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America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

economist.com

181–190 of 326 posts

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#181

Whether China's yuan should be freely convertible to other currencies is something the PRC has struggled with for years. A freely convertible yuan would increase China's influence on the world financial system, but it would also increase the influence of the world financial system on China. And it would require much easing, if not elimination, of China's exchange controls. A decade ago, a freely convertible yuan was…

agree with your comment except the last semi-sentance.

the euro has other issues, including dismal growth rates of the Euro area, an ineffective ECB, multiple diverging national financial strategies, and very long term, the massive ageing and shrinking of the european population. i don't see the Euro as anything but a very short term panacea. it needs to solve its structural issues before it can become more than it is.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#182
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's all but certain that the EU will start to break up in 12 days time (whether or not it will stop there is a separate question)

There are countries waiting to join the EU. Some go, some come. Since 2000 thirteen countries have joined the EU.

1. the expansion is over. last expansion resulted in some pretty nasty stuff. from massive EU fund corruption to a member leaving. 2. on this last point, how many hundreds of albanias would you need to replace the particular qualities the brits were bringing to the table? the only thing the EU can do is bring Russia onboard. something France and Germany are already doing, to the horror of the Eastern Europeans and the US

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#183
post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The United States' main geopolitical imperative is to maintain global hegemony. Part of this is ensuring regional powers are either allied (in the case of NATO countries or Saudi Arabia) or contained (in the case of Russia and Iran). It is a fundamental rule of Geopolitics that every country assert itself to the best of its abilities with the strengths they have. One of Russia's biggest strengths is natural resources…

"United States have no geopolitical strategy, but a lot of self proclaimed geopolitical strategists." I once have heard this position from US ambassador in Kazakhstan on a private reception event. The guy told people he expected a visit to a *stan country to be like a visit to a warzone. He was learning martial arts, hostage negotiation, and been mentored by multiple self proclaimed experts on "warlord politics" of t…

> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions.

Are you sure about that?

https://www.news.com.au/world/europe/1990s-manifesto-outlini...

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#184

Whether China's yuan should be freely convertible to other currencies is something the PRC has struggled with for years. A freely convertible yuan would increase China's influence on the world financial system, but it would also increase the influence of the world financial system on China. And it would require much easing, if not elimination, of China's exchange controls. A decade ago, a freely convertible yuan was…

The yuan won’t be freely convertible because that would open the floodgates to capital flight from China. As long as that possibility exists, free convertibility will not.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#185

I just read a related article the other day, claiming the same thing, but with a different analysis: https://mises.org/wire/world-looks-abandon-dollar-us-sanctio...

Ha Ha mises.org. What a joke! An institution which has been wrong about everything for the past 100 years is predicting a dollar cash? What a surprise!

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#186
post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the near term, it's more likely the EU will break apart and the euro discarded That's not likely at all.

The EU is more likely to break apart than it is to become the world reserve currency.

Neither makes sense. What will happen though , is that EU countries will make sure that more monetary independence is possible and that blackmail attempts by US government will not succeed. Trump has used that to undermine the European politics towards Iran. Trump is also using this as a threat against the EU and certain EU countries.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#187
post #182
post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are countries waiting to join the EU. Some go, some come. Since 2000 thirteen countries have joined the EU.

1. the expansion is over. last expansion resulted in some pretty nasty stuff. from massive EU fund corruption to a member leaving. 2. on this last point, how many hundreds of albanias would you need to replace the particular qualities the brits were bringing to the table? the only thing the EU can do is bring Russia onboard. something France and Germany are already doing, to the horror of the Eastern Europeans and th…

The expansion is not over. There are still european countries wanting to join. Btw., the UK (especially Boris Johnson) was a proponent of more countries joining the EU.

France never wanted the UK in the EU in the first place. Maybe they were right? The UK was boykotting deeper EU integration on political, economical and defense levels, so after the UK leaving we may expect to see some progress.

Boykotting Russia everywhere leads us nowhere. Cooperation does. Russia is not even a candidate joining the EU. We have Turkey in the line of countries - which is not liked by many EU countries, but PROMOTED by the current UK prime minister. Even the US has requested in the past the EU to take Turkey as a member.

The US foreign policy is the current horror. Last time the US lawlessly invaded Iraq with a coalition of the willing. Now the US has many more countries unwilling to follow the foreign policy adventures of the least qualified administration since decades.

A country like Poland sees with horror, that the US is no longer clearly committed to NATO.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#188
post #181

Whether China's yuan should be freely convertible to other currencies is something the PRC has struggled with for years. A freely convertible yuan would increase China's influence on the world financial system, but it would also increase the influence of the world financial system on China. And it would require much easing, if not elimination, of China's exchange controls. A decade ago, a freely convertible yuan was…

agree with your comment except the last semi-sentance. the euro has other issues, including dismal growth rates of the Euro area, an ineffective ECB, multiple diverging national financial strategies, and very long term, the massive ageing and shrinking of the european population. i don't see the Euro as anything but a very short term panacea. it needs to solve its structural issues before it can become more than it i…

Population is the reason why euros are importing uneducated hoodlums though not sure population alone would fix Euro's problems

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> possibly going so far as to annex a Baltic country or two. Today this would be inconceivable Russian doctrine is that the satellite countries are buffers to be used as needed, like Kleenex. It's 100% certain Russia will annex Baltic countries whenever it pleases. To say otherwise just makes you "a useful idiot", as Lenin is credited with saying. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

If Russia annexes any Baltic states it's liable to trigger nuclear war. All the Baltic states are NATO members.

Doubt it. It would trigger a cold war II but not a nuclear war.

The baltic states can not be defended militarily. If Ukraine were in the EU, would be a different thing.

Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign

#190
post #115
post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We had 200,000 US soldiers in Germany until reunification, and still have 40,0000. Germany saves money maintaining a significantly smaller military force. The benefit to Germany is such that US presidents use the idea of moving US troops to, say, Poland as a prod to encourage the German government to spend more on defense: https://www.euractiv.com/section/defence-and-security/news/w... In response to Trump’s threats…

40000 and not 40,0000. Much is for the US and their military adventures, not for NATO or NATO-related things. It supports the US war machine. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, North Africa, ... Much of that has nothing to do with defending Germany, defending the US or defending NATO... The US and its allies/friendly countries currently outspend Russia approximitely fifteen times. If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on milit…

"If Germany would spend 2% of its GPP on military, then it would approach Russia in absolute numbers, That would be crazy."

It is her contractual obligation. Currently Germany does not have an Army anymore but a museum. How many tanks are operational? 100? Russia has 10.000...

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