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The World Bank’s former chief economist wants to replace the US dollar with a single global super-currency, saying it will create a more stable global financial system.

“The dominance of the greenback is the root cause of global financial and economic crises,” Justin Yifu Lin told Bruegel, a Brussels-based policy-research think tank.

“The solution to this is to replace the national currency with a global currency.”

The writing is on the wall for dollar hegemony. As Russian President Vladimir Putin said almost two months ago during the BRICs summit in Xiamen,

“Russia shares the BRICS countries’ concerns over the unfairness of the global financial and economic architecture, which does not give due regard to the growing weight of the emerging economies. We are ready to work together with our partners to promote international financial regulation reforms and to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies.”

As Pepe Escobar recently noted, ‘to overcome the excessive domination of the limited number of reserve currencies’ is the politest way of stating what the BRICS have been discussing for years now; how to bypass the US dollar, as well as the petrodollar.

Beijing is ready to step up the game. Soon China will launch a crude oil futures contract priced in yuan and convertible into gold.

This means that Russia – as well as Iran, the other key node of Eurasia integration – may bypass US sanctions by trading energy in their own currencies, or in yuan.

Inbuilt in the move is a true Chinese win-win; the yuan will be fully convertible into gold on both the Shanghai and Hong Kong exchanges.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The real BRICS bombshell

September 7, 2017

Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi attend the group photo session during the BRICS Summit at the Xiamen International Conference and Exhibition Center in Xiamen, southeastern China’s Fujian province, on September 4, 2017. Photo: Reuters/Kenzaburo Fukuhara/Pool

The real BRICS bombshell

Putin reveals ‘fair multipolar world’ concept in which oil contracts could bypass the US dollar and be traded with oil, yuan and gold

The annual BRICS summit in Xiamen – where President Xi Jinping was once mayor – could not intervene in a more incandescent geopolitical context.

Once again, it’s essential to keep in mind that the current core of BRICS is “RC”; the Russia-China strategic partnership. So in the Korean peninsula chessboard, RC context – with both nations sharing borders with the DPRK – is primordial.

Beijing has imposed a definitive veto on war – of which the Pentagon is very much aware.

Everyone familiar with the Korean peninsula chessboard knew there would be a DPRK response to these barely disguised “decapitation” tests.

So it’s back to the only sound proposition on the table: the RC “double freeze”. Freeze on US/Japan/South Korea military drills; freeze on North Korea’s nuclear program; diplomacy takes over.

The White House, instead, has evoked ominous “nuclear capabilities” as a conflict resolution mechanism.

Gold mining in the Amazon, anyone?

On the Doklam plateau front, at least New Delhi and Beijing decided, after two tense months, on “expeditious disengagement” of their border troops. This decision was directly linked to the approaching BRICS summit – where both India and China were set to lose face big time.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World War III Has Begun

April 25, 2016

World War III Has Begun

The Third World War is currently being fought. How long before it moves into its hot stage?

Washington is currently conducting economic and propaganda warfare against four members of the five bloc group of countries known as BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Brazil and South Africa are being destabilized with fabricated political scandals. Both countries are rife with Washington-financed politicians and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs). Washington concocts a scandal, sends its political agents into action demanding action against the government and its NGOs into the streets in protests.

Washington tried this against China with the orchestrated Hong Kong “student protest.” Washington hoped that the protest would spread into China, but the scheme failed. Washington tried this against Russia with the orchestrated protests against Putin’s reelection and failed again.

To destablilze Russia, Washington needs a firmer hold inside Russia. In order to gain a firmer hold, Washington worked with the New York mega-banks and the Saudis to drive down the oil price from over $100 per barrel to $30. This has put pressure on Russian finances and the ruble. In response to Russia’s budgetary needs, Washington’s allies inside Russia are pushing President Putin to privatize important Russian economic sectors in order to raise foreign capital to cover the budget deficit and support the ruble. If Putin gives in, important Russian assets will move from Russian control to Washington’s control.

