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De-Dollarization Spreads: Why These 5 Nations Are Backing Away From The Buck

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
Thu, 01/03/2019 - 04:15

The past year was full of events that inevitably split the global geopolitical space into two camps: those who still support using US currency as a universal financial tool, and those who are turning their back on the greenback.

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Global tensions caused by economic sanctions and trade conflicts triggered by Washington have forced targeted countries to take a fresh look at alternative payment systems currently dominated by the US dollar.

RT has taken a deeper look into the recent phenomena of de-dollarization, summing up which countries have taken steps towards eliminating their reliance on the greenback, and the reasons behind their decision.

China

The ongoing trade conflict between the United States and China, as well as sanctions against Beijing's biggest trading partners have forced China to take steps towards relieving the dollar dependence of the world's second-largest economy.

In Beijing's signature soft-power style, the government hasn't made any loud announcements on the issue. However, the People's Bank of China has been regularly reducing the country's share of US Treasuries. Still the number-one foreign holder of the US sovereign debt, China has cut its share to the lowest level since May 2017.

Moreover, instead of promptly dumping the greenback, China is trying to internationalize its own currency, the yuan, which was included in the IMF basket alongside the US dollar, the Japanese yen, the euro, and the British pound. Beijing has recently made several steps towards strengthening the yuan, including accumulating gold reserves, launching yuan-priced crude futures, and using the currency in trade with international partners.

As part of its ambitious Belt and Road Initiative, China is planning to introduce swap facilities in participating countries to promote the use of the yuan. Moreover, the country is actively pushing for a free-trade agreement called the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which will include the countries of Southeast Asia. The trade pact could easily replace the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), the proposed multi-national trade deal which was torn up by US President Donald Trump shortly after he took office. RCEP includes 16 country signatories and the potential pact is expected to form a union of nearly 3.4 billion people based on a combined $49.5 trillion economy, which accounts for nearly 40 percent of the world's GDP.

India

Ranked the world's sixth-largest economy, India is one of the biggest merchandise importers. It's not surprising that the country is directly affected by most global geopolitical conflicts and is significantly impacted by sanctions applied to its trading partners.

Earlier this year, Delhi switched to ruble payments on supplies of Russian S-400 air-defense systems as a result of US economic penalties introduced against Moscow. The country also had to switch to the rupee in purchases of Iranian crude after Washington reinstituted sanctions against Tehran. In December, India and the United Arab Emirates sealed a currency-swap agreement to boost trade and investment without the involvement of a third currency.

Taking into account that India is the third-largest country by purchasing power parity, steps of this kind could considerably diminish the role of the greenback in global trading.

Turkey

Earlier this year, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to end the US dollar monopoly via a new policy that is aimed at non-dollar trading with the country's international partners. Later, Turkey's leader announced that Ankara is preparing to conduct trade through national currencies with China, Russia and Ukraine. Turkey also discussed a possible replacement of the US dollar with national currencies in trade transactions with Iran.

The move was prompted by political and economic reasons. Relations between Ankara and Washington have been deteriorating since the failed military coup in the country to oust President Erdogan in 2016. It's been reported that Erdogan suspects US involvement in the uprising and accuses Washington of harboring exiled cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Ankara blames for masterminding the coup.

The Turkish economy sank after Washington introduced economic sanctions over the arrest of US evangelical pastor Andrew Brunson on terrorism charges in relation to the uprising.

Erdogan has repeatedly slammed Washington for unleashing a global trade war, sanctioning Turkey and trying to isolate Iran. The NATO member's decision to buy Russian S-400 missile systems added fuel to the fire.

Moreover, Turkey is trying to ditch the dollar in an attempt to support its national currency. The lira has lost nearly half of its value against the greenback over the past year. The currency plunge was exacerbated by soaring inflation and increasing prices for goods and services.

Iran

A triumphant return of Iran to the global trading arena did not last long. Shortly after winning the US presidential election, Donald Trump opted to withdraw from the 2015 nuclear deal signed between Tehran and a group of nations, including the UK, US, France, Germany, Russia, China, and the EU.

The oil-rich nation has once again become a target for severe sanctions resumed by Washington, which has also threatened to introduce penalties against any countries that would violate the embargo. The punitive measures banned business deals with the Islamic Republic and cracked down on the country's oil industry.

Sanctions have forced Tehran to look for alternatives to the US dollar as payment for its oil exports. Iran clinched a deal for oil settlements with India using the Indian rupee. It also negotiated a barter deal with neighboring Iraq. The partners are also planning to use the Iraqi dinar for mutual transactions to reduce reliance on the US dollar amid banking problems connected to US sanctions.

Russia

President Vladimir Putin said the US is "making a colossal strategic mistake" by "undermining confidence in the dollar."Putin has never called for restricting dollar transactions or banning the use of US currency. However, Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov said earlier this year that the country had to dump its holdings of US Treasuries in favor of more secure assets, such as the ruble, the euro, and precious metals.

The country has already taken several steps towards de-dollarizing the economy due to the constantly growing burden of sanctions that have been introduced since 2014 over a number of issues. Russia has developed a national payment system as an alternative to SWIFT, Visa and Mastercard after the US threatened tougher new sanctions that would target Russia's financial system.

So far, Moscow has managed to partially phase out the greenback from its exports, signing currency-swap agreements with a number of countries including China, India and Iran. Russia has recently proposed using the euro instead of the US dollar in trade with the European Union.

Once a top-10 holder of US sovereign debt, Russia has all but eliminated its holdings of US Treasuries. Moscow has used the money to boost the nation's foreign reserves and to build up its gold stockpile to stabilize the ruble.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-02/de-dollarization-spreads-why-these-5-nations-are-backing-away-buck

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petrodollar.jpg?w=840

THE US IS AT WAR WITH IRAQ, LIBYA, SYRIA, IRAN, RUSSIA, ALL TO PROTECT THE PETRODOLLAR

The US dollar currently makes up 2/3rds of the worlds global reserve currency. This is because nearly every oil-exporting country in the world exclusively sells their oil in US dollars (the Petrodollar), so nations are forced to hoard large amounts of US dollars, allowing the US to print it almost to infinity without hyper-inflating their currency.

The US government has been doing everything it can to protect their petrodollar status around the globe. How did this all come about?

The Saudi Connection

In 1974, OPEC nations halted the sale of oil to the United States due to its support for Israel in the Yom Kippur War. This resulted in quadrupling oil prices, almost overnight. Inflation sky rocketed and the stock market crashed causing the US economy to nosedive.

US president Richard Nixon ended up fixing this dilemma by setting up an agreement with Saudi Arabia. The US would buy oil from Saudi Arabia, protect them militarily and even sell them military aid and equipment, helping the military industrial complex in the US. In return, the Saudis would buy billions of dollars worth of US Treasuries to help finance America’s spending habits.

History dictates how the US government and their ally’s have been protecting the wests financial dominance through this petrodollar ever since.

Iraq and the Euro

In 2001, Iraq switched from the petrodollar and began selling their oil in Euro’s. Soon after, sanctions were placed on them followed by an invasion with massive destruction to their infrastructure. The Bush administration galvanized support for the invasion with lies about supposed WMD’s that Saddam was going to use on either his own people or Israel.

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This came a little more than a decade after the US assisted Saddam with chemical weapons and sophisticated military equipment as well as strategic supports so he could fight Iran.

Libya and the Golden Dinar

In 1996 and 2000 the leader of the oil rich Libya, Muhammar Gaddafi, had initially indicated the idea of a gold backed African currency. He found there to be many African and Muslim nations interested in the idea. 

He began amassing large amounts of gold and silver, to the tune of 144 tons of gold and a similar amount of silver. That is half of what the UK possesses in gold, but Libya has 1/10th the population of the UK, so it was quite substantial.

