Footsoldier posted this in the comments. I am promoting it to a post.
So-called de-dollarization is envisioned to happen in two major steps stages each with many incremental iterations.
The first stage stage is conducting bilateral trade in the currencies of the trading partners. This is already well advanced.
However, this is not actual de-dollarization, which is the establishment of a competing monetary system with a goal of eventually replacing the USD as the primary global currency.
No one thinks that this will happen quickly and without growing pains, or without Western opposition. But it is a stated goal rather than simply an aspiration.
The Unit plan is now on the table.
Sputnik GlobeDe-Dollarization Bombshell: The Coming of BRICS+ Decentralized Monetary Ecosystem
Pepe Escobar
Pepe Escobar
See also
Pepe waxes philosophical here.
For some reason there is increasing interest in Stoicism right now.
The most prominent Stoics were Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, and Epictetus who was born into slavery. That pretty well covers the spectrum.
Those wishing to up their mental game may profit from reflecting on the Stoics.
Strategic Culture Foundation (sanctioned by the US Treasury Department)
Pepe Escobar
UPDATE
A new order may be in the works already. (The Economist)
Moon of Alabama
b
23 comments:
BRICS are a joke. India and China are fighting a low boil war on the top of the world and Russia is contracting economically because of its war in Ukraine. Pepi is full of shit and a misogynist asshole to boot. This is just him blowing smoke up his own ass.
Mental game for what?
Having $400 in savings is excellent practice for stoicism.
Largest Fraud in American History, but run by a Clown!
https://youtu.be/rPt9hAC24MI
For entertainment purposes.
Would be funny though if an inorganic chemist and Youtuber called out Musk years before any of the so-called financial experts.
What they forget is what 'de-dollarisation' means in MMT terms.
There is another deadly innocent fraud: "A trade deficit means we depend upon the kindness of strangers".
When in reality it is "A trade deficit means strangers don't have sufficient aggregate demand to sustain the level of aggregate supply they wish to produce. Holding foreign tax credits provides that demand"
It's who holds the tax credits over time that matters, not what denomination a transaction is routed via.
"What they forget is what 'de-dollarisation' means in MMT terms."
They don't understand any of it because of Michael Hudson and his gold standard, fixed exchange rate balance of payments.
Hudson is so dishonest when he is on places like the Duran. They all think BRICS is going to change the world into a left wing paradise. When nothing will change that much as BRICS is talking left while walking right.
You just have to listen to Fadhel Kaboub to know that Russia and China are not offering anything that different to the US.
They are all a bunch of idiots at Moon of Alabama, spent a year arguing with them and have now been cancelled by free speech Bernard. They all say they are different to the US but they aren't. They are just as authoritarian as the next guy.
Saying BRICS is talking left but running right gets you banned on any of these pro Russian sites. They are offering to the third world what the US promised the EU. Colonial capture.
But if you go back to Africa in particular, the reason why we have governments who are unable to deliver to their people, to their needs for health, for education, for infrastructure- all of this, is because they have no fiscal policy space available to invest in these things. Why? Because we’re in a debt trap, a historic debt trap that keeps accelerating.
Ethiopia defaulted on its debt a few weeks ago, and now we have a long list of African countries who are about to default- or very close to default, starting with Egypt, Tunisia, Kenya, and the list goes on. More than 50 countries are heavily in a position of debt distress. So, the external debt problem is actually a symptom of these deeper structural issues that we must address, which I can summarize in three major points.
One is food deficits, two is energy deficits, and three is manufacturing deficits. So, food deficits, according to UNCTAD, Africa imports 85 of its food, when we used to be the breadbasket for Europe during colonial times, less than a hundred years ago. And that’s not by accident, it’s by design, because of the rules of international trade that have been imposed on the global South- on Africa in particular- and the heavy agricultural subsidies from the EU common agricultural policy.