In my opinion, those who are pushing privatization are either traitors or completely stupid. Whichever it is, they are a danger to Russia’s independence.

Eric Draitser provides some details of Washington’s assault on Russia: http://www.mintpressnews.com/brics-attack-western-banks-governments-launch-full-spectrum-assault-russia-part/215761/

of Washington’s attack on South Africa: http://www.mintpressnews.com/brics-attack-empires-destabilizing-hand-reaches-south-africa/215126/

and of Washington’s attack on Brazil: http://www.mintpressnews.com/brics-attack-empire-strikes-back-brazil/214943/

For my column on Washington’s attack on Latin American independence, see: http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/04/22/washington-launches-its-attack-against-brics-paul-craig-roberts/

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS

April 22, 2016

Washington Launches Its Attack Against BRICS

Having removed the reformist President of Argentina, Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, Washington is now disposing of the reformist President of Brazil, Dilma Rousseff.

Washington used a federal judge to order Argentina to sacrifice its debt restructuring program in order to pay US vulture funds the full value of defaulted Argentine bonds that the vulture funds had bought for a few pennies on the dollar. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jun/27/us-vulture-funds-argentina-bankruptcy These vultures were called “creditors” who had made “loans” regardless of the fact that they were not creditors and had made no loans. They were opportunists after easy money and were used by Washington to get rid of a reformist government.

President Kirchner resisted and, thus, she had to go. Washington concocted a story that Kirchner covered up an alleged Iranian bombing in Buenos Aires in 1994. This implausible fantasy, for which there is no evidence of Iranian involvement, was fed to one of Washington’s agents in the state prosecutor’s office, and a dubious event of 22 years ago was used to clear Kirchner out of the way of the American looting of Argentina.

In Brazil, Washington has used corruption insinuations to get President Rousseff impeached by the lower house. Evidence is not necessary, just allegations. It is no different from “Iranian nukes,” Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction,” Assad’s “use of chemical weapons,” or in Rousseff’s case merely insinuations. The Secretary General of the Organization of American States, Luis Almagro, notes that Rousseff “hasn’t been accused of anything.” The American-backed elites are simply using impeachment to remove a president who they cannot defeat electorally.

In short, this is Washington’s move against the BRICS. Washington is moving to put into political power a rightwing party that Washington controls in order to terminate Brazil’s growing relationships with China and Russia.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Behind Brazil’s ‘Regime Change’

April 4, 2016

Behind Brazil’s ‘Regime Change’

Government “corruption” – trumpeted by international media and exploited by U.S.-funded NGOs – is a favorite weapon for discrediting and removing populist leaders, as is now occurring in Brazil, explains Dan Steinbock.

While international media focuses on Brazil’s mass demonstrations against corruption, efforts behind the façade precipitate regime change, restoration of a pre-Lula order, and a struggle against the BRICS nations. The U.S. feels threatened by an era of multi-polarity, which deeply implicates China, and other emerging economies.

In August 2016, Rio de Janeiro should host South America’s first-ever Olympic games, which were supposed to be its great coming out carnival, even amid campaigns against the Zika virus. Only a few years ago, Brazil exemplified the BRIC dream of rapid growth. Now it is coping with its most severe recession in a century. But there’s worse ahead.

Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff addressing the United Nations General Assembly. (UN Photo by Marco Castro)

When Brazil’s first working-class President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2003, the poor nation was on the verge of an economic implosion. President Lula’s center-left Workers’ Party (PT) and its coalition won the markets with conservative fiscal policy and lifted millions from poverty, while living standards rose by 60 percent.

Timing was favorable. A year after China joined the World Trade Organization; Lula initiated Brazil’s economic reforms. To modernize, Brazil needed demand for its commodities; to industrialize, China needed commodities. In the subsequent eight years, the U.S. share of Brazil’s exports plunged, while China’s soared. Regionally, Brazil became Latin America’s growth engine. Brazil and China shunned President George W. Bush’s unipolar foreign policy; each supported a more multipolar view of the world.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

World Trade Collapses Most Since Crisis

February 26, 2016

World Trade Collapses Most Since Crisis

One question now dominates the global macro discussion: has subdued global growth and trade become the norm in the post-crisis world?

