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

economist.com

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

#111

Post by AmericanChopper »

catalogia wrote: post #105
headcanon wrote: post #66

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…

You make it sound like it would genuinely be in Germany's interest to not have a pipeline with Russia. Americans are no more rational than Germans, so if what you say is true, where is the harm in letting Germans make their own decisions rather than having Americans make those decisions for them?

The word “sanctions” just describes a set of decisions that a sanctioning country can make. Any country is free to make any decision it wants to. If one country doesn’t like the decisions that another country makes, they can sanction them whereby the sanctioning country makes decisions about how it’s going to interact with the sanctioned country and typically how it will interact with other countries that also interact with the sanctioned country. The effectiveness of any sanction is determined exclusively by how much other countries want whatever it is that the sanctioning country has to offer. Liechtenstein has every right to start sanctioning the USA if it wants to, but it would have to first assess what would happen if it forced the world to choose between it and the USA.

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

#112

Post by akudha »

baybal2 wrote: post #92
headcanon wrote: post #66

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…

Every time I watch some "expert" on TV taking about some country, I think one thing - does this person have any real experience with the topic he/she is taking about? Have they visited the country they are dissing on TV, even once? Most of these so called experts are paid too.

This is not just faux news either, the experts are on all channels. No wonder the public has low trust of news these days.

Sucks to know that even a person who is such a high ranking official like an ambassador gets such shitty advice.

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

#113

Post by jacobwilliamroy »

zozbot234 wrote: post #71
rayiner wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Of course that’s the reason. Different people use different euphemisms, for the same reason we do now. (“Defend against tyranny.”) But we’re talking about an amendment the founders wrote shortly after they took up arms to overthrow their government. It’s clear what they were talking about: https://www.nationalreview.com/2015/04/second-amendment-hist... > Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; a…

Note, the point is not to overthrow the government in any real sense, but rather to make it incredibly costly and perhaps outright infeasible for the government to actively use state-organized violence against its own people , as dictatorships everywhere are wont to do. Combine an armed populace with a strong tradition of being loyal to the Constitution and its principles first and foremost, even in the context of a…

The federal government is light-years ahead of whatever private citizens can get their hands on; 71% of americans are overweight or obese; 30% of americans have some kind of chronic pain.

If a shooting war broke out between the federal government and private citizens, the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them like they were made of thin air.

I think that the best way to exercise the second amendment is to organize militias at the state level, but even then, there still isnt enough cash for proper defenses against the federal government.

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

#115

Post by lispm »

rayiner wrote: post #60
taurath wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is this protection that the US provides other than ensuring the US would be drawn into a war between the EU and Russia? France has enough nukes to provide MAD protection.

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 military, then it would approach Russia in absolute numbers, That would be crazy.

What we really need is LESS military spending and less military adventures of the US (Iraq, Syrian, Libya, ...). The US has destabilized the whole middle east and north africa. The refugees are going to Europe, not the US...

The US will stay in south germany for the near future, because it provides excellent logistics for US wars in middle east, asia and africa.

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

#116

Post by AnimalMuppet »

mark_l_watson wrote: post #53
toohotatopic wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>since a smaller percentage would still prevent a country from printing new currency out of thin air. When people argue against bitcoin, they say that limiting the supply is a source of deflation and that deflation is risky for a currency. Money can be used to store value but first of all, it is meant to exchange value. Don't you kill your economy with such a supply-limited currency since your economy cannot grow bey…

New gold is being mined constantly. I never liked the idea of a 100% gold backed currency, but 20% sounds OK. If new money is not printed out of thin air, it seems like prices for things would adjust. Slowly increasing money supply, faster growing productivity/goods/services would mean that prices would go up to keep things balanced. I am not an expert in this subject but it interests me.

Per Wikipedia, there are 187,000 tons of gold above ground, and about 2000 tons are mined a year. That's about 1%. If all the gold was used to support currencies, mining would only let you increase the currency supply by 1% a year. If the economy is growing by more than 1% a year, then the currency has to be deflating.

