The Rise and Fall of the Dollar

by Mark Thornton

Over the last century America’s money—the dollar—has come to dominate the global monetary system. It is used not just by Americans, but in other countries, in the global black market, and by importers and exporters. And it is the primary reserve currency for central banks. This status is what Barry Eichengreen calls an “exorbitant privilege,” because it confers numerous benefits to individuals, companies, and governments. Collectively, it also confers the ability for Americans to consume beyond our ability to produce.
Professor Eichengreen in his book Exorbitant Privilege: The Rise and Fall of the Dollar and the Future of the International Monetary System, chronicles the rise of the dollar to world dominance, and what it means for the US. He then explores the possibilities of its demise and possible crash. The author should be commended for at times thinking outside the mainstream box, where such issues are often ignored.
He believes that the world is heading toward a state in which there are several reserve currencies, notably the euro and the Chinese renminbi. He maintains that a reserve currency status is based on economic strength: Europe has it and China and India are gaining it rapidly.

Book review: David A. Stockman – “The Great Deformation – The Corruption of Capitalism in America”

by DETLEV SCHLICHTER

David Stockman’s new book “The Great Deformation” is a brilliant, penetrating analysis of the present state of the US economy and the US political system, and a detailed account of how the nation got into this mess. The book will upset Democrats and Republicans alike, and quite a few other constituencies as well, which can, in this case, be safely accepted as proof that Stockman’s narrative is spot on.

Stockman is an angry man and he admits so himself early in his 719-page tome. That anger adds bite and verve to his writing and keeps what is in fact a detailed historical account and economic analysis always highly entertaining. The book is long but never boring. Furthermore, Stockman does not let the anger cloud his judgement, which remains, in my view, relentlessly accurate throughout.

The US is moving to a gold standard

by Jan Skoyles

Following the news that last week Arizona lawmakers passed a bill that will see precious metals become legal tender we thought this would be the perfect time to bring you a fourth installment of The Real Asset Report. Here we look at the moves several US states are making to move to sound money. Look out for the great infographic below.

 ‘No State Shall make any Thing but Gold and Silver Coin a Tender in Payment of Debts’ 1787 US Constitution: Article I, Section 8.

When President Nixon closed the gold window in 1971, ending Bretton Woods, it signalled the final disregard for the Founding Fathers’ US Constitution.
Whilst many have long campaigned for a return to the gold standard, including Dr Ron Paul, a former Congressman and GOP presidential candidate, moves to use gold and silver as legal tender have hit the big time since the financial crisis.
There are now 20 US states that either have successfully passed bills to allow gold and silver to be used as legal tender, or have been exploring it as an option.

‘BRICS Development Bank would shift the tectonic plates of geopolitics and geo-economics’

by rt.com
 

The BRICS Development Bank is the beginning of the end of the existing monetary management system, Asia Times correspondent Pepe Escobar told RT.

RT: There’s no doubt about it, these countries that form the BRICS, they haven’t got a lot in common have they? They’ve all got different styles of government indeed some of them are economic rivals. Are they really a group to be taken seriously?

Pepe Escobar: From now on yes, let’s say until this summit in Durban, there was a lot of political talk of course and the BRICS are basically an economic group in the making. Now it’s different, now they have clear sound, actual policies to be implemented.

China Preparing To Impose Bretton Woods II Gold Standard

by King world News

The flow of power and gold is going from West to East.  China may have accumulated a staggering 1,500 tons of gold last year alone.  China’s growth is now picking up steam as well.  What is really stunning is how much the yuan has increased in terms of international transactions.”

“The usage of the yuan in international transactions has been increasing at an unbelievable 170% per year.  That’s how fast the yuan has been increasing in terms of international transactions.  So goes the gold, so goes the power, and you can see it in the prominence the yuan is gaining.

The Chinese definitely have a plan here and that is to get control of gold....

“We are headed for another Bretton Woods.  It is unsustainable for currencies to continue to lose their purchasing power while median incomes, especially in the US, continue to go down in the West.

What gives money value, and is fractional-reserve banking fraud?

By Detlev Schlichter

I thought I should address a couple of points that I consider to be misconceptions and that frequently come up in discussions with the audience or other speakers when I present my views on the fundamental problems with fiat money. I am not always in a position to correct these misconceptions right then. They are often woven into questions on other points and I have to leave them uncommented so as not to disrupt the flow of the debate. My book is, I believe, quite clear on these points, so I could simply refer people to Paper Money Collapse. But, for whatever reason, it is still the case that many in my audience make inferences from similar arguments to my own, and I fear that some of the differences between these positions might get overlooked. These differences are not unimportant, and I think it is worthwhile to highlight and clarify them.
The first point is related to the question what gives money its value? The second point is the question of whether fractional-reserve banking is fraudulent, and should be banned on the basis of property rights.
Let’s first restate the central premise of Paper Money Collapse. The main message is that today’s mainstream views on money are flawed. The most important difference between commodity money, such as a proper gold standard, and ‘paper money’,

Currency Wars Simulation

This short video presents a variety of hypothetical scenarios which would have significant effects on currencies and commodities. See how a geopolitical or black-swan event could give real asset investors a tremendous advantage

Unthinkable Iceberg for Europe's Unsinkable Ship

by Adrian Ash
source : 24hgold.com

BACK in 2009 when Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize just nine months after becoming US president, he said he felt "surprised" and "deeply humbled".