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In 2009, Muhammar Gaddafi was the president of the African Union. He proposed the African states shift to a new Golden Dinar that was actually made from physical gold. Many of these interested nations were using the French franc (CFA) circulating as a prime African currency.

A leaked Hillarious Clinton email showed this to be a serious issue for the french and how they were worried it would do a tremendous amount of harm to their economy. The US also felt threatened to loose the petrodollar in this oil rich region.

The prospect of sovereign control by a growing number of African and Muslim oil states would have been disastrous for Wall Street and London bankers. 

It would have meant huge liquidity in the trillions of dollars they no longer controlled as well as potential hyper inflation for the US dollar who had just quintupled their money supply to pay for 2 major invasions (Iraq and Afghanistan) and to offset their losses from the 2008 recession. 

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The wealth of these African nations would have depended on how much gold they had, instead of how many US dollars they trade. The great fear was that Libya might lead North Africa into a high degree of economic independence with a new pan-African currency.

Gold would have flowed out from energy hungry customers in the west and into African and Middle Eastern nations. The US and its ally’s could not allow that to happen.

Fearing a diminished influence by the western central banks, the French, UK and US then attacked Libya and utterly destroyed their infrastructure leaving them to be ravaged by years of terror from Al-Qaeda and other factions, with the guise of defending the helpless rebels who were opposed to such a brutal dictator.

Iran, Syria and Russia

Two countries have stopped selling their oil in petrodollars, Iran and Syria. Both had major sanctions placed on them with Syria being invaded by outside terrorist organizationssupported, funded and trained by the US government.

This not to mention another country slammed with US sanctions, Russia, has begun trading some of its oil for the Russian Ruble instead of the US Petrodollar. Is there a wonder why Obama has been adamant to create a rift between his administration and Putin’s?

If you’ve been following the establishment media reports, you might have thought it was because Obama has a heart for the people of Crimea or because Putin was fighting the terrorists in Syria or the so called “moderate rebels” as they like to call them, a claim proven to be false.

The Petrodollars Demise

If many of these oil countries or even OPEC itself stopped using the petrodollar, no one would need to hoard it anymore. These massive quantities of US dollars would be sent back to the Federal Reserve in exchange for whichever currency replaces it.

The value of the dollar would shrink dramatically and the Fed would be forced to take steps to shrink the money supply to stem massive inflation. The raising of the Federal Funds rate would mean that there would not be enough new loans created to pay off old loans. 

This is necessary, because there is always more debt in the economy than there is money, because money is created with interest attached, from the very beginning we are all indebted to a small cartel that sits behind the federal reserve. 

The defaulting of loans would lead to a chain reaction that would collapse the $700 Trillion derivatives market. In addition, the Fed wouldn’t be able to mindlessly pump money into the economy anymore to fund their welfare/warfare state such as with their current policy of quantitative easing.

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Chaos would ensue in American streets as people wouldn’t get their much needed food stamps and welfare checks. Occupy Wall Street would be a walk in the park compared to the riots we would see. The US dollar would hyper inflate almost overnight virtually eliminating the savings of millions of people.

Is there any wonder why the US policy makers seems to be in a perpetual war with oil rich nations that go against their plans of world financial dominance? Yet, when their oil rich ally Saudi Arabia beheads its own citizens, en masse, or performs brutal war crimes against its neighbors, like in the recent war with Yemen to oust its leader, no one in the MSM barely notices. 

All this using US made warplanes to drop US made bombs on wedding parties and hospitals, they get no mention in the mainstream media or by the US government. I wonder what response they would have if Syria or Iran did the same thing?

There is a way out of this mess, it will be painful, but it will be less painful than the one that will eventually happen as we kick the can down the road with more wars and destruction of lives on the other side of the planet, and quantitative easing here at home.

https://astutenews.com/2019/01/03/the-us-is-at-war-with-iraq-libya-syria-iran-russia-all-to-protect-the-petrodollar/

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Financial indicators put the world on the verge of collapse

Financial indicators put the world on the verge of collapse

 

 Twilight News    
 
 5 hours ago
 

 

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned of a number of worrying economic indicators in 2019, with experts predicting a new financial meltdown in 2008.

The International Monetary Fund warned of worsening global indebtedness and slowing economic growth, but this "unsatisfactory" situation is interpreted in several reasons factors, according to the newspaper "Guardian" British.

Analysts say the beginning of the year is not always an accurate indicator, as major economies often begin to decline but return to take off and grow later, and this is noticeable in 2016.

The global economy benefited from an important push after 2014 after oil prices fell to unprecedented levels, but this was at the expense of the oil-exporting countries, and this batch did not last long.

The year 2017 and 2018 saw no encouraging economic performance, with the exception of the United States, where the Trump tax policy stimulated consumption amid encouraging market and job data.

Things seem to be different in 2019, as corporate and consumer debt is expected to worsen in a number of countries, and governments in turn will not hand over the problem of high indebtedness.

Among the indicators that remind us of the pre-crisis of 2008; the demand of central banks to raise the cost of borrowing, amid talk about the need to raise interest rates.

The Central Bank of Sweden recently raised interest rates, asserting its intention to move forward in this direction. In the same vein, the US Central Bank announced its interest rate hike in December.

Consumers in many countries, such as China and Britain, see this year as a difficult period and intend to reduce consumption, especially in non-core issues.

The pre-crisis period witnessed a decline in real estate prices after consumers reached maximum borrowing and car sales fell impressively.

As consumers intend to tighten their belts as central banks raise interest rates, companies are warned of "lean" times for contracting in 2019, according to the International Monetary Fund.

 
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Is bankruptcy the only way to rid the world of the debt crisis?

Is bankruptcy the only way to rid the world of the debt crisis?
 

 07 January 2019 03:15 PM
Editing: Noha Al-Nahhas

Mubasher: Since 2008, governments around the world have been looking for less aggressive ways to reduce high debt levels that have been the main cause of the recent crisis.

According to an analysis published by Bloomberg View, lowering interest rates to zero or less would make the borrowing service easier.

Quantitative easing and central bank support made it easy to buy debt. Planned increases in asset prices have increased the value of loan guarantees and reduced pressure on banks and defaulting lenders.

However, all these policies have avoided the need to reduce debt, but they have raised borrowing, particularly the demand for risky debt, as profit-hungry investors look further to returns.

Since 2007, global debt has increased from $ 167 trillion ($ 113 trillion excluding financial institutions) to $ 247 trillion ($ 187 trillion excluding financial institutions).

The ratio of debt to GDP was 320%, up 40% over the past decade.

All forms of debt increased from household loans to corporate and government loans. Public debt had to rise dramatically to finance rescue efforts after the Great Depression.

US public debt is approaching $ 22 trillion, up from $ 9 trillion a decade ago, up 40 percent from GDP.

Emerging-market debt also increased. Non-financial institutions' debt in China rose from $ 2 trillion in 2000 (120% to GDP) to $ 7 trillion in 2007 (160% to GDP) to 40% Trillion dollars (250% of GDP).

The share of non-financial US borrowing to GDP has exceeded 2007 levels and is approaching pre-World War II levels, while the quality of that debt has declined.

Investment-grade bonds ( BBBs ), the lowest investment grade, now account for half of the investment-grade debt in the US and Europe, which is above 35% and 19%, respectively, a decade ago.

Debt with a CCC rating of one degree higher than default is 65% above 2007 levels.

The leveraged debt of the issuer, which includes high yield bonds and leverage debt, currently stands at $ 3 trillion, double the 2007 levels.

Today, the world has no choice. On the theoretical level, borrowers can convert income to debt service. This is easy to say but difficult to implement, given the small amount of debt borrowed in the past decade for productive uses.