But it’s not just Europe, it’s agricultural subsidies in the US and Canada, Australia, the former Soviet Union- which is Russia and the Ukraine. All of these agricultural subsidies started in the ’60s and are still in place to this day. They forced us into switching away from producing the core crops that we need for our actual food security; the wheat, the corn, the rice, and so on; to producing the cash crops for exports; the bananas and the watermelons and the tomatoes and the coffee and tea and tobacco, all of that. Which, as soon as you start producing for exports, you have to serve the taste of your consumers in the global North, which means you start using seeds that are not native to your soil, and fertilizers and pesticides, all of which you have to import.
And you do that for 30 years, you burn the fertility of your soil, and then you have to double down on the potency of those seeds and fertilizers and pesticides. And that’s exactly where we are. And by the way, the concept of ‘food security’ was invented and imposed on us in the 1960s, precisely to do this.
Food security sounds great, who doesn’t like food security? Except it’s a loaded term, that means you basically have to secure the nutrition of your people somehow. Either by producing it or by buying it from somewhere else- international markets, basically- or by borrowing money to buy it from international markets or even worse.
The worst part is receiving it as food aid to secure people’s nutrition, and food aid is the worst thing you can do to your farmers because they can’t compete with free wheat and rice and corn coming from US aid or European aid or any other country’s aid. And that’s- essentially- how food security was imposed on Africa and on the global south.
So, that’s the food deficit component, which is a core component of this external debt. Number two is the energy deficits. And here I include even our biggest oil exporters on the continent. Take Nigeria, today imports 100 of its gasoline. Angola imports 80 of its fuel from international markets.
Libya, the third biggest exporter- same thing- imports quite a bit of its fuel, and the list goes on. And these are the countries that have the massive oil resources. They are in a debt trap because of this classic playbook of oil and gas companies, that they use on countries in the global South. So again, this energy deficit is by design, not by accident.
And then finally, the manufacturing deficits. This is part and parcel of the historic role that was imposed on the global South, on Africa in particular, during colonial times, post-colonial times, and to this day. That is, we’re always forced to play the role of the place for cheap raw materials. The place where our large consumer market consumes the industrial output from the global North. And most importantly, we’re the place where obsolete technologies, assembly line manufacturing- that is no longer needed in the global North- is delivered to us under the umbrella of development and job creation and cooperation.
But what it does- effectively- is that it locks us at the bottom of the global value chain. Whereby, what we call “industry” in the global South, is where you have to import the machines, you import the intermediate components to assemble- from the global north, you import the fuel to power those factories- and we even import the packaging. And we use low cost labor, racing to the bottom to assemble and produce low value-added content.
So, what we import is high value-added content, what we export is low value-added content. So, you can double, triple, quadruple your exports, you’re always locked at the bottom of the value chain. So, take these three structural deficits and that’s the root cause of the external debt. Which is the root cause of why our governments don’t have the fiscal space to invest in health, education, infrastructure, climate adaptation, the things that their people want. Which creates the economic push factor to push millions of people to take that dangerous journey across the continent- across the Sahara desert, across the Mediterranean- to maybe make it into the Italian shores and enter European territory.
Russia and China are not offering much to change that. They are just wanting to build first class infrastructure, ports, road, rail to help them extract what they need quicker.
BRICS is running right built upon a policy of extraction.
Russia and China will just be the same as the US and the EU Mattei plan they West has just proposed.
Why Africa must reject the Mattei Plan
https://globalsouthperspectives.substack.com/p/why-africa-must-reject-the-mattei
Because they want Africa to continue playing the same colonial role that was imposed on them as the place for cheap raw materials, the large consumer market for European industrial output, and the damping ground for obsolete technologies and assembly line manufacturing that is no longer needed in Europe.
Global South Repositioning
https://globalsouthperspectives.substack.com/p/global-south-repositioning
1) where the industrialised world can acquire cheap raw materials;
2) where industrial output from the Global North can be dumped in a large consumer market;
3) for low-cost tourist destinations; Which means even more food and energy has to be imported and increases their foreign debt further as they serve tourists.