But all the gold isn't being used to support currencies. So here's a different scenario: A currency is 20% supported by gold. We need, because reasons, to increase the currency supply. 2000 tons of gold is 4 million pounds, which is 48 million (troy) ounces. Gold is $1500/ounce at the moment, which gives us $72 billion of gold mined in a year. That lets one country use the whole world's mining to create $360 billion of currency in a year. Well, in 2008, the US created $4 trillion to keep the economy from collapsing. So mining isn't going to let you prevent deflationary collapse when you need to.

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

#117

Post by lispm »

elfexec wrote: post #88
LatteLazy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't the answer the euro? Stable, inflation proof, light or no sanctions. As brexit proceeds and more financial services move to mainland Europe, you won't even have to worry about the brits messing with it... I seem to remember the EU agreeing to setup a psudo bank to deal direct with Iran so they can bypass restrictions on trade? Edit: here it is! https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.dw.com/en/eu-mechanism-for-...

> Isn't the answer the euro? Only 19 out of the 28 european union members use the euro. So I don't think the euro (a 19 year old currency ) is the answer. Unless something changes, then in the future it might be one of the answers. > you won't even have to worry about the brits messing with it... The brits never adopted the euro as their currency, so they never messed with it to begin with. > Stable, inflation proof,…

> the near term, it's more likely the EU will break apart and the euro discarded

That's not likely at all.

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

#118

Post by zozbot234 »

jacobwilliamroy wrote: post #113
zozbot234 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, the point is not to overthrow the government in any real sense, but rather to make it incredibly costly and perhaps outright infeasible for the government to actively use state-organized violence against its own people , as dictatorships everywhere are wont to do. Combine an armed populace with a strong tradition of being loyal to the Constitution and its principles first and foremost, even in the context of a…

The federal government is light-years ahead of whatever private citizens can get their hands on; 71% of americans are overweight or obese; 30% of americans have some kind of chronic pain. If a shooting war broke out between the federal government and private citizens, the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them like they were made of thin air. I think that the best way to exercise the second amendme…

> ...the National Guard would just steamroll right on through them...

Even assuming that they could do this (which is plausibly quite wrong, as defense tactics can be very effective), what's the incentive? The people who serve in the National Guard are citizens themselves (who have sworn to uphold the Constitution) and every bit of effective defense makes it that much easier for them to defect while keeping plausible deniability. By contrast, if you've confiscated all the guns away (or bought them back) that dynamic just can't happen, at least not nearly as easily.

The presence of an armed citizenry does make for a huge difference in this scenario. No doubt about it.

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

#119

Post by pillpicket »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #58
mark_l_watson wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that his point is that 100% gold backing would make the price of gold very high, and a partial gold backing would be easier to accomplish with many of the same benefits like better long term stability (if some shorter term pain).

So, in these two scenarios: 1. The currency is 100% backed by gold. 2. The currency is 20% backed by gold. How much gold does it take to purchase 200 apples? You are saying that it will take more gold in the second case, right? Why?

No in the first case it might take 1 currency to buy 200 apples. Then in the second case it would take 5 currency to purchase the same 200 apples.

1 gold = 200 apples 1 gold * 1 currency = 200 apples 0.2 gold * 5 = 200 apples

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

#120

Post by lispm »

headcanon wrote: post #66
sschueller wrote: post #2

For the rest of the world this is a good thing. Why would the United States be the one to decide if Germany is allowed to build a pipeline to Russia or not? Image if it was Germany that used sanctions to prevent the US from building a pipeline to Mexico. Would you be ok with that?

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…

Does the Trump administration and the rest of the US have a policy? To me it looks like chaos. US government is directed by a real-estate and tv guy. He would have difficulties locating Russia on a map and at the same time claims to be the best expert in military, strategy, trade, health care, basically everything.

If it is not clear, the US for the last two decades is not moving forward, but backwards in international politics. Trump has exposed this even more.

Trying as a strategy to contain Russia is simply not going to work and the US really needs a massive upgrade in political brains, and not more weapons.

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