No such shock and awe today for the European Union's unelected leaders, of course. Self-assurance and pride are now the EU's hallmarks, at least at the executive level. But its shiny new Nobel Peace Prize risks just the same historical irony.

"Mr. Obama decimated Al Qaeda's leadership," as Peter L.Bergen noted in the New York Times this spring. "He overthrew the Libyan dictator. He ramped up drone attacks in Pakistan, waged effective covert wars in Yemen and Somalia and authorized a threefold increase in the number of American troops in Afghanistan. He became the first president to authorize the assassination of a United States citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki...And, of course, Mr. Obama ordered and oversaw the Navy SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden."

China, Russia, and the End of the Petrodollar

by John Rubino - Dollar Collapse
source : 24hgold.com 

Say you're an up-and-coming superpower wannabe with dreams of dominating your neighbors and intimidating everyone else. Your ambition is understandable; rising nations always join the "great game", both for their own enrichment and in defense against other big players.

But if you're Russia or China, there's something in your way: The old superpower, the US, has the world's reserve currency, which allows it to run an untouchable military empire basically for free, simply by creating otherwise-worthless pieces of paper and/or their electronic equivalent. Russia and China can't do that, and would see their currencies and by extension their economies collapse if they tried.

So before they can boot the US military out of Asia and Eastern Europe, they have to strip the dollar of its dominant role in world trade, especially of Middle Eastern oil. And that's exactly what they're trying to do. See this excerpt from an excellent longer piece by Economic Collapse Blog's Michael Snyder:

China and Russia are Ruthlessly Cutting the Legs Out From Under the US Dollar

Fraud, Why The Great Recession Happened

"Fraud. Why The Great Recession Happened" is a crowdfunded documentary.

The Great Recession has not been fault of the free market. On the contrary, it´s origin should be sought for in the State´s and central bank´s deep intervention in the economy, causing in a fraudulent way, recurrent cycles of artificial expansion, the" bubble effect" and economic recession that all citizens end up paying for.The great depression is what happens when the government sticks their hands in everyone's business. How come we still haven't learned? America was created to have less government control. and it worked amazingly. Then Roosevelt stuck his hands into everything and we spent twelve years with 25% unemployment. But we continue to try it that way.So many people are dependent on the government giving them money. What is going to happen when they run out of other peoples money to give?

Finally, the root of the Great Recession is found at the end of WW2 when were created World Bank, and first and foremost IMF. Illuminati, the majority of them being bankers, have planned since more than two hundred years ago these events (1773), and mainly IMF, next with the Hebrew Banks, had and have a vital role in today's global depression and into the enslavement of the populations of the world in these huge debts. Their final goal is a new economic, social, politic, cultural order obtained through a war: WW3 or "The Final Social Cataclism".

source : www.amagifilms.com

Have you seen Robert Triffin?

 By Joe Yasinski and Dan Flynn 

source : bullioninternational

"It was the outcome of an unbelievable collective mistake, which, when people become aware of it, will be viewed by history as an object of astonishment and scandal"  - Jaques Reuff 1972 .

The obscure Belgian economist Robert Triffin is not only very dead he also isn't exactly a household name, yet. Triffin, who died in 1993 studied at Harvard, taught at Yale, worked at the Federal Reserve, the IMF, and was a key contributor to the formation of the European monetary system. Triffin exposed serious flaws in the Bretton Woods monetary system and perfectly predicted it's inevitable demise yet his work remains largely ignored and unstudied by today's mainstream economists. This "flaw" became known as the Triffin dilemma, and many believe Triffin's dilemma has as serious implications today as it did 50 years ago. In short, Triffin proposed that when one nations currency also becomes the worlds reserve asset, eventually domestic and international monetary objectives diverge. Have you ever wondered how it's possible that the USA has run a trade deficit for 37 consecutive years? Have you ever considered the consequences on the value of your Dollar denominated assets if it eventually becomes an unacceptable form of payment to our trading partners? Thankfully for those of us trying to navigate the current financial morass, Robert Triffin did. Prior to the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, central banks used gold as the asset to back their currencies. By the end of World War II, the United States had established itself as the world's creditor and largest holders of gold. Under the 1944 Bretton Woods agreement, the US Dollar was fully backed by gold at a fixed value of 1/35th an ounce per dollar, and foreign Central Banks could use US Dollar assets as reserves backing their currency, in lieu of gold. This agreement avoided the inevitable deflationary pressure a return to pre-war gold/currency ratios would have forced just as Europe was beginning to rebuild, and allowed US debt held abroad to be used as an asset by central banks against their local currencies.