As wages are not rising, families borrowed to finance consumption, companies borrowed to finance stock repurchases and acquisitions, and governments borrowed to finance current spending rather than infrastructure investments and strategic investments.

A sharp cut in debt at the moment could lead to recession and make repayment more difficult. Reducing public debt, for example, would require governments to raise taxes and cut spending, which would be a brake on economic activity.

In theory, strong economic growth and high inflation are able to reduce debt levels. Growth can contribute to enhancing the incomes and debt service capacity of borrowers. It can also reduce the ratio of debt to GDP, and real rates are negative (nominal rates below the level of rise) Prices) whenever inflation reduces actual debt levels.

However, since 2007, attempts to increase economic growth and inflation have been modest successes. Monetary and fiscal measures, however drastic, remain limited. They can reduce the effects of economic imbalances but can also destroy long-term growth.

Since the 1990s, economic activity has been driven by debt assistance. Credit intensities are on the rise, and now high levels of debt are increasingly required to create the same levels of growth. Efforts to reduce debt risk put the economy at risk of deflation instead of big growth.

Finally, when religion is denominated in a national currency but carried by foreigners, countries can reduce that debt by devaluing their currencies.

The problem is that everyone knows this. Since 2007, many countries have sought to devalue their currencies in order to strengthen their competitive position and reduce their commitments. This has led to a stalemate, limiting this option and making it ineffective.

The only other way to reduce debt levels is default, and this can be done either explicitly - through bankruptcy or write-off - implicitly using nominal nominal interest rates to reduce the nominal value of debt, and this seems the most likely option in the long term.

In the case of debt default, debt investors, banks and depositors suffer losses in savings and income. Banks and insurance companies are likely to become insolvent. Public services and pensions paid by family taxes and contributions will not be delivered.

On the other hand, this will reduce consumption, investment and credit-related availability. Depending on the volume of debt written off, social and economic losses are likely to be reasonable.

In 2007, monetary policymakers refused to take advantage of an opportunity to devise a slow and disciplined corrective process, as this would have led to defaults and loss of creditors.

That would have allowed at least equitable sharing of losses with the protection of the most vulnerable, and instead leaders arrogantly assumed that their policy instruments would make debt problems disappear.

Countries used interest rates on savings to finance rising expenses rather than debt reduction.

Previous restructuring shows that early defaults help to heal the wound, minimize loss and facilitate recovery. The longer the delay, the higher the cost and the more necessary adjustments are made.

With policymakers refusing the option of default, they are even less frank with themselves about options for dealing with unsustainable debt, in one way or another they have shifted costs to the next generation.  

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(edited)

IMF Warns World "Dangerously Unprepared" For Upcoming Global Recession

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
Mon, 01/07/2019 - 07:49

In the starkest warning yet about the upcoming global recession, which some believe will hit in late 2019 or 2020 at the latest, the IMF warned that the leaders of the world’s largest countries are "dangerously unprepared" for the consequences of a serious global slowdown. The IMF's chief concern: much of the ammunition to fight a slowdown has been exhausted and governments will find it hard to use fiscal or monetary measures to offset the next recession, while the system of cross-border support mechanisms — such as central bank swap lines — has been undermined, warned David Lipton, first deputy managing director of the IMF.

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 Deputy Managing Director David Lipton

“The next recession is somewhere over the horizon, and we are less prepared to deal with that than we should be . . . [and] less prepared than in the last [crisis in 2008],” Lipton told the Financial Times during the annual meeting of the American Economic Association. “Given this, countries should be paying attention to keeping their economy on a level trajectory, building buffers and not fighting with each other.”

While the IMF projected solid, 3.7% growth in the global economy in 2019 in its most recent, October, forecasts, with the IMF set to release updated forecasts later this month, Lipton admitted that the growth outlook is being undermined by trade tensions, policy flaws and weakness in Asia.

“China is clearly slowing down — we think China’s growth has to slow, but keeping it from slowing in a dangerous way is an important objective,” he said, noting that a downshift would be “material very broadly, not just in Asia.”

Countering the IMF's gloom, at the same conference, White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow, said that “there’s no recession in sight.” He urged economists to ignore the swings on Wall Street, even as many traders and some leading economists have pointed out that the new gloomy investor “narrative” could become self-reinforcing amid a renewed debate if the market leads the economy or vice versa. "Suddenly, the markets are reacting as if there’s a crisis of interest rate increases,” argued Yale professor Robert Shiller.

He pointed out that, although the Fed had been raising rates for several years, investors were only reacting to this now: "This doesn’t look rational,” he says, drawing parallels with the 1920s in terms of the sudden shift in psychology. “[Then] the earnings were high, the economy was moving well, but suddenly it crashed — and again it was talk, I think. There was a new narrative that developed in 1929, just as there is a new narrative developing today.”

With the latest round of US-China trade negotiations starting today, the Atlanta conference revealed widespread pessimism among economists about the chance of any rapid resolution to the current trade wars.

“It is always possible that President Trump can wake up one day, reach out to his friend President Xi and decide to take yes for an answer”, said Adam Posen, president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

“But, given the host of issues that the US government is raising, some of which are legitimate, some of which are exaggerated, and some of which are crazy, it’s very hard to get to yes,” Posen said. He added that the Trump administration has hinged reconciliation of the trade war on issues which “may require a wholesale change in the Chinese system.”

That is unlikely to happen in the near future.

Meanwhile, the IMF's Lipton argued that rising protectionism showed that governments urgently needed to develop better policies to help their populations adapt to global competition. However, the FT notes, "the magnitude of this challenge was illustrated by a range of economic research presented in Atlanta which showed that global trade competition is having a very uneven impact on the American work force, stoking inequality."

Separately, MIT labor economist David Autor gave a speech in which he showed that rural workers in the US who fail to move to cities to find work may be making a rational decision because, without a college degree, higher-wage jobs in cities have become scarce. Instead, the main growth in lower-wage jobs is coming from what Autor calls “wealth work” — jobs such as baristas and animal therapists that serve the wealthy, something we have claimed for years (see "An Update On The Waiter And Bartender Recovery").

“It’s a good time to be young and educated,” he concluded, but there are few good choices for low-skilled older workers.

Finally, economists from Stanford, Colorado and Michigan universities presented research which showed that trade competition with China is mostly hitting “low human-capital zones” in the south and west of America, in a manner which “exacerbates the potential inequality caused by the China shock.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-07/imf-warns-world-dangerously-unprepared-upcoming-global-recession

Edited by Butifldrm
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World Bank president resigns

21:37 - 07/01/2019
0
 
  
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Information / follow up

World Bank President Jim Young Kim has announced he will step down early next February, three years after his term ends.

"It was a great honor to be the president of this wonderful institution, full of enthusiastic and committed individuals dedicated to the task of ending extreme poverty in the world," said Jim Young Kim, in a statement.

"The World Bank's mission is now more important than ever with the growing aspirations of the poor around the world and continues to increase problems such as climate change, epidemics, famine and refugees."

In 2012, under the leadership of Kim and with the support of the Group of 189 Member States of the World Bank, the Foundation set two goals: "Ending extreme poverty by 2030" and "Promoting common prosperity".

World Bank Chief Executive Christalia Gurgaiva is scheduled to serve as interim president from February 1.

Kim is an American of South Korean origin, belongs to the Democratic Party in the United States, and was president of the World Bank in March 2012, with the support of former US President Barack Obama.

Kim was born in Seoul, South Korea, in 1959 and moved to the United States in his fifth year of age.

He received his degree in medicine and anthropology from Harvard University and in 2009 became president of Dartmouth University in New Hampshire. End 25 n

https://www.almaalomah.com/2019/01/07/380526/

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World Bank Urges 'Leave Central Banks Alone' As Global Economic Outlook Darkens

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
Tue, 01/08/2019 - 17:05

If we were a cynical thinking group, we could be persuaded that the World Bank just wrote a politically-charged 'mini-project-fear' report aimed directly at President Trump.

