Earlier quoted context omitted.
>You’re referring to the U.S. right? You must claim to be very sarcastic! No, I'm refering to only country in XXI century that literally decided to annex other country's territory - two times. All that while losing war, and deciding to unleash hell on civilians they claim to be "their kin". At least we can cheer our hearts looking at fields littered with dead russian soldiers and see that there are countries of the w…
So the US policy on Latin America is just fine? Embargoes and CIA financed take-over of many states are all fine?
Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
231–240 of 407 posts
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
I did not complain. Maybe you should revisit your downvoting principles. I inquired why I was being downvoted for asking a question. I was genuinely curious about how that was bad.
Just bad form to mention your own score, period.
Yes it may be bad form to mention your own score, but it's equally bad form to downvote for asking a question, or read into a question something that wasn't said which may require a down vote.
Why don't you take the time to answer the parents question rather than downvote them for querying why their question got downvotes?
If there's anywhere that appreciates the gaining of knowledge on the internet, surely hn must be one of the top candidates. So why downvote questions? And yes it's happened to me multiple times, and it's bloody annoying. Doubly so because you know if you try to clarify you'll get someone downvoting you because why? I don't know. Because that would be 'bad form'? BS.
/Rant
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#233Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
I suspect it's a prerequisite, though perhaps not the only one. I also suspect that political stability is more likely to favour China than the USA over the next few decades — it is very human for success to be followed by the assumption of indefatigability and that to be followed by fighting over who leads the nation, rather than continuing to focus on what actually made a nation dominant and how to keep it that way…
>the Soviet Union took 50 years to go from agrarian to space That's a naive view of russia. Up to this day, one of the main tasks of russian army - as previously soviet - is potato harvest.
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#235Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apologies, but your reading of the situation is shallow. What do you think led Vlad to invade? The US has been mounting a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine for the past 20 years, one they're ready - barring political upheaval in the US - to fight down to the last European.
Putin wants to extract oil in Ukraine or at least prevent Ukraine from extracting it's oil to prevent competition?
(the Azeri/Armenian war gets almost no attention)
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has everything to do with USD dominance. Ghana is shouting out loud I can’t get my hands on USD. They’re echoing what the global market in general has been pricing. Now true, having your product be a hot commodity everybody wants is good for business but there’s only so much of that before your competitor starts offering a more readily available product. Pepper that with some morally objectionable stances the US h…
Why can't they get dollars? I was under the impression that you can buy dollars much easier than oil.
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#238Dear Ghana. See Libya. R.I.P Ghana.
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#239I worked in oil, and now work in an industry where I sell parts worldwide. I'm not a trained economist, but deal with currency and transfer pricing with labor and goods.
Couple things: what a lot of people don't know or understand is that pretty much all transactions worldwide are intermediate by USD. Meaning, if a company in Sweden wants to buy something in Cameroon, the banks don't swap currency. They buy dollars with krona and then buy francs with the dollar.
This may seem "academic" on paper, but the world essentially has to deal with the dollar and the USA fed and its people with every transaction countries do! They're getting taxes each time they want to trade. Switzerland has purposely devalued its currency because the opposite happened: people were buying Swiss francs as a "safe" investment and not trading or circulating them. I digress ...
The only country I see that could actually disrupt the petro dollar is Russia. Russia is doing this on a small scale by forcing Europe to purchase energy in rubbles. Ghana? They may be seeing a three letter agency from the USA very soon ...
China? They do too much contract manufacturing for America, and no one wants yen or a currency from a dictatorship. Europe? Too much debt, and they would have to centralize spending (trying to do this with EU commission).
Re: Ghana plans to buy oil with gold instead of dollars
#240Honest question: Can someone explain me why using gold instead of dollars to buy oil isn't the same as sell gold for dollars and use those dollars to buy oil?
Because there are no dollars involved. If they do as you suggest, at the start: A holds gold. B holds dollars. C holds oil. A trades B, gold for dollars. A holds dollars, B holds gold. A trades C, dollars for oil. A holds oil, C holds dollars. After your suggested trade result: A holds oil. B holds gold. C holds dollars. If there is no "middle man", party A gets oil, party C gets gold. Party B keeps their dollars. En…