing more peevish by the day...

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