But that would be paranoid so we won't consider that. However, see if you can spot their pointed 'findings'...

The World Bank begins with its rather ominous title: "Storm Clouds Are Brewing for the Global Economy"

2019-01-08_13-25-18.jpg2019-01-08_13-25-18.jpg

"The outlook for the global economy in 2019 has darkened."

Which may be a little overdone since they only reduced their expectation for global growth to 2.9% this year, down from 3% in 2018 and a reduction of 0.1 point from its forecast in June, blaming slowing growth in trade and investment and rising interest rates for sapping momentum.

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Advanced-economy central banks will continue to remove the accommodative policies that supported the protracted recovery from the global financial crisis ten years ago.Also, simmering trade disputes could escalate.Higher debt levels have made some economies, particularly poorer countries, more vulnerable to rising global interest rates, shifts in investor sentiment, or exchange rate fluctuations.

In addition, more frequent weather events raise the possibility of large swings in food prices, which could deepen poverty. Because equitable growth is essential to alleviating poverty and increasing shared prosperity, emerging market and developing economies need to face this challenging economic climate by taking steps to sustain economic momentum, readying themselves for turbulence, and foster long-term growth. Rebuilding budget and central bank buffers; nurturing human capital; promoting trade integration; and addressing the challenges posed by sometimes large informal sectors, are important ways to do this.

“At the beginning of 2018 the global economy was firing on all cylinders, but it lost speed during the year and the ride could get even bumpier in the year ahead,” said World Bank Chief Executive Officer Kristalina Georgieva. “As economic and financial headwinds intensify for emerging and developing countries, the world’s progress in reducing extreme poverty could be jeopardized. To keep the momentum, countries need to invest in people, foster inclusive growth, and build resilient societies."

So - weather (climate change), trade tensions (Trump), and lack of inclusive policies (Trump?) are the problems with the global economy? Oh, and the war on cash needs to be stepped up to counter "informal economies."

And so The World Bank concludes:

Hard-won central bank independence and transparency could erode in the face of pressures to finance government. Mounting debt could weaken commitment to strong fiscal and monetary regimes.

If global inflationary pressures rise, policymakers can protect their constituents by redoubling their support for central bank independence, building fiscal frameworks to ensure debt sustainability and maintaining adequate buffers to ride out economic downturns.  

As the global economic outlook darkens, the imperative of sustaining economic momentum will require making the most out of growth opportunities, avoiding pitfalls, and building buffers against possible shocks. Lessons from the past about debt, faith in public institutions, food security, and price stability can offer guidance in an increasingly challenging environment. 

So above all else, citizens of the world should support the independence of their central banks and leave the central planners to fix the storm clouds for you... "Leave them alone" in other words... oh and now is the time to stop your government from getting into more debt - good luck with that.

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-01-08/world-bank-urges-leave-central-banks-alone-global-economic-outlook-darkens

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Fitch" warns of the downgrade of the US credit rating due to government closure

"Fitch" warns of the downgrade of the US credit rating due to government closure


 09 Jan 2019 02:29 PM
Direct: agency "Fitch" warned of the possibility of reducing the sovereign credit rating of the United States later this year if thecontinuation of the partial closure of the US government .

The impasse between US President Donald Trump and Congressional Democrats over the financing of the barrier on the border between the United States and Mexico continues, pushing the partial closure of the government into its 19th day on Wednesday.

James McCormack, head of the global rating agency, said in remarks to CNBC on Wednesday that he believed people were looking at the figures of the Congressional Budget Office.

"If people get the time to look, they can see that debt levels are moving higher and US government interest burdens will move higher up over the next decade.

He explained that there is a need for some kind of financial adjustment to compensate for it or else the deficit itself will move up and will be borrowing to pay interest on debt.

In another event in London, McCormack said that if the government closes until March 1 and the debt ceiling becomes problematic after several months, there may be a need to start thinking about the policy framework and the inability to pass the budget.

"It will also be considered whether this is in line with the US sovereign credit rating," he said.

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Russia turned $ 101 billion of its reserves into the euro and yuan  

Russia turned $ 101 billion of its reserves into the euro and yuan  

 10 January 2019 01:17 PM

 

Direct : Russia got rid of $ 101 billion of cash reserves through converted into euros and yuan in the second quarter of last year amid the application of new US sanctions against the European state.

The Russian central bank announced Wednesday that it converted the equivalent of 44 billion dollars into the European currency and its equivalent to the Chinese yuan in the second quarter of last year.

The statement added that there are about 21 billion dollars invested in the currency of the Japanese yen.

The Chinese currency accounted for 15 percent of Russia's total cash reserves in the second quarter, 5 percent higher than the first quarter, the data showed.

The United States imposed heavy penalties on Russian companies last April, causing damage to the status of the Russian ruble and raising concerns that there are more restrictions can be applied in the coming period.

The data confirmed that Russia's total holdings of US Treasury bonds fell by $ 81 billion in May and June.

By 10:05 GMT, the Russian ruble fell 0.6 percent to 67.0446 rubles against the dollar.

https://www.mubasher.info/news/3397906/روسيا-تحول101-مليار-دولار-من-احتياطاتها-لعملات-اليورو-واليوان-

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Demand for US Treasuries falls to its lowest level since 2008

Demand for US Treasuries falls to its lowest level since 2008

 

 10 January 2019 01:54 PM

Mubasher : Investors' demand for US Treasuries fell last year to its lowest level in a decade.

According to Bloomberg data on Wednesday, with securities and securities offered by the US Treasury Department through $ 2.4 trillion in tenders last year, investors made offers equivalent to 2.6 times for bids, the lowest rate of coverage in 2008.

The decline in the demand coverage ratio compared to bonds offered, which is an indicator of the demand for treasury bonds even as the government debt return to its highest level in several years in October, before falling to its lowest levels in December.

The drop is an early warning that demand for Treasury bonds may not be in line with the increase in US debt due to tax cuts for the administration of President Donald Trump.

Expectations are that the deficit could soon jump to $ 1 trillion and continue for years to come.

The first auctions in 2019 did little to eliminate these concerns, with demand for a three-year sale of $ 38 billion worth of Treasuries falling to the lowest level in the past decade at an auction on Tuesday.

The demand coverage at the auction yesterday for the sale of ten-year Treasury bonds worth $ 24 billion to about 2.51 times, in line with the average for the past year to maturity.

https://www.mubasher.info/news/3397646/الطلب-على-سندات-الخزانة-الأمريكية-يتراجع-لأدنى-مستوى-منذ-2008

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On 6/26/2018 at 9:37 PM, Butifldrm said:

Central banker lets slip that Global Financial Reset is underway as government's prepare for collapse of current system

 

For anyone who does even a modicum of research, the 2008 financial crash was not just a cyclical 'bump' in the credit cycle, but an actual death event for the entire financial system.  And this is primarily why central banks like the Fed, ECB, and BOJ have had to constantly fund their 'life support system" rel="">support patient' with endless amounts of QE, Zero percent Interest Rates, and even Negative Rates.

In fact despite the reality of tens of trillions of dollars printed and monetized by the central banks over the past seven years in both the U.S. and in Europe, most banks remain underfunded, and pretty much insolvent if they had to administer true accounting practices.

 


Since around 2013, Asian and Eurasian economies such as Russia, China, India, and even Kyrgyzstan have been preparing for a post Petrodollar world, and one no longer controlled by the Western central banks.  And even in Europe, nations such as Germany, Austria, and the Netherlands have all done the unprecedented move of recalling their gold reserves back from the U.S. into their own vaults.

But while those who pay attention to the alternative financial media have heard numerous times that we are preparing for a great 'Global Financial and Currency Reset', only trickles of information has come from leaders on the reality of this paradigm shift.