4) for outsourcing obsolete technologies, and low-tech, low labour-cost, assembly-line manufacturing in the name of “development” and “cooperation”, guaranteeing the Global South remains locked at the bottom of the global value chain.
In short what Brussels has done to many EU countries and keep them in a foreign debt ( Euro) trap.
So the MMT lens will analyse the "unit" after it has been announced to see if it eases the foreign debt trap.
However, nothing else will change that much. Regarding food security and energy security etc, etc.
Russia and China will not like what Fadhel Kaboub is offering and that is Africa unites and acts like bloc.
https://realprogressives.org/podcast_episode/episode-264-deconstructing-the-colonial-archetype-with-fadhel-kaboub/
BRICS is talking left to get support but at the same time very clearly walking right in policies.
You just have to listen to Fadhel Kaboub to know that Russia and China are not offering anything that different to the US.
So why aren't they listening to him?
Why doesn't the journalist and "public intellectual" Pepe Escobar being attention to the policies being suggested in light of MMT?
Why will the cheerleaders at Moon of Alabama break their narrative and inform the public about a little known alternative?
Seems to me these characters got caught up in a morality play.
It all shows once again very clearly THEY ALL KNOW how money works and the fundamentals of MMT. The real power brokers do anyway.
Everything they introduce tries to hide it for geopolitical purposes. Why they changed their official money story during the fall of the Berlin wall.
Foreign policy and their new money story is how they achieved their geopolitical goals. It wasn't by accident or by coincidence. It was a plan.
MMT is the antithesis to those goals and why they have fought so hard to discredit it. Why this fight will NEVER be won in a class room. Will only be successful if we become just as authoritarian as them. Build a political party from the grass roots up that is ready if it wins power to be Just as ruthless as Thatcher and Pinochet and Javier Milei in Argentina.
The right know how ruthless you have to be to change the political and economic system. MMT'rs are little puppy dogs in comparison. Trying to please and roll over and get their tummies tickled by everybody around them.
MMT'rs think it has all been a simple misunderstanding and these people are stupid. If we can get these people in a class room we can change the world. Fuck sake give me a break this is delusional. MMT'rs simply don't understand the gangsters they are up against. Don't have the guts or willing to make the true sacrifice it will take to remove these psychopaths from power.
MMT'rs haven't got Thatcher and Pinochet and Javier Milei in them. They are just way too soft. Need to become revolutionary and Bolshevik and utterly ruthless if they stand any chance of victory.
There is plenty of authoritarianism in people who are left-leaning politically. But one doesn't defeat monsters by becoming one yourself.
In pursuing "libertarian" economic policies, Javier Milei has become an authoritarian. Another failed project, yet more suffering for the little people.
Maybe it starts in the classroom of social media and ends with comedy. Literally laughing the defenders of the old order out of power. Or maybe it starts when the Earth cannot sustain global consumption patterns.
"So why aren't they listening to him?
Why doesn't the journalist and "public intellectual" Pepe Escobar being attention to the policies being suggested in light of MMT?
Why will the cheerleaders at Moon of Alabama break their narrative and inform the public about a little known alternative? "
Theories of representative governments ( democracy ) presume the electorate has some kind of working knowledge of how things work = informed decisions by the voters.
It's one massive con trick and we have been lied to by our rulers since the day we were born. MMT proves that.
While today even the most senior financial experts spread myths. Universities are guarded by hand picked, technocratic, intitustilised advisory boards.
Both Universities and the media have been in complete lockdown for at least 30 years to manipulate the message. Their framing and narratives.
Why the Western authoritarians love spreading the word democracy around like confetti. They call it democracy but it is anything but.
Just look what is happening in Georgia as we speak. As the Georgia government passed a law to stop foreign interference and Western NGO's from destabilising Georgia and turning it into the next Ukraine.
The only way to protect yourself is by becoming more authoritarian. The West love nothing more than open democracies that they can infiltrate and fund to destabilise and carry out regime change.
Once there in, their new money story and foreign policy and world bank and IMF do the rest and you are forced to join their club. Or civil war is implemented within your country.
