Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to CCRPG Community. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
The Demise of the Dollar
Topic Started: 7 Oct 2009, 11:39 PM (200 Views)
Ryan
Member Avatar
Imperator
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
The Independent
 
The demise of the dollar

In a graphic illustration of the new world order, Arab states have launched secret moves with China, Russia and France to stop using the US currency for oil trading

By Robert Fisk

Tuesday, 6 October 2009

In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning – along with China, Russia, Japan and France – to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

The plans, confirmed to The Independent by both Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong, may help to explain the sudden rise in gold prices, but it also augurs an extraordinary transition from dollar markets within nine years.

The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place – although they have not discovered the details – are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. "Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable," he told the Asia and Africa Review. "We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security."

This sounds like a dangerous prediction of a future economic war between the US and China over Middle East oil – yet again turning the region's conflicts into a battle for great power supremacy. China uses more oil incrementally than the US because its growth is less energy efficient. The transitional currency in the move away from dollars, according to Chinese banking sources, may well be gold. An indication of the huge amounts involved can be gained from the wealth of Abu Dhabi, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar who together hold an estimated $2.1 trillion in dollar reserves.

The decline of American economic power linked to the current global recession was implicitly acknowledged by the World Bank president Robert Zoellick. "One of the legacies of this crisis may be a recognition of changed economic power relations," he said in Istanbul ahead of meetings this week of the IMF and World Bank. But it is China's extraordinary new financial power – along with past anger among oil-producing and oil-consuming nations at America's power to interfere in the international financial system – which has prompted the latest discussions involving the Gulf states.

Brazil has shown interest in collaborating in non-dollar oil payments, along with India. Indeed, China appears to be the most enthusiastic of all the financial powers involved, not least because of its enormous trade with the Middle East.

China imports 60 per cent of its oil, much of it from the Middle East and Russia. The Chinese have oil production concessions in Iraq – blocked by the US until this year – and since 2008 have held an $8bn agreement with Iran to develop refining capacity and gas resources. China has oil deals in Sudan (where it has substituted for US interests) and has been negotiating for oil concessions with Libya, where all such contracts are joint ventures.

Furthermore, Chinese exports to the region now account for no fewer than 10 per cent of the imports of every country in the Middle East, including a huge range of products from cars to weapon systems, food, clothes, even dolls. In a clear sign of China's growing financial muscle, the president of the European Central Bank, Jean-Claude Trichet, yesterday pleaded with Beijing to let the yuan appreciate against a sliding dollar and, by extension, loosen China's reliance on US monetary policy, to help rebalance the world economy and ease upward pressure on the euro.

Ever since the Bretton Woods agreements – the accords after the Second World War which bequeathed the architecture for the modern international financial system – America's trading partners have been left to cope with the impact of Washington's control and, in more recent years, the hegemony of the dollar as the dominant global reserve currency.

The Chinese believe, for example, that the Americans persuaded Britain to stay out of the euro in order to prevent an earlier move away from the dollar. But Chinese banking sources say their discussions have gone too far to be blocked now. "The Russians will eventually bring in the rouble to the basket of currencies," a prominent Hong Kong broker told The Independent. "The Brits are stuck in the middle and will come into the euro. They have no choice because they won't be able to use the US dollar."

Chinese financial sources believe President Barack Obama is too busy fixing the US economy to concentrate on the extraordinary implications of the transition from the dollar in nine years' time. The current deadline for the currency transition is 2018.

The US discussed the trend briefly at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh; the Chinese Central Bank governor and other officials have been worrying aloud about the dollar for years. Their problem is that much of their national wealth is tied up in dollar assets.

"These plans will change the face of international financial transactions," one Chinese banker said. "America and Britain must be very worried. You will know how worried by the thunder of denials this news will generate."

Iran announced late last month that its foreign currency reserves would henceforth be held in euros rather than dollars. Bankers remember, of course, what happened to the last Middle East oil producer to sell its oil in euros rather than dollars. A few months after Saddam Hussein trumpeted his decision, the Americans and British invaded Iraq.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business...ar-1798175.html

Incredible news that this is finally going public. The last nails are being driven into the dollar's coffin finally. Maybe now people will wake the fuck up.