Until now?

On June 21 the head of the UK's central bank (Bank of England) gave a speech in which he emphasized that the global financial system is moving rapidly towards a 'New World Order', which in this case is political speak for the global currency reset.

 
lagarde%2Bfinancial%2Breset.png
The race is definitely on as to who will be dictating the terms of the reset. 
Everybody has their eyes on China and Russia, thinking they join forces to form the dominance in the global economy to push out the dollar and elevate China to world reserve currency status, or elevate a combination of China and Russia to world reserve currency status with a gold and/or silver backing in this new monetary system, perhaps even with a return to gold and silver via a Chinese Gold-backed Yuan and a Russian Silver Ruble
Well, it’s not only the East that is actively working on the global reset. 
England seems to frantically be in the race as well. 
Yesterday, Bank of England Governor Mark Carney gave a speech, and it wall basically all about the coming reset. 
That phrase that we all can’t stand – the “new world order”. 
Yup.  It’s coming. 
Its a very long, super boring speech, but I’ve read between the lines, and I want to show you some of the thing he has said, so that you can come to your own conclusions as to what is going on. 
To me, it speaks to the end of the dollar dominated world and the coming reset and re-ordering of the global monetary system 
Here’s some of the things he said in no particular order (bold and red bold added by Half Dollar for emphasis): 
The Bank recognises that a new economy, a new world and new demographics demand a new financial system. 
While we prepare for great change, we will be guided by one constant: our mission to promote the good of the people we all serve. 
This infrastructure must be overhauled now that the economy is on the cusp of the fourth industrial revolution and our demographic challenges are intensifying. 
And rebalancing of the global order is proving as dramatic as it was in Montagu Norman’s time. 
Such profound changes demand a new finance. 
We now have a balance sheet fit for a new world order with greater reliance on markets in a wider range of reserve currencies. – Silver Doctors

The average citizen will NEVER receive warning from either governments or the financial powers unless they are able to read between the lines in speeches such as this one on what is being worked on, and what is coming.  Because all one has to do is remember back in 2008 when CNBC went out of their way to tell us how solvent and stable Bear Stearns was, only to see it vanish forever just four days later, with Congress having to push through a bailout under the guise that this crisis could bring about the institution of Martial Law.

 

http://www.thedailyeconomist.com/2018/06/central-banker-lets-slip-that-global.html

Buti . I'm reading this article again 8 months after you posted it. Once again . Is something being pushed through but as a National Emergency and not " under the guise that this crisis could bring about the institution of Martial Law."

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Chinese companies will soon be able to get paid in yuan instead of dollars when selling products through U.S. online sites, says Reuters.

The New York branch of the Bank of China says that it's system, e-MPay will be able to facilitate such payments starting this year, according to Reuters which cited China's Xinhua news agency.

At a time when China is challenging the U.S. for the title of the world's biggest economy, the two nations are embroiled in a trade war, and the ripples in China's economy can hobble corporate giants like Apple, payments in yuan vs. dollars could give a boost to smaller Chinese businesses selling on U.S. based portals. 

The new payment capabilities will “facilitate trade finance for e-commerce players,” Xu Chen, president and CEO of Bank of China USA said according to  Xinhua. 

The Bank of China has previously faced allegations of money laundering and Xu said that artificial intelligence and other cyber security safeguards will ensure that the new e payment functions abide by U.S. regulations. 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/chinese-companies-selling-u-sites-174328997.html

 

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Saudi Arabia ready to ditch petrodollar as ‘nuclear option’ to stop NOPEC bill – reports

 

 

Published time: 5 Apr, 2019 04:09Edited time: 5 Apr, 2019 04:50

Saudi Arabia ready to ditch petrodollar as ânuclear optionâ to stop NOPEC bill â reports

Saudi Aramco's Ras Tanura oil refinery and terminal ©  Reuters / Ahmed Jadallah

995

12

Saudi Arabia is reportedly threatening to sell its oil in other currencies if the US passes a bill permitting antitrust lawsuits to be filed against OPEC members in US courts, a move which would decimate the tottering petrodollar.

If the US infringes on OPEC states' sovereign immunity and greenlights lawsuits for antitrust violations, energy officials in Riyadh are prepared to sell their oil in other currencies, according to multiple sources familiar with Saudi energy policy, one of whom told Reuters the threat has already been communicated to high-ranking US energy officials.

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Exclusive: Saudi Arabia threatens to ditch dollar oil trades to stop 'NOPEC' - sources https://reut.rs/2uJgSkv 

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6:11 PM - 4 Apr 2019
 
7 replies33 retweets44 likes
 

“The Saudis know they have the dollar as the nuclear option,” one of the sources reportedly said, while another cited Saudis as saying “let the Americans pass NOPEC and it would be the US economy that would fall apart.”

Such a move has the potential to topple the US dollar’s status as the world’s reserve currency, particularly since other OPEC members –namely Iran and Venezuela– have their own reasons to ditch the petrodollar, under US sanctions as they are, and non-OPEC oil producers like Russia also mulling such a measure.

The bill in question, called the No Oil Producing and Exporting Cartels Act (NOPEC), was first introduced in 2000, and would potentially give Washington ability to control global oil output and prices through threats of lawsuits against OPEC members.

 

However, it never gained significant traction until the current administration took over. Trump himself has not come out in favor of the bill, preferring to back Saudi Arabia’s political objectives in return for good behavior in the oil market, though he did speak out in favor of NOPEC in a 2011 book. Qatar, a former member of OPEC, felt threatened enough by the distant possibility of the bill’s passage to leave the oil cartel in December, however.

 

The Saudi riyal is pegged to the dollar, and the kingdom has nearly $1 trillion invested in the US, investments it has also mulled liquidating should NOPEC pass, according to the Saudi sources cited by Reuters. Saudi Aramco is the world’s largest oil exporter, with sales of $356 billion in 2018, and trading in oil derivatives is also largely dollar-denominated, with trade volume reaching $5 trillion on the top two global energy exchanges last year.

https://www.rt.com/business/455607-saudi-petrodollar-oil-trade-nopec/

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It Begins: Former UN Under-Secretary-General Calls For One World Currency

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
Fri, 04/05/2019 - 23:10

Authored by José Antonio Ocampo, formerly United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs, via Project Syndicate,

This year, the world commemorates the anniversaries of two key events in the development of the global monetary system. The first is the creation of the International Monetary Fund at the Bretton Woods conference 75 years ago. The second is the advent, 50 years ago, of the Special Drawing Right (SDR), the IMF’s global reserve asset.

 

2019-04-05_16-15-53.jpg

When it introduced the SDR, the Fund hoped to make it “the principal reserve asset in the international monetary system.” This remains an unfulfilled ambition; indeed, the SDR is one of the most underused instruments of international cooperation. Nonetheless, better late than never: turning the SDR into a true global currency would yield several benefits for the world’s economy and monetary system.

 

The idea of a global currency is not new. Prior to the Bretton Woods negotiations, John Maynard Keynes suggested the “bancor” as the unit of account of his proposed International Clearing Union. In the 1960s, under the leadership of the Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin, other proposals emerged to address the growing problems created by the dual dollar-gold system that had been established at Bretton Woods. The system finally collapsed in 1971. As a result of those discussions, the IMF approved the SDR in 1967, and included it in its Articles of Agreement two years later. 

Although the IMF’s issuance of SDRs resembles the creation of national money by central banks, the SDR fulfills only some of the functions of money. True, SDRs are a reserve asset, and thus a store of value. They are also the IMF’s unit of account. But only central banks – mainly in developing countries, though also in developed economies – and a few international institutions use SDRs as a means of exchange to pay each other.