That is, have lackluster growth and trade become structural and endemic rather than transient and cyclical?

Those are the burning questions that keep central bankers (not to mention sellside economists) up at night and they are front and center at the G-20 in Shanghai.

Warning signs abound. The Baltic Dry is in a veritable free fall. Germany’s manufacturing juggernaut is showing signs of faltering. The BRICS have ceased to be a reliable driver of global growth. US freight volumes are falling for the first time in years. And the list goes on.

“We have seen this burst of globalization, and now we’re at a point of consolidation, maybe retrenchment,” WTO chief economist Robert Koopman said last autumn. “It’s almost like the timing belt on the global growth engine is a bit off or the cylinders are not firing as they should.”

As we noted earlier this month, to the extent Maersk is a bellwether, things are looking pretty grim. Maersk Line – the company’s golden goose and the world’s largest container operator – racked up $182 million in red ink last quarter and the outlook for 2016 isn’t pretty either. The company now sees demand for seaborne container transportation rising a meager 1-3% for the year.

On Thursday we got the latest evidence that the wheels are falling off. According to new data from the Netherlands Bureau of Economic Policy Analysis’s World Trade Monitor, global trade (defined as the value of goods that crossed international borders) plunged nearly 14% in 2015.

That’s the first contraction since 2009.

“The new data released on Thursday represent the first snapshot of global trade for 2015,” FT notes. “But the figures also come amid growing concerns that 2016 is already shaping up to be more fraught with dangers for the global economy than previously expected.”

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Ifo WorldEconomic Climate Index: 1Q 2016

February 15, 2016

Ifo WorldEconomic Climate Index: 1Q 2016

Global growth leading indicators are screaming it, Baltic Dry Index is screaming it, PMIs are screaming it, BRICS are living it, and now Ifo surveys are showing it: global economy is heading into a storm.

The latest warning is from the Ifo World Economic Climate Index.

Per Ifo release: “The Ifo Index for the world economy dropped from 89.6 points to 87.8 points this quarter, drifting further from its long-term average (96.1 points). While assessments of the current economic situation brightened marginally, expectations were less positive than last quarter. The sharp decline in oil prices seems to be having no overall positive economic impact. Growth in the world economy continues to lack impetus.”

In numbers, thus:

Headline World Economic Climate Index is now averaging 88.7 over the two quarters through 1Q 2016, which is statistically below 97.7 average for the 2 quarters through 3Q 2015 and 93.2 average for 4 quarters through 1Q 2016. Current 2 quarters average is way lower than 8 quarters average of 98.4. Historical average is 94.9, but when one considers only periods of robust economic growth, the index average is 98.9. Again, current 2 quarters average is significantly below that.
Present Situation sub-index 2 quarters average is at 87.0, which is woefully lower than 2 quarters average through 3Q 2015 at 91.6 and is well below 96.0 average for the historical series covering periods of robust economic expansions.
Expectations for the next 6 months sub-index is at 90.4 on the 2 quarters average basis, down from 103.5 2 quarters average through 3Q 2015 and below historical (expansion periods only) average of 101.5.

Geographically, per Ifo release: “The economic climate deteriorated in all regions, except in Oceania, Asia and Latin America. In Oceania the climate index stabilised at a low level, and in Asia and Latin America it edged upwards. The indicator is now below its long-term average in all regions, with the exception of Europe.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Global Economic Reset Has Begun

December 9, 2015

The Global Economic Reset Has Begun

In my last article, I outlined the deliberately engineered trend toward the forced “harmonization” of national economies and monetary policies, as well as the ultimate end goal of globalists: a single world currency system controlled by the International Monetary Fund and, by extension, global governance, which internationalists sometimes refer to in their more honest public moments as the “new world order.”

The schematic for the new world order, according to the admissions of the internationalists, cannot possibly include the continued existence of U.S. geopolitical and economic dominance. The plan, in fact, requires the destabilization and reformation of America into a shell of its former glory. The most important element of this plan demands the removal of the U.S. dollar as the de facto world reserve currency, a change that would devastate our current financial structure.