You either have an informed electorate or democracy is a sham. It degenerates into theater.
MMT is not rocket science. Can't argue that the average Joe and Jane are too stupid to learn.
Activism and word of mouth is the means to run circles around captured academia and media. Witness the move to ban TikTok because it was undermining narratives about Gaza.
Foreign holdings of US Treasuries (dollars) are at a record. What de-dollarization?
Pepe Escobar is an idiot.
MMT'rs have to find their inner Thatcher and Pinochet and Javier Milei ,Nayib Bukele, Victor Orban, Putin, Xi Jinping ,Kim Jong Un.
Need to become revolutionary like the Irish were and Bolshevik and utterly ruthless if they stand any chance of victory.
Otherwise MMT'rs will spend decades sitting complaining without any real power like the current day Marxists. Where people come together and moan and don't do anything apart from book class rooms and talk in echo chambers.
While the right continue to rule and implement policy. Point and laugh, as they know we are too soft and don't have the guts to do what it takes.
A front row seat of The Ukraine war and the GAZA strip should leave nobody in any doubt what it will take to remove these gangsters from power in the West. What it will take to get anywhere near a MMT world.
Bill Mitchell is the only MMT'r saying it and only for the last 6 months. We know what we have to do. We are too soft and cowardly to put our lives on the line to do it. Like other generations were willing to do.
Voters will sit in their armchairs and be moved from one con trick to the next keeping their heads below the parapet. While the world burns around them.
Because if they stand up they'll be smashed on the head by the authoritarians who say they promote democracy. You see it every day you turn on your TV.
My country is Canada. We're the 51st state and supply depot. An albatross with a wingspan of over 9000 km. Trade from west to east is dwarfed by trade from north to south. And we benefit from it.
I still have hope for the American people. So long as freedom of speech is maintained.
CPAC and Trump are not my cup of tea, obviously. Authoritarianism is as Orwell described it. Not a left versus right issue.
The reason they have monopolised just about EVERYTHING so that we have 2 big gas or electric companies to choose from or 1 or 2 privatised companies to choose from when we buy anything in the public sector. They are trying to privatise healthcare and anything that isn't nailed down.
Why when we walk down the high street and shop in the private sector and faced with a few consortium's that own the high street.
Isn't because of efficiency or public sector bad, private sector good and all the other bull shit narratives and framing they use while they do it. Nothing about Keynsian v's neo classical economics.
It is because of Sanctions - period.
I've thought about this a lot recently and watched how funding was carried out during covid and how bank lending was prioritised during the pandemic and how sanctions have been carried out on different countries.
If you stand up against these gangsters it is easier for them to sanction you and hurt you economically if there are only a handful of companies that control your infrastructure.
Not only is about the rentiers to make it easier for them to collect rent after they have asset stripped your country It is easier to implement sanctions to bring you to heel.
Example:
Boeing and Airbus are now the choices you have. The US sanction your choice of Boeing and the EU sanction your choice of Airbus.
Your fucked.
They've just about reduced and monopolised choice in every sector conceivable. Why they thought Sanctions would bring Russia to its knees.
For me this only having 2 or 3 to choose from in each sector was all about being able to introduce sanctions more easily on the geopolitical landscape.
Of course why they reduced and monopolised choice when it came to the news and newspapers that you read.
Why is there such a belief in a globalized economy?
Protectionism was the norm historically.
The Berlin Wall fell.
Just so happens that's also when they decided to change the official money story via Thatcher and Reagan.
There's absolutely no difference between the EU treaties and the NATO charters. Pushed by the IMF and world bank. How government spending and the allocation of skills and real resources by elected government was replaced by bank lending and technocratic bankers. Maastricht treaty changes the central banks.
They know how money works they just use it in a different way to how the rest of us with a heart would use it. The framework created ever since the fall of the Berlin wall was to serve a geopolitical purpose.
Here we are because these psychopaths thought the rest of the world would just stand by and let them get away with it.
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