Collapse of the Us Dollar
TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 6 Jun 2022
David Adams | Transition to a Culture of Peace – TRANSCEND Media Service
1 Jun 2022 – Two years ago in this blog, I wrote that the dollar will lose its global role and be devalued. Among the reasons were the bloated military budget and bloated national debt to pay for it, the blow-back effect of U.S. sanctions imposed on other countries, and the reaction of countries such as Russia, China, Turkey and India to trade their dollars for gold.
According to the internet site called zero hedge this trend has intensified. The site fails to mention the continued increase in military spending, but it does refer to the bloated national debt, the blowback from sanctions and the trading of dollars for gold among their “five warning signs the end of dollar hegemony is near:”
Warning Sign #1: Russia Sanctions Prove Dollar Reserves “Aren’t Really Money”
Warning Sign #2: Rubles, Gold, and Bitcoin for Gas, Oil, and Other Commodities
Warning Sign #3: The Petrodollar System Flirts With Collapse
Warning Sign #4: Out of Control Money Printing and Record Price Increases
Warning Sign #5: Fed Chair Admits Dollar Supremacy Is Dead
The zero hedge article is worth reading reading in detail, as I found the data to be convincing.
It reminds me of the brief theory of history described by Karl Marx a century and a half ago:
“At a certain stage of development, the material productive forces of society come into conflict with the existing relations of production . . . From forms of development of the productive forces these relations turn into their fetters. Then begins an era of social revolution. The changes in the economic foundation lead sooner or later to the transformation of the whole immense (legal and political) superstructure.”
The end of dollar hegemony around the world corresponds to the economic changes foreseen by Marx. The US dollar, hitherto the universal relation of production is turning into a fetter that constrains the material productive forces.
Russia and China are basing their currency on gold and abandoning the dollar, and the BRICS countries, Brazil, India, and South Africa may follow suit. As for Brazil, Lula has announced that if he is elected, he will develop a South American currency independent of the dollar.
Ironically, the US sanctions against Russia have provided an important impetus to this change. US sanctions that have been used for decades to disable the economies of Cuba, Iran, North Korea and Venezuela, are now turned against the economy of the US itself.
Marx predicts that there will be revolutionary political changes as a result of this radical economic change. Will a drastic fall in the standard of living of American citizens give fuel to civil war? Can the US continue to maintain hundreds of military bases around the world? Can the US continue to maintain Israel with its enormous subsidies? Can Europe avoid economic catastrophe with a loss of its links to the dollar? Can citizens around the world avoid attempts of their rich to survive by imposing fascism?
On the other hand, with the collapse of the American Empire, will it be possible to make a radical reform of the United Nations so that it can lead the world towards a culture of peace?
Recalling Bob Dylan,
“The order is rapidly fadin’
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin’”
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Dr. David Adams is a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment and coordinator of the Culture of Peace News Network. He retired in 2001 from UNESCO where he was the Director of the Unit for the UN International Year for the Culture of Peace. Previously, at Yale and Wesleyan Universities, he was a specialist on the brain mechanisms of aggressive behavior, the history of the culture of war, and the psychology of peace activists, and he helped to develop and publicize the Seville Statement on Violence. Send him an email.
Go to Original – decade-culture-of-peace.org
Tags: Dollar, Petrodollar, USA
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