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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

#231

Post by DSingularity »

geoka9 wrote: post #103
baybal2 wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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…

> For them, blackmailing Germany and other wealth nations in Europe by threatening to close the tap has no political story to it at all, just plainly a way to extort some extra bucks As a counter-example (one of many), Russia has been for a long time losing money by subsidizing Belarusian economy with cheap oil.

To what ends?

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

#232

Post by austinjp »

redis_mlc wrote: post #180
Animats wrote: post #150

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…

Euros are, literally, a joke. A currency without an army is nothing. You can pretend whatever exchange rate you want between the Euro and the USD, but the USD is the real currency.

> A currency without an army is nothing.

Can you expand on this? What's the financial function of an army? What's the military function of a currency? I can imagine what you might say but I'd like to read it to know for sure.

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

#233

Post by mamon »

hkt wrote: post #220
d0mine wrote: post #210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How many people speak Greek in Crimea? How many are native Russian speakers?

People speaking a language is not a useful way of choosing your borders. Otherwise most of Latin America can revert to Spanish control, the US can be annexed by the UK, countries like Morocco can be colonies of the French again. The fact is that spreading your language is a basic element of empire building. The fact that Crimea, Ukraine etc have so many Russian speakers reflects their past.

I think what GP meant is that majority of people in Crimea self-identify as Russians, not Ukrainians - 68%, according to Wikipedia [1]

Similar thing can be said about disputed teritorries in the east, around Donbas.

Of course that's still not the excuse for what Russia did, taking both places by force, however, this makes fixing this more complicated.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crimea#Demographics

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

#234

Post by roenxi »

Animats wrote: post #150

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…

Given the extreme questionability of all currencies for anyone who wants to, y'know, hold on to currencies; why not just do without? There isn't any theoretical reason a world currency is needed. Instead of pricing Yuan and Euros in terms of some third currency people could price them in terms of each other and cut out the middle man.

Speaking as an Australian; about 3-4% of our trading by value is with the United States. I shouldn't ever have to see a value priced in US dollars. I really don't care what the price of anything is in US dollars. The only reason the US dollar impacts me as far as I can tell is because it is embedded deeply into SWIFT and is required internationally to trade in oil. Important in practice but not in theory.

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

#235

Post by lispm »

hopia wrote: post #229
lispm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you can‘t remember those times, but I knew germans who were invading the USSR. I spoke to one who learned russian in the USSR in military prisons in siberia - he having served in the Waffen SS. I grew up in the cold war times. Then we saw the collapse of the USSR and its block. We‘ve made a lot progress since then. There is a russian view to that and we also need to listen to that, too.

What's the Russian view we need to listen to?

Is that a real question?

For example the views of the Russian population.

Example : https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2018/08/21/russians-say-t...

The view of Russia about the NATO expansion towards their border is widely reported. We can ignore that or think it is unfounded, the reality is that these views influence the Russian politics.

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

#236

Post by hopia »

hopia wrote: post #229
lispm wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe you can‘t remember those times, but I knew germans who were invading the USSR. I spoke to one who learned russian in the USSR in military prisons in siberia - he having served in the Waffen SS. I grew up in the cold war times. Then we saw the collapse of the USSR and its block. We‘ve made a lot progress since then. There is a russian view to that and we also need to listen to that, too.

What's the Russian view we need to listen to?

Russia does not get to dictate which organizations free nations join or do not join.

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

#237

Post by cinquemb »

MR4D wrote: post #184
Animats wrote: post #150

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.

Yeah, on top of the issues of infrastructure around payments/settlements/collateral management/kyc laws that often go ignored in these discussions as well as the high correlation of lowering (euro)dollar usage globally with lower global growth rates… ideally you'd have higher growth rates with lower (euro)dollar usage if there was any serious alternative.

Fundamentally speaking, I think non CB backed cryptos (combined with hedging tools via futures/options/swaps/ndfs/etc) have a better chance because they can be used to lower the costs intl of payments/settlements/etc, esp in these times when the trust in central banking becomes more and more contested. But I only see this happening slowly until there's a catalyst to push this to the next level.

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

#238

Post by meerita »

MR4D wrote: post #184
Animats wrote: post #150

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.

Actually they're flooding with yuans. 2018 and 19 they opened the gates to avoid the economy crash.

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

#239

Post by bloodm »

lispm wrote: post #213
bloodm wrote: post #206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nato Membership is a contract. Yes, Indeed. tanks are not the biggest problem. https://consortiumnews.com/2019/12/21/pepe-escobar-you-say-y... PS: "Germany is only one of 19 NATO members that have not met the 2% GDP spending goal set at the 2014 NATO summit in Wales."

and the contract says nothing about what you claim. PS. : the spending goal is in the future: 2025. It‘s also a political goal, not a contract. And the current data can be seen here: https://www.nato.int/nato_static_fl2014/assets/pdf/pdf_2019_... Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim.

"Look at the numbers, they are vastly different from what you claim. "

They are "vastly different" because most countries don't share their fair burden. Trump may be wrong in many things, here he is right.

In the PDF you provided "NATO guideline 2%" But hey, why spent it on the military? Let the US spent/fight for us.

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

#240

Post by incompatible »

philwelch wrote: post #205
incompatible wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's world full of multilateral agreements: World Trade Organization, United Nations, Bern copyrights, Paris Agreement on climate, Geneva Conventions, nuclear non-proliferation treaty, Antarctic treaty, etc.

So how are those multilateral agreements doing, anyway? The Geneva Conventions are an admirable code of conduct, but they don't in any meaningful way define international relations, since at least one belligerent in virtually every armed conflict since and including the Second World War has flagrantly flouted them. Countries that are decent enough to follow the Geneva Conventions don't get into wars with each other a…

Not to mention the WTO taking serious damage with the US imposing trade sanctions whenever if feels like it. It's not impossible that the entire system would fall apart if the current US hostility turns out to be more than a four year aberration. I wouldn't be sad to see the Berne Convention go, at least, but I'm not sure what state the world will be in by that point.
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