{"id":53043,"date":"2020-05-07T07:45:07","date_gmt":"2020-05-07T12:45:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53043"},"modified":"2020-05-07T08:07:05","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T13:07:05","slug":"53043","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=53043","title":{"rendered":"Weaponizing the Dollar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theautomaticearth.com\/2020\/05\/weaponizing-the-dollar\/\">Weaponizing the Dollar<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"http:\/\/saulleiterfoundation.org\/images_color.html\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/theautomaticearth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/SaulLeiterPhonecall1957.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><figcaption>Saul Leiter&nbsp;<strong>Phone call&nbsp;<\/strong>c1957<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re still talking virus, just from a slightly different angle. I was going to do something completely different, but then I saw an article at the South China Morning Post (SCMP) today that made me think \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s true\u201d, realizing that at the same time many people would think it is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Foreign holdings of US Treasuries are a misty environment for perhaps not just many, but most people. What triggered the SCMP piece is Trump\u2019s threat, if it was ever meant to be one, to default on US dollar-denominated debt owned by China. Which by one estimate consists for about 70% of Treasuries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And there are entire choirs full of voices willing to tell us that China can simply start dumping the -estimated- $1.2 trillion in Treasuries it holds, and threaten if not end the USD reserve currency status that way, if the US doesn\u2019t \u201cbehave\u201d. There\u2019s little doubt that China would want this, but that doesn\u2019t make the idea any more realistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What should give that away is, how easy can we make it for you, that it hasn\u2019t done so yet. And now a conflict over the origin of a virus would trigger this? On a side note: if that origin is somewhere in China, even if it\u2019s unintentional, how could Beijing possibly \u201cadmit\u201d to it? How could it ever settle the lawsuits that would ensue?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">No, the US cannot default on China\u2019s holdings of its Treasuries. That alone would be a larger threat to the reserve currency status than anything anybody else could do, other then nuclear war. But at the same time, China cannot dump its Treasury holdings. because that would hurt \u2026 China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Weaponizing the Dollar Don\u2019t worry, we\u2019re still talking virus, just from a slightly different angle. I was going to do something completely different, but then I saw an article at the South China Morning Post (SCMP) today that made me think \u201cI don\u2019t think that\u2019s true\u201d, realizing that at the same time many people would [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5],"tags":[88,130,29626,29627,13924,17551,29628,29629,5177,11637,10522,834,3492,856,29630],"class_list":["post-53043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-geopolitics","tag-bonds","tag-china","tag-dollar-denominated","tag-pettis","tag-raul-ilargi-meijer","tag-scmp","tag-sell","tag-siamese-twins","tag-the-automatic-earth","tag-treasuries","tag-trump","tag-us","tag-usd","tag-virus","tag-weaponize"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=53043"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":53048,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/53043\/revisions\/53048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=53043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=53043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=53043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}