The SDR has a number of basic advantages, not least that the IMF can use it as an instrument of international monetary policy in a global economic crisis. In 2009, for example, the IMF issued $250 billion in SDRs to help combat the downturn, following a proposal by the G20.

Most importantly, SDRs could also become the basic instrument to finance IMF programs. Until now, the Fund has relied mainly on quota (capital) increases and borrowing from member countries. But quotas have tended to lag behind global economic growth; the last increase was approved in 2010, but the US Congress agreed to it only in 2015. And loans from member countries, the IMF’s main source of new funds (particularly during crises), are not true multilateral instruments.

The best alternative would be to turn the IMF into an institution fully financed and managed in its own global currency – a proposal made several decades ago by Jacques Polak, then the Fund’s leading economist. One simple option would be to consider the SDRs that countries hold but have not used as “deposits” at the IMF, which the Fund can use to finance its lending to countries. This would require a change in the Articles of Agreement, because SDRs currently are not held in regular IMF accounts.

The Fund could then issue SDRs regularly or, better still, during crises, as in 2009. In the long term, the amount issued must be related to the demand for foreign-exchange reserves. Various economists and the IMF itself have estimated that the Fund could issue $200-300 billion in SDRs per year. Moreover, this would spread the financial benefits (seigniorage) of issuing the global currency across all countries. At present, these benefits accrue only to issuers of national or regional currencies that are used internationally – particularly the US dollar and the euro.

More active use of SDRs would also make the international monetary system more independent of US monetary policy. One of the major problems of the global monetary system is that the policy objectives of the US, as the issuer of the world’s main reserve currency, are not always consistent with overall stability in the system.

In any case, different national and regional currencies could continue to circulate alongside growing SDR reserves. And a new IMF “substitution account” would allow central banks to exchange their reserves for SDRs, as the US first proposed back in the 1970s.

SDRs could also potentially be used in private transactions and to denominate national bonds. But, as the IMF pointed out in its report to the Board in 2018, these “market SDRs,” which would turn the unit into fully-fledged money, are not essential for the reforms proposed here. Nor would SDRs need to be used as a unit of account outside the Fund.

The anniversaries of the IMF and the SDR in 2019 are causes for celebration. But they also represent an ideal opportunity to transform the SDR into a true global currency that would strengthen the international monetary system. Policymakers should seize it.

*  *  *

We are being primed and propagandized to desire this inevitability! Coming just a day after the Saudis threatened to end the Petrodollar, Ocampo's op-ed is well-timed to say the least.

As we noted previously, nothing lasts forever.

 

Reserves

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Time for a True Global Currency

Apr 5, 2019 JOSÉ ANTONIO OCAMPO

 

The International Monetary Fund’s global reserve asset, the Special Drawing Right, is one of the most underused instruments of multilateral cooperation. Turning it into a true global currency would yield several benefits for the global economy and the international monetary system.

José Antonio Ocampo

 

NEW YORK – This year, the world commemorates the anniversaries of two key events in the development of the global monetary system. The first is the creation of the International Monetary Fund at the Bretton Woods conference 75 years ago. The second is the advent, 50 years ago, of the Special Drawing Right (SDR), the IMF’s global reserve asset.

 

When it introduced the SDR, the Fund hoped to make it “the principal reserve asset in the international monetary system.” This remains an unfulfilled ambition; indeed, the SDR is one of the most underused instruments of international cooperation. Nonetheless, better late than never: turning the SDR into a true global currency would yield several benefits for the world’s economy and monetary system.

The idea of a global currency is not new. Prior to the Bretton Woods negotiations, John Maynard Keynes suggested the “bancor” as the unit of account of his proposed International Clearing Union. In the 1960s, under the leadership of the Belgian-American economist Robert Triffin, other proposals emerged to address the growing problems created by the dual dollar-gold system that had been established at Bretton Woods. The system finally collapsed in 1971. As a result of those discussions, the IMF approved the SDR in 1967, and included it in its Articles of Agreement two years later. 

Although the IMF’s issuance of SDRs resembles the creation of national money by central banks, the SDR fulfills only some of the functions of money. True, SDRs are a reserve asset, and thus a store of value. They are also the IMF’s unit of account. But only central banks – mainly in developing countries, though also in developed economies – and a few international institutions use SDRs as a means of exchange to pay each other.

The SDR has a number of basic advantages, not least that the IMF can use it as an instrument of international monetary policy in a global economic crisis. In 2009, for example, the IMF issued $250 billion in SDRs to help combat the downturn, following a proposal by the G20.

Most importantly, SDRs could also become the basic instrument to finance IMF programs. Until now, the Fund has relied mainly on quota (capital) increases and borrowing from member countries. But quotas have tended to lag behind global economic growth; the last increase was approved in 2010, but the US Congress agreed to it only in 2015. And loans from member countries, the IMF’s main source of new funds (particularly during crises), are not true multilateral instruments.

 

The best alternative would be to turn the IMF into an institution fully financed and managed in its own global currency – a proposal made several decades ago by Jacques Polak, then the Fund’s leading economist. One simple option would be to consider the SDRs that countries hold but have not used as “deposits” at the IMF, which the Fund can use to finance its lending to countries. This would require a change in the Articles of Agreement, because SDRs currently are not held in regular IMF accounts.

The Fund could then issue SDRs regularly or, better still, during crises, as in 2009. In the long term, the amount issued must be related to the demand for foreign-exchange reserves. Various economists and the IMF itself have estimated that the Fund could issue $200-300 billion in SDRs per year. Moreover, this would spread the financial benefits (seigniorage) of issuing the global currency across all countries. At present, these benefits accrue only to issuers of national or regional currencies that are used internationally – particularly the US dollar and the euro.

More active use of SDRs would also make the international monetary system more independent of US monetary policy. One of the major problems of the global monetary system is that the policy objectives of the US, as the issuer of the world’s main reserve currency, are not always consistent with overall stability in the system.

In any case, different national and regional currencies could continue to circulate alongside growing SDR reserves. And a new IMF “substitution account” would allow central banks to exchange their reserves for SDRs, as the US first proposed back in the 1970s.

SDRs could also potentially be used in private transactions and to denominate national bonds. But, as the IMF pointed out in its report to the Board in 2018, these “market SDRs,” which would turn the unit into fully-fledged money, are not essential for the reforms proposed here. Nor would SDRs need to be used as a unit of account outside the Fund.

The anniversaries of the IMF and the SDR in 2019 are causes for celebration. But they also represent an ideal opportunity to transform the SDR into a true global currency that would strengthen the international monetary system. Policymakers should seize it.

 

José Antonio Ocampo is a board member of Banco de la República, Colombia's central bank, professor at Columbia University, Chair of the UN Economic and Social Council’s Committee for Development Policy, and Chair of the Independent Commission for the Reform of International Corporate Taxation. He was Minister of Finance of Colombia and United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Economic and Social Affairs.  He is the co-author (with Luis Bértola) of The Economic Development of Latin America since Independence.

https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/imf-special-drawing-right-global-currency-by-jose-antonio-ocampo-2019-04

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130374.jpg?width=750&&height=375

 
2019/04/15 12:48
  • Number of readings 34
  • Section: Iraq
  •  

George Haddad: The countdown to dollar dominance begins

BAGHDAD /

George Haddad

At the end of the Second World War, after the signing of the Bretton Woods agreement, which exempted the US dollar from compulsory gold coverage for any national currency, and considered that the paper dollar is the main international currency. After the establishment of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank for Reconstruction and Development, After these radical measures on the global financial and economic level.

 The majority of the countries and peoples of the world, including the majority of the leaders of the liberation movements in the former colonial countries, hoped that the United States, which did not reach the war on its territory will play the role of the good shepherd of the collapsed world economy, and help different countries and peoples to the reconstruction and prosperity and Is in line with the economic interests and national security of America itself.

