I read a paper on the implementation of oil trade based on an independent crypto currency backed by Oil exporting countries, the author laid all out and how the US will never allow that to happen, sorry I lost the page source.
America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
271–280 of 326 posts
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#272Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I’m living in a world dominated by American hegemony. International institutions like the UN are valuable but when the other Western countries tried to set up a rules-based international order after WWI it only lasted 20 years.
the reason the league of nations failed (in many, but not all regards) has more to do with the economic and geopolitical situation at the time then it being a non american institution. the strife of the great depression and it's results on politics was probably it's biggest factor.
literally any institution today is either dominated by, or boycotted by ... yanks!
examples of domination are NATO, WTO, WHO, UN, ... while those that get boycotted are things like ICC, or climate summits (Paris etc). There is no middle-ground for them. It's either "their way or the highway" as they like to say.
The reason these organizations aren't successful is because of the power imbalance in them. They aren't a neutral territory or in any way an inclusive and neutral platform. It is a lie.
To get an idea of how yanks really feel about the rest of the world just look at Trump. He very openly treats foreign leaders literally shoving them out of the way. If you think Trump is alone in his arrogance - he is not. Just look at the wikileaks cables or look at the files that got leaked into archive.org by a misconfigured .htaccess from State Department. These US politicians don't think we are peers. That much is clear of how they speak in their internal comms at embassies and consulates. Most of them don't even know how to read a feckin map.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#273Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I’m living in a world dominated by American hegemony. International institutions like the UN are valuable but when the other Western countries tried to set up a rules-based international order after WWI it only lasted 20 years.
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.
The Paris Agreement proves OP’s point. The US left the agreement and now the agreement is worthless. Who is going to bully China into compliance? If the rest of the countries meet their climate targets does it doesn’t even matter. Pebble in a lake.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#274Earlier 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?
In this case I interpret "backed by" as that the central bank will give you the corresponding amount of gold for your currency. But, the opposite would not be true, they won't give you currency for gold alone, you'd have to also provide the same kind of backing as for non gold backed currency.
So paid in gold or the currency, you'd get the same number of apples in each case. But if you'd convert the currency to gold via the central bank (rather than on the open market) you'd get 1/5 as many apples in the second case.
In normal operations this won't make any difference, no one in their right mind would use the central bank rather than the open market to buy gold. But it means that the central bank can't just print money as they see fit, reducing the risk of runaway inflation. It also acts as insurance in the case of runaway inflation, you'll lose at most 80% of the value.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#275Earlier 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.
Why would the US be drawn into that war? Why are we helping EU in the first place especially when they are russia main trading partners.
Europeans killing each other is bad for international trade, and threatens nations we are more ideologically aligned with than others.
We’re there to prevent them from killing each other more than we are there to prevent The One True Enemy (whoever it might be today) from invading wily nilly. We don’t want them killing each other, because when they do, it is bad for business and diplomatic relations. More importantly, if we allow their natural tendencies towards hot European on European action to occur today, there really is a global threat because these are advanced economies that could easily pump out nukes and lob them at each other which is generally not great for the health of anyone on the planet.
In short, by serving European interests, we actually are serving our own interests because in some very important ways, our interests are in complete alignment. Germany is generally more at peace with the world than Japan at any given moment, but give them cause to build up their military and the time to do it and they could easily be a bigger threat to the United States than Russia, but they have no inclination towards treating us as an enemy so long as they’re under a system that protects them equally from France as it does from Russia or Costa Rica or Sealand.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#276Earlier 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…
> Ex-USSR fiefdoms, Russia included, are ran by very simple people, without any geopolitical ambitions. Which is in stark contradiction to the sophisticated goals of the West to control as much of the world's market as possible in order for mega multinationals to be able to exploit cheap labor and maintain their insane margins, so that they're able to pay their executives an ex-politicians millions of dollars per yea…
I have no idea whether this comment is meant sarcastically or not.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, I’m living in a world dominated by American hegemony. International institutions like the UN are valuable but when the other Western countries tried to set up a rules-based international order after WWI it only lasted 20 years.
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.
Except the U.S. does not recognize the ICC and has a law to invade the Netherlands at will, were any of its numerous war criminals ever prosecuted.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#278Earlier quoted context omitted.
"What is this protection that the US provides" The US has bases all over Europe, they spend a fortune on their own defensive tech, capabilities and leadership which Germany et. al. depend on, which acts as a massive deterrent, but also provides security partners with 'almost free R&D'. Also, the US specialises and practices so many things that are just far beyond the reach of pretty much all European forces. The abil…
> The ability to put bases, air support of all kinds, intelligence, drones, etc. pretty much anywhere is basically beyond most of Europe. When a war broke out on their border (Libya), for better or worse there was an intervention. Obama reluctantly agreed and didn't want to play a lead role, but without US drones, AWACS, and electronic warfare, special forces on the ground, the UK and French fighters wouldn't have be…
First, I was indicating that this 'ability to project force' is protection, I wasn't indicating that the war in Libya was a form of protection.
Second, I don't think it's fair to say the conflicts in Europe's periphery are surreptitiously promoted by the us: the war in Crimea, Russia invasion of Georgia, conflict in Yugoslavia, 'Troubles' in Ireland etc. - these were not 'made in the USA'. Neither was the Arab Spring.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#279Earlier 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.
The Paris Agreement proves OP’s point. The US left the agreement and now the agreement is worthless. Who is going to bully China into compliance? If the rest of the countries meet their climate targets does it doesn’t even matter. Pebble in a lake.
How about the Iran deal? The US needs to be bullied into compliance and yet noone is up to the task.
Re: America’s aggressive use of sanctions endangers the dollar’s reign
#280Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live in Poland and I am ok with US bullying others around because it increases stability even if we all have to pay for it. The problem with that pipeline is that Russia will get a way to cut off Ukraine and Poland without cutting Western Europe (their biggest customers). This increases chances of them invading rest of the Ukraine or maybe even Poland in the future. Without big bully to prevent countries doing deal…
As someone from a country neighboring Poland, I am very familiar with this reactionary mindset and find it disgusting. (Poland seems to be in a very reactionary period right now in general.) - Yes, we were part of the USSR, which was responsible for many crimes, but that doesn't mean we now need to be unsophisticated U.S. bootlickers incapable of looking at each individual situation and evaluating it on its own merit…
"...but the smug coverage from U.S. media completely omits any discussion of the U.S. taking 7 years(!) to admit to a similar disaster."
If you are referring to flight 665 in 1988 you are wrong. Crash on July 3, here a reaction on july 4:
""The U.S. government deeply regrets this incident," Adm. William J. Crowe Jr., chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon news conference."
https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/inatl/longterm/flight8...