I outlined with undeniable evidence the reality that major governments, including the BRICS governments of the East, are fully on board with the globalist agenda. There is no way around it; the BRICS, including Russia and China, have openly called for a global monetary system centralized and dictated by the IMF using the SDR basket. This same plan was outlined decades ago in the Rothschild-owned magazine The Economist. We are witnessing that plan being implemented in front of our very eyes today.

For the past couple of years, the current head of the IMF, Christine Lagarde, has used the phrase “global economic reset” often in her speeches and interviews. There is some (deliberate) ambiguity to this notion, but after sitting through hours upon hours of her most boring and repetitive discussions in globalist think tanks such as the Council On Foreign Relations, the consistent message is pretty straightforward. If anyone can stand to listen to this woman’s carefully crafted prattle and well-vetted half-truths for more than five minutes, I suggest they watch this particular speech given in January at the CFR:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Snowden leaks reveal harmfulness of US monopoly on internet – Russian minister

October 23, 2015

Snowden leaks reveal harmfulness of US monopoly on internet – Russian minister

Minister of Communications and Mass Media of the Russian Federation Nikolai Nikiforov © Vitaliy Belousov

The NSA’s mass surveillance would not be possible if the internet wasn’t controlled by just a few major US companies, Nikolay Nikiforov, Russia’s communications minister, told RT after the first BRICS ministerial meeting on the de-monopolization of IT.

“Snowden’s disclosures showed exactly the harmfulness of the monopoly because it would not be possible if the world IT sector should be structured in a more balanced way,” Nikiforov said, adding that, as things stand, US security agencies have the power to just “come to several companies and to force them… to actually provide absolutely illegal access to hundreds of millions records of private data of users globally.”

In 2013, whistleblower Edward Snowden leaked thousands of documents revealing the US National Security Agency’s mass surveillance programs, proving that Google, Facebook and other US tech giants have been passing information to the spy agency.

Russia’s Communications and Mass Media minister stressed that, in purely economic terms, the monopoly is also harmful for BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and the international community as a whole.

“The monopolist could dictate you the certain price level… each country in the world is actually sending out billions of dollars outside its national economies as the license fees… for key technologies,” he explained.

Nikiforov said that BRICS nations are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs, where a particular state or company controls up to 90-95 percent of certain IT market niches, such as the assigning of domain names performed by the American ICANN company under contract with the US government.

During the maiden meeting in Moscow, the BRICS communications ministers agreed that their countries want fair competition and “want it to be balanced, not to depend on one country or several companies,” he said.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Economist Rings Out Cognitive Dollar Dissonance

October 11, 2015

**The Economist Rings Out Cognitive Dollar Dissonance**

Two years ago, prior to travelling to Sydney to present at the Annual Precious Metals Symposium, I prepared an article for the Gold Standard Institute Journal titled Cognitive Dollar Dissonance: Why a Global De-Leveraging Requires the De-Rating of the Dollar and the Remonetisation of Gold (see here). This article highlighted the growing inconsistency between those arguing on the one hand that the dollar’s role in international trade and finance was clearly diminishing; yet denying that it was in any danger of losing the near-exclusive monetary reserve status it has enjoyed since the 1940s.

This apparently contradictory yet mainstream thinking about the future of the international monetary system continues to the present day. Indeed, earlier this month the Economist magazine ran a special feature on fading US economic power replete with dollar dissonance. The experts cited note the accelerating trend towards bilateral trade settlement, say between Russia and China, who plan to finance their multiple ‘Silk Road’ infrastructure projects using their own currencies and their own development bank (The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank or AIIB: See http://www.aiib.org/). They also observe that Russia, China and the other BRICS are no longer accumulating dollar reserves (although curiously overlook that they continue to accumulate gold). They acknowledge that not only the BRICS but many other countries have repeatedly expressed their desire that the current set of global monetary arrangements should be restructured in some way, although they are not always clear as to their specific preferences.