But the United States has done exactly the opposite, and has taken advantage of the excellent international center it has acquired to become a "bully" of the whole world. He uses the reconstruction process to plunder people, countries and weak states. The developed countries "share" their successes and loot them too. He could not do that.

The great American capitalist monopolies control not only the fundamental joints and arteries of the global economic and financial cycle, but also the smallest economic and financial affairs of any country to force them into the American-Jewish imperialist schemes and programs. Otherwise, they were subject to bankruptcy, economic collapse, unrest, unrest, coups and wars. .

From the time of Harry Truman to the reign of Donald Trump, all American governments, Democrats and Republicans, used the policy of "aid" and dollar loans, directly or by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, to impose and tighten global hegemony over the world.

As a substitute for gold, the dollar has become a major "reserve currency" in the central banks of various countries, based on the national currency of the country concerned. And reflected the golden rule for measuring the currency. Gold itself is measured in dollars, not the dollar measured in gold.

This is why not only the gold producing countries at the mercy of the dollar, but all the countries in the world that have gold reserves to cover the national currency became at the mercy of the dollar, which has become possible as the American Jewish tycoon decides to raise or reduce the price of gold in dollars, On the exchange rate of the national currency of each country possesses gold reserves, and the consequent rise and inflation, or raise the price of the national currency artificially and hit the foreign trade and national production of different countries.

In short, in the last half century after the Second World War, the dollar has become a nightmare for the entire world economy, and various countries have been working hard to get rid of this nightmare.

Even before Russia awoke from the shock of the collapse of the Soviet Union, the European Union issued in 1999 the euro currency, which became the second international currency after the dollar. The European Commission, a semi-government of the European Union, is working to increase the role of the euro in the purchase of oil, gas and mineral ores for Europe. The EU is the world's largest buyer of oil and gas, buying annually 300 billion euros and 85 percent of payments are in dollars. The situation is similar to the purchases of various raw materials and financial markets.

"Most of the long-term contracts for energy imports are in euros, which shows the instability of the situation and does not reflect the role that the euro should play globally," said EU Energy Commissioner Miguel Arias Canetti. The European Commission has begun to abandon the dollar and has appealed to various EU member states to impose the use of the euro on energy trade, as in the domestic markets of European countries.

And advised participants in the gas market to immediately move to the Euro agreements as written by Deutsche Welle.The European Commission is conducting surveys on the food, mineral and energy markets of various European countries to find out what hinder the euro's role in the market.

Do the interests of the EU and Russia match the position of the dollar?

In September 2018, the president of the European Commission began talking about the need to increase the role of the euro.

A little earlier, the Russian authorities began to talk about the same thing.

According to Putin and Prime Minister Medvedev, Russia has an interest in moving from the dollar to the euro. Russia is negotiating with Turkey. China has ...

Will Russia give up the dollar?

The Russian government is talking about a plan to remove dollarization from the Russian economy by $ 1.6 trillion and call on major industrial institutions to abandon the US currency.

The program of Russian Foreign Trade Bank President Andrei Kostin has turned dollar bank accounts into other currencies, supported by the Finance Ministry, the Central Bank of Russia and President Putin's personal support, Kostin said. Russia is the largest exporter with a positive balance of 115 billion dollars (2017).

Washington Post wrote that dollar bank accounts fell to 68% last year.

"A growing number of countries are not only in the East but also in Europe," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Pskov said. "They are beginning to think about how to reduce dependence on the US dollar.

This is possible.

This is what needs to be done.

The country concerned could be rescued if it did so as soon as possible. "

America has looted the world by dumping it into dollars that are no more than the price of ink and paper. Now the paper dollars to America are beginning to bounce back. The Trump administration is working to foment crisis and war projects in the Middle East, Ukraine, the Black Sea, Southeast Asia and Venezuela, in order to remove the risk of the dollar's financial consequences awaiting America. But the dollar is gripping the dollar, and nothing will prevent it from sweeping financial markets and the economic, social and political life of America. It is only a question of time.

Arab newspapers

http://almasalah.com/ar/news/168835/جورج-حداد-بدء-زمن-العد-العكسي-لهيمنة-الدولار

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Central Banks Are Ditching the Dollar for Gold

(Bloomberg) -- First-quarter gold purchases by central banks, led by Russia and China, were the highest in six years as countries diversify their assets away from the U.S. dollar.

Global gold reserves rose 145.5 tons in the first quarter, a 68 percent increase from a year earlier, the World Gold Council said Thursday in a report. Russia remains the largest buyer as the nation reduces its U.S. Treasury holdings as part of a de-dollarization drive.

“We’ve seen a continuation of the strong demand from central banks,” said Alistair Hewitt, head of market intelligence at the World Gold Council. “We’re expecting another good year for central bank purchases, although I’ll be pleasantly surprised if they are to match the level seen in 2018.”

As well as regular buyers such as Kazakhstan and Turkey, the first quarter also saw Ecuador adding to its reserves for the first time since 2014, plus sizable purchases by Qatar and Colombia, the council said. The buyers are dominated by countries looking to reduce their dollar dependency, and are typically nations with a lower share of reserves in gold than Western European countries.

Central bank purchases have been a key support for gold, helping to offset lower demand from bar and coin investors as well as from industrial users of the metal. Gold has climbed almost 8 percent since the end of September, and was trading at about $1,282 an ounce in London on Wednesday.

Inflows into exchange-traded funds backed by gold during January have been wiped out over the rest of the year, with ETF levels now at their lowest in four months.

On the supply side, World Gold Council revised its estimates for the contribution of small-scale, “artisanal,” miners, following a reassessment by its primary data provider Metals Focus Ltd. The sector is estimated to account for 15 to 20 percent of global gold mine production.

In countries such as Zimbabwe, small-scale miners account for more than half the gold production and are a vital part of the economy. Under new guidelines from the London Bullion Market Association, such miners may have a tougher time selling their gold legitimately because some of their haul could be classified as “blood gold” -- produced outside any safety or environmental rules and possibly contributing to such crimes as child labor and slavery.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/central-banks-ditching-dollar-gold-040000000.html

 

 

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Central banks are going gaga over gold.

 

They are snapping up the metal at the fastest rate in almost half a century in a trend that looks set to continue.

 

Over the 12 months through March 31, they purchased a whopping 715.7 metric tons of gold bullion worth around $29.4 billion, according to a recently published report from the industry group World Gold Council.

 

"In all likelihood, we expect another strong year," says Alistair Hewitt, director of market intelligence at WGC in London.

 

He notes that the volume of gold purchased by such institutions over the most recent four quarters was higher than for any calendar year since 1971. That was when President Richard Nixon pulled the U.S. off the gold standard monetary system at a time when gold was worth $35 a troy ounce.

 

Gold was recently fetching around $1,278 an ounce, down from the year's high of $1,341 reached on February 19. Prices for the SPDR Gold Shares (GLD - Get Report) exchange-traded fund, which holds bars of solid bullion, have moved similarly.

 

The likely continued buying of the metal should also help lift gold mining stocks such as those held in the VanEck Vectors Gold Miners  (GDX - Get Report) ETF, which holds a basket of gold mining shares that tend to benefit when the price of the metal rallies.

Emerging Markets Driving Demand

 

Central banks in emerging markets countries such as Russia are driving the push to buy more gold and diversify away from holding U.S. dollars. They started snapping up more of the metal in earnest just after the financial crisis of 2008-2009, reversing a trend of ditching the metal.

 

"This is part of a trend that began as long ago as 2010," says George Milling-Stanley, head of gold strategy at Boston-based asset management company State Street Global Advisors. "That was when central banks switched over from sales to net purchases."

 

In 2018 central banks purchased 657 tons of bullion, up from a mere 79 tons in 2010, according to the WGC report.