Something big has to come next - war or total economic collapse (cause we sure as hell know that Congress and the Fed aren't going to take the third option and actually fix the economy).
George Mason University '15
Ph.D Economics


Sporder.net - Complex Problems, Emergent Solutions

COUNTRIES:
2012: The Q'ylerian Freehold
Version 5: The Most Serene Republic of Crælia
Version 4.2: The Ellic Kingdom/Ellic (Etremian) Empire
Version 4: The Ellic Tribes/Kingdom/Republic
Version 3: The United States of Rezelia;

The only use of nuclear weapons in CCRPG; The only use of nerve gas
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ares™
Member Avatar
Premier
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Seems interesting...though I don't think a war will result from this. I mean, the USA in it's current state could not take on China AND Russia, as well as whoever else decides to back them.

So I guess it's time I start learning some Mandarin or Cantonese, eh?
Ares™


"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper."
Larry Flynt
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
KamikazeCow
Member Avatar
Don't Feed The Animals
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Too late to invest in the peso?

:mexico:
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Benthamus
Freedom lover
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
The US could quite easily take on Russia and China if it engages in the unthinkable - nuclear war.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Alkeni Synair
Member Avatar
Redefining Evil
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Other nations in the world have had crappy currencies. They ain't dead. We'll manage. I doubt that this is a permenant thing.

The US deserves to share the pain for a bit.
Work in progress.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Jon Testmaker
Councilor
[ *  * ]
The best way to solve this issue would be to reattach the dollar to gold, and stop - you know - printing ten billion dollars a day.
f you don’t [stop Medicare] and I don’t do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children’s children what it once was like in America when men were free.” [1961] - Ronald Reagan

“Having given our pensioners their medical care in kind, why not food baskets, why not public housing accommodations, why not vacation resorts, why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink.” [1964] - Barry Goldwater

“I was there, fighting the fight, voting against Medicare ... because we knew it wouldn’t work in 1965.” [1992] - Bob Dole

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Ares™
Member Avatar
Premier
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Benthamus
Oct 8 2009, 12:33 AM
The US could quite easily take on Russia and China if it engages in the unthinkable - nuclear war.

Sorry, by "take on" I meant fight a war and actually not sustain the same damage it inflicts.
Ares™


"Majority rule only works if you're also considering individual rights. Because you can't have five wolves and one sheep voting on what to have for supper."
Larry Flynt
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Wraith
Member Avatar
Preparing for the Second Coming
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Ares™
Oct 7 2009, 11:04 PM
Seems interesting...though I don't think a war will result from this. I mean, the USA in it's current state could not take on China AND Russia, as well as whoever else decides to back them.

So I guess it's time I start learning some Mandarin or Cantonese, eh?

If the world goes to war with China and Russia on one side and NATO on the other, NATO would win.
Posted Image

CCRPG Marines
Currently: Compilation IV: Finest Hour
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
The Conqueror
Member Avatar
Senator
[ *  *  *  * ]
yeah I read something about this. This is truely interesting. There has been a lot of talk of late of global currencies, NA currencies and such. Personally I think it is inevitable that the US dollar is replaced in some way, beit only in the US with a new currency, a NA dollar for the proposed NA union, or some world currency down the road. In the years to come we will see a different world, maybe the "new world order" is coming, faster then we think.
Wealth, Dominance, Power!
My Country Home
Go Canucks Go!!!
Engage PC - All about PCs, games and technology
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Astro_Death
Member Avatar
Biggest Backstabber
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Or maybe the dollar is lulling us all into its master plan :o
"Nothing in democracy is perfect." - Oscar Arias
"I cant stand idly by while poor people get free food! We gotta sell these things!" - Bender
"Finally, we'll have something more reliable than a government document!" - Stephen Colbert
"Justice may fail in one's lifetime, but it will eventually win in the cours"e of history." - Kim Dae-jung
"Trying to have a conversation with you would be like trying to argue with a dining room table. I have no interest in doing it." - Barney Frank
"Nobody knows we're here... so...let's wreck the joint!" - Tommy Tiernan, on the Universe
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
KamikazeCow
Member Avatar
Don't Feed The Animals
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
Astro_Death
Oct 8 2009, 08:45 PM
Or maybe the dollar is lulling us all into its master plan :o

Posted Image
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Benthamus
Freedom lover
[ *  *  *  *  *  *  *  * ]
We've been discussing this in macroeconomics. The US dollar last year made up 86% of the worlds financial transaction. Perhaps over a a few years it might change, but I don't see it happening soon.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
ZetaBoards - Free Forum Hosting
Fully Featured & Customizable Free Forums
Learn More · Register Now
« Previous Topic · General Discussion · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Via Domus created by Steve of the ZetaBoards Theme Zone