Note the sharp contrast in these two paragraphs, both on the very same page of the Economist feature:

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

It’s Not If But When

September 29, 2015

It’s Not If But When

Since the 2008 crash there has been much talk about how the fundamentals have not been dealt with and the fact that the can has only been kicked down the road. Political mavericks and commentators such as Ron Paul have frequently pointed out that nothing has really changed and that we are heading for even bigger disasters ahead if we continue to play ostrich.

Likewise, the economic doom and gloom pundits – such as Peter Schiff, Marc Faber and Gerald Celente have been banging the drum for an unprecedented collapse that will make the 1929 western economic slump look like a tea party. First it was to be 2010, 2012, then 2013 and so on, but here we are still, in the tail end of 2015 and the dreaded collapse has still failed to materialise.

So, I’m sure that some people are probably wondering if these people are just carpet baggers, making a swift buck out of fear of an economic downturn. The truth is that we never left the economic downturn – we are currently in a period of manipulation that’s sole purpose is to mask the fact that there has not been a boom (or recovery if you like) to trigger the next bust.

The world economy is largely sustained by confidence and belief that pieces of paper (or digital records) have some inherent value relative to each other and relative to the physical realities of the world. In truth a paper note is worthless if people do not recognise its symbolic value or believe that the relationship between its value and the value of real-world objects (e.g. commodities) has been perverted or destroyed.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Cristina Takes on Financial Times in Multi-Platform BRICS Tirade

September 12, 2015

Cristina Takes on Financial Times in Multi-Platform BRICS Tirade

Cristina has been on the media warpath against a perceived attack on emerging markets.

This Monday, Cronista republished (in Spanish) an article from the Financial Times titled, “Emerging Markets: Fixing a Broken Model.” The article is long, a bit on the dry side, hardly sensational and difficult to construe as an attack on anyone.

The article does not mention Argentina even one time. Nevertheless, Argentine President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner exploded onto the Twittersphere with close to 100 tweets, shot back with twoblog posts and drove her point home at an electoral rally where she somehow connected the BRIC issue with European nations turning away migrants.

I have to preface this by saying that a few years ago, I liked Cristina enough. I disagreed with her, but at least could respond to her policy moves and statements as a professional with reasoning based in economics. In this case, her violently emotional reaction to a newspaper article reads like a crazy person writing a stream of consciousness. You disagree with Cristina or want to suggest she has misread an article? Too bad! You’re a racist who hates the poor and celebrates genocide.

Before attempting to decipher why an economic assessment of emerging market growth happens to grind Cristina’s gears, it’s important to have a bit of context concerning emerging markets and the terms BRIC and BRICS.

BRIC is an acronym for Brazil, Russia, India and China that was coined in 2001 by a Goldman Sachs investment bank paper to describe these big, rapidly growing countries. Over the ’00s, BRICs was used to describe the shift in global economic power away from the historically rich economies to the developing world. Back then, economists debated projections of the future power of the BRIC economies, with estimates ranging from overtaking the G7 economies by the middle of the 2020s to the 2050s.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Great China Ponzi—-An Economic And Financial Trainwreck Which Will Rattle The World

August 14, 2015

The Great China Ponzi—-An Economic And Financial Trainwreck Which Will Rattle The World

There is an economic and financial trainwreck rumbling through the world economy. Namely, the Great China Ponzi. In all of economic history there has never been anything like it. It is only a matter of time before it ends in a spectacular collapse, leaving the global financial bubble of the last two decades in shambles.

But here’s the Wall Street meme that is stupendously wrong and that engenders blind complacency with respect to the impending upheaval. To wit, the same folks who brought you the myth of the BRICs miracle would now have you believe that China is undergoing a difficult but doable transition——-from an economy driven by booming exports and monumental fixed asset investment to one based on steady as she goes US-style consumption and services.