 

Milling-Stanley says that many countries in the developing world feel that they have far too many U.S. dollars in their reserves and they want to diversify by increasing their holdings of bullion.

 

"This buying is going to continue according to the emerging markets central banks that I talk to," he says.

Rebalancing Reserves

 

Another WGC report shows that central bank holdings in the developing world are far smaller than in much of the developed world. For instance, three-fourths of the U.S. reserves are held in gold, while Germany holds seven-tenths of its reserves in bullion, WGC data shows.

 

Compare that to Russia, the biggest central bank buyer of the metal in the first quarter of the year, where gold amounted to 18.5% of the country's reserves. The figures for China and India are 2.5% and 6.3%, respectively.

 

"They certainly want more gold across the board in emerging markets," says Milling-Stanley.

 

Better than just buying the metal, he says that these government banks aren't sensitive about prices. They will buy whether the price is high or low, at least once they've decided to accumulate more bullion for their country.

 

"They make the decision and they stick with it," he says.

 

If the demand for gold from central banks continues, that should be good for the gold market because it all but guarantees that a significant portion of the annual supply of the metal will get taken off the market each year.

 

The 657 tons purchased by national central banks and similar institutions last year accounted for 14% of 2018's total supply of gold, which comes mainly from mines and metal that gets recycled from used electronics and jewelry. 

 

This year, central bank buying demand could be just as good if not better than it was in 2018.

 

"By the look of the figures they could repeat that or even surpass it this year," says Milling-Stanley. "That is a very welcome development for the gold market as a whole."

https://www.thestreet.com/investing/central-banks-embracing-gold-14946561?puc=yahoo&cm_ven=YAHOO&yptr=yahoo

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https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-06-05/russia-china-enter-national-currency-agreement-putin-touts-uprecedented.....

Russia, China Prepare To Dump Dollar, Agree To Bilateral Trade In National Currencies

Profile picture for user Tyler Durden
Wed, 06/05/2019 - 13:10

Just one month after conducting joint military exercises, Russia and China are set to sign an agreement which would boost the use of their national currencies in bilateral and international trade in an attempt to mmove away from the current dollar-denominated financial system, according to Russian state-owned news outlet TASS.

It is planned that Russia and China will be developing bilateral payments in national currencies, encourage and expand the use of national currencies, particularly through promotion of their use when signing international trade contracts. According to the draft agreement, the sides will also assume required measures to lift barriers for payments in national currencies. -TASS

The Kremlin released a draft decree on Wednesday outlining "settlements and payments for goods, service and direct investments between economic entities of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China are made in accordance with the international practice and the legislation of the sides’ states with the use of foreign currency, the Russian currency (rubles) and the Chinese 250px-Logo_for_Zero_Hedge.jpg

 
 
115.jpg?mode=stretch&connatiximg=true&scale=both&height=204&width=362

According to the draft, Moscow and Beijing will cooperate to develop a national payments system, along with cross-border payments in national and other currencies. 

"The sides deepen the cooperation in the field of national payment card systems and within the framework of the Russian and Chinese legislation provide support to commercial banks in their independent decision-making on joining the payment system in the state of the other side," reads the document. 

Last November, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that discussions were under way to allow the use of China's UnionPay credit card in Russia, and Russia's Mir card in China. 

russia%20china%201.jpg Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev (left) and Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in Beijing’s Great Hall of the People in November. Photo: EPA

"No one currency should dominate the market, because this makes all of us dependent on the economic situation in the country that issues this reserve currency, even when we are talking about a strong economy such as the United States," Medvedev said last year. 

"I want to say something that may raise a few eyebrows, but I think some of these [US] sanctions are good or useful because they forced us to do what we should have done 10 years ago," he added. 

Beijing and the Kremlin have grown considerably close in recent years

On Wednesday, Chinese President Xi Jinping touted a new level of relations with Russia during his three-day visit. "Step by step, we’ve been able to bring our relations to the highest level in history," said Xi. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin chimed in, adding as he kicked off the meeting that ties between the two countries are "at an unprecedented level.

"We confirmed that the positions of Russia and China on key world problems are close, or as the diplomats say, coincide," said Putin after the first round of discussions with Xi - who he called a "dear friend." 

Xi, who will address a flagship investment forum Friday in the Russian leader’s hometown of St. Petersburg, will sign about 30 documents with Putin after the talks focused on trade, investment and energy. Bilateral trade increased last year by about a quarter to a record $108 billion. The countries’ first natural gas pipeline is due to open later this year and China is investing in Russia’s Yamal Arctic LNG project. -Bloomberg

 Xi brought two Chinese pandas to donate to the Moscow Zoo. Later, the Chinese leader will attend the opening of a Chinese car plant, before receiving an honorary doctorate from Putin's alma mater in St. Petersburg on Thursday. 

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image.php?token=fd8a6f2f6ecce1046bd77423d7dbaa66&size=

 


 

28-06-2019 10:13 AM 
Number of Views: 80


Agency of the orbit -

Continue

 

China and Russia have decided to dispense with the US currency in their trade accounts and rely on national currencies.

 

The newspaper 'Izvestia' Russian in a report, 'the two countries signed a government agreement in this regard'.

 

"The agreement was signed by the Russian side, Minister of Finance Anton Silwanov, and by the Chinese side, People's Bank of China President Yi Hang."

 

"The agreement was signed between the two sides earlier this month," the paper said, quoting a letter from Russian government officials. "This step is aimed at enhancing the economic security of both countries."

 

"The two sides are now working to organize channels of payment between Russian and Chinese companies, and these channels will be a link between the payment systems Russian and Chinese."

 

The newspaper pointed out that 'Moscow and Beijing intend to use the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan in contracts had been concluded between them in dollars'.

 

The ruble share in trade between the two countries is expected to rise from 10% to 50% in the coming years.

 

Trade between Russia and China last year surpassed the level of $ 100 billion, of which $ 56 billion is Russia's exports to China, compared to $ 52 billion in imports.

 

Moscow and Beijing have close trade and economic ties, and both countries seek to boost trade to $ 200 billion a year in the coming years.

 

Russia and the European Union have agreed to form a working group to reduce the dollar's share of the balance of payments between them and move to the ruble and the euro.

 

 

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10 minutes ago, yota691 said:

image.php?token=fd8a6f2f6ecce1046bd77423d7dbaa66&size=

 


 

28-06-2019 10:13 AM 
Number of Views: 80


Agency of the orbit -

Continue

 

China and Russia have decided to dispense with the US currency in their trade accounts and rely on national currencies.

 

The newspaper 'Izvestia' Russian in a report, 'the two countries signed a government agreement in this regard'.

 

"The agreement was signed by the Russian side, Minister of Finance Anton Silwanov, and by the Chinese side, People's Bank of China President Yi Hang."

 

"The agreement was signed between the two sides earlier this month," the paper said, quoting a letter from Russian government officials. "This step is aimed at enhancing the economic security of both countries."

 

"The two sides are now working to organize channels of payment between Russian and Chinese companies, and these channels will be a link between the payment systems Russian and Chinese."

 

The newspaper pointed out that 'Moscow and Beijing intend to use the Russian ruble and the Chinese yuan in contracts had been concluded between them in dollars'.

 

The ruble share in trade between the two countries is expected to rise from 10% to 50% in the coming years.

 

Trade between Russia and China last year surpassed the level of $ 100 billion, of which $ 56 billion is Russia's exports to China, compared to $ 52 billion in imports.

 

Moscow and Beijing have close trade and economic ties, and both countries seek to boost trade to $ 200 billion a year in the coming years.

 

Russia and the European Union have agreed to form a working group to reduce the dollar's share of the balance of payments between them and move to the ruble and the euro.

 

 

 

If true, this is not good... JMHO

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