The United States has been on a sanctions spree. Sanctions on Russia. Sanctions on North Korea. Sanctions on Iran. Sanctions on Syria. Sanctions on Venezuela. Sanctions proposed against China. Sanctions even obliquely placed on our allies in Europe as a result of sanctions on Russia. Sanctions, sanctions, sanctions.
Our leaders are stupid. They cannot see beyond their ill-conceived sanctions, which in most cases are illegal and violate the norms and rules of international trade. The United States is increasingly using sanctions as a form of warfare. When we can't attack militarily we use sanctions. In many cases the result is the same as bombing supply lines only without the bombs. It's a form of soft warfare that targets a country's economy and its ability to transact business and safeguard its financial wealth in today's dollar-based economy.
Do you know what the result of these sanctions will be? The dollar will get crushed.
Something like 80% of all international transactions take place in dollars. The global financial system rests on a dollar architecture. That includes funds transfer, clearing, payments, etc. There's a special unit set up in the Treasury Department that is the war room where such measures are designed and meted out. Just like any war room where military tactics and strategies are implemented to defeat an enemy.
How long do you think the rest of the world will operate under such a risk? A risk that at any moment if you fall out of favor with the fools in Washington your entire economy and lifeline to the world's financial system can be shut down?
That is too much risk. No country and no citizen wants that risk hanging over them like the Sword of Damocles.
There is no doubt in my mind that these destructive and ill-conceived policies will lead to a collapse in the dollar. It may already be starting. We see Russia, Iran, China, and other nations starting to trade in local currencies and bypass the dollar. Russia is developing its own payments system to avoid having to use the SWIFT system of international funds transfer. China and Russia are trading goods now in local currencies. Others are starting to do the same.
For a long time I heard the cries of the ignorant clowns who kept warning about the dollar losing its global reserve status. I laughed. I laughed not because I thought it couldn't happen. Rather, I laughed because they thought it was because the U.S. ran big trade deficits. That showed me they knew nothing. Since most of of the world's commerce is denominated in dollars and because oil was priced in dollars, it necessitated that the rest of the world ran trade surpluses with the U.S. in order to get dollars. Therefore, our trade deficits were an expression of high demand for dollars, not vice-versa.
In contrast I knew that one day the dollar would lose its global reserve status because WE would do it to ourselves by some act of stupid policy. Before this new sanctions spree had begun I thought it would be because we would turn ourselves into the next China. That is, labor for low wages, build stuff, and send that stuff to the rest of the world for their currency. We never understood, or at least our policy makers never understood, that we had the better part of the deal. When the rest of the world labors for low wages to build finished goods that they send to us for our paper currency, that is a benefit to us, not a cost. But we never understood that.
Now it looks like this new idiocy on the part of our elected dunces in Washington will hasten the dollar's demise. There is simply too much risk for the rest of the world to have the global financial system resting on dollars when at any moment, all or a portion of that system can be shut down by a bunch of hotheads in Congress or, a president who tweets.
I don't know what will replace the dollar -- gold, the Chinese yuan, bitcoin, the euro -- who knows? All I know is this: the dollar's days as the global reserve currency are over. It's the beginning of the end. It's already begun and you can thank our elected dopes in Washington.