There may well be some bumps and grinds along the way, we are cautioned, such as the recent stock market and currency turmoil. But do not be troubled—–the great locomotive of the world economy will come out the other side better and stronger. That’s because the wise, pragmatic and powerful leaders and economic managers who deftly guide China’s version of capitalism have the capacity to make it all happen.

No they don’t!

China is not a clone-in-the-making of America’s $18 trillion consume till you drop economy—-even if that model were stable and sustainable, which it is not. China is actually sui generis—–a historical freak accident that has no destination other than a crash landing.

It’s leaders are neither wise nor deft economic managers. In fact, they are a bunch of communist party political hacks who have an iron grip on state power because China is a crude dictatorship. But their grasp of the fundamentals of economic law and sound finance can not even be described as negligible; it’s non-existent.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

The Rise Of The Yuan Continues: LME To Accept Renminbi As Collateral

July 28, 2015

The Rise Of The Yuan Continues: LME To Accept Renminbi As Collateral

As far-fetched as the notion may be to those who are wedded – by choice, by misguided beliefs, or by virtue of being completely beholden to the perpetuation of the status quo – to idea that the dollar will forever retain its status as the world’s reserve currency, the yuan is set to play a critical role in global finance, investment, and trade going forward.

We’ve long argued that the BRICS bank, the AIIB, and to an even greater extent, the Silk Road Fund, will help to usher in a new era of yuan hegemony in international investment and trade. A number of recent developments support this, including Beijing’s push for the renminbi to play an outsized role in loans doled out through the AIIB, the denomination of loans from the BRICS bank in yuan, and China’s aggressive investment in Pakistan and Brazil via the Silk Road initiative (here and here).

As for financial markets, China recently confirmed the impending launch of a yuan denominated gold fix which conveniently dovetailed with the LBMA’s acceptance of the first Chinese banks to participate in the twice-daily auction that determines London gold prices.

Now, in the latest sign of yuan proliferation and penetration, the renminbi will be accepted as collateral by the LME along with the dollar, the euro, the pound, and the yen.

Here’s WSJ with more:

China’s domestic stock market may be in turmoil but the country’s currency, known as the yuan or renminbi, is making a seemingly relentless push deeper into the global financial system.

The latest step: the London Metal Exchange, the world’s largest venue for trading metals where $15 trillion of metals was traded last year, is set to accept yuan as collateral for banks and brokers that trade on its platform.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

Russia Readies Fuel Deliveries To Athens, Will Support Greek “Economic Revival”

July 12, 2015

Russia Readies Fuel Deliveries To Athens, Will Support Greek “Economic Revival”

Russia and Greece have a “special relationship of spiritual kinship and religious and historical affinity,” Vladimir Putin said yesterday, following the BRICS summit in Ulfa.

Over the course of the unfolding crisis in Greece, Athens has at various times gone out of its way to remind Angela Merkel that allowing the country to crash out of the currency bloc may force the Greeks to turn to their other international “friends” (to use Nigel Farage’s words) for assistance. Facing economic sanctions from the EU in connection with its alleged role in destabilizing Ukraine not to mention a spiteful anti-trust suit against Gazprom, the Kremlin has been more than happy to use the rising tensions between Athens and Brussels to its geopolitical advantage.

So far, discussions between Russia and Greece have revolved primarily around energy, and several months back, when negotiations between Athens and creditors began to deteriorate in earnest, reports began to surface that Moscow may consider advancing Greece some €5 billion against the future proceeds from the Greek portion of the proposed Turkish Stream natural gas pipeline.

Although the loan never materialized, the agreement on the pipeline did, and it was held up last week as proof that Greece is “no one’s hostage.”

Now, that contention will be put to the test as Greece faces the prospect of a “swift time-out” from the eurozone if PM Alexis Tsipras can’t convince parliament to agree to a new term sheet from creditors which seeks the implementation of a number of draconian measures in exchange for a third bailout. Of course, as we notedearlier today, a “time-out” is a polite way of saying “get the hell out,” and in the event of a messy exit and forced redenomination, an acute cash and credit crunch will likely mean a shortage of critical imports and, in short order, a humanitarian crisis.

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…

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