RT ‘West’s leading role is ending’: G7’s no good without India and China, Putin says

Russian President Vladimir Putin has said the leading role of the West is coming to an end, and no serious international group makes much sense anymore without economic juggernauts like China and India.

Putin shared his thoughts on the Group of Seven (G7) during the Eastern Economic Forum, held outside Vladivostok in Russia’s Far East on Thursday. He was asked whether he would attend the group’s meeting in the US next year if invited. US President Donald Trump said last month he will “certainly” invite Putin.

The Russian president hinted that G7 leaders should instead travel to Russia where the last G8 event was due to take place, in 2014, prior to Moscow’s expulsion from the group....

RT
‘West’s leading role is ending’: G7’s no good without India and China, Putin says

BRICS Now a Larger Share of World Economy Than G7 — Constantin Gurdgiev

Checkpoint Asia
BRICS Now a Larger Share of World Economy Than G7

Constantin Gurdgiev

Dan Steinbock — The Beginning of the AIIB Epoch

Emergence in a complex adaptive system. Adaptive rate and return on coordination increasing.

The launch of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank heralds a new era in which international multilateral institutions are no longer owned, controlled and operated by advanced economies alone.

For years, the G7 nations have pledged substantial governance reforms in international multilateral institutions, such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank. But the promises were left unfulfilled, not least because these organizations are dominated by American, European and Japanese interests, as reflected by their voting quotas, investment allocations and the nationalities of their leaders.

In this context, the China-proposed Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank represents the needs of emerging countries which have been failed by the international multilateral institutions that were created and remain frozen in the mid-1940s...

Over the past few years, the White House has seen the BRICS’ New Development Bank as a potential threat to the existing multilateral organizations. It is pushing for a trans-Pacific trade bloc, which excludes China. And it has opposed the reserve currency status of the Chinese yuan.

As a result, senior US figures have argued that Washington has mishandled its response to China’s efforts to serve as a “responsible stakeholder” in the world economy. Among others, former secretary of Treasury Lawrence Summers has said the US cold-shouldering of the AIIB may be recalled as the moment America “lost its role as the underwriter of the global economic system”....

Economonitor
The Beginning of the AIIB Epoch

Dan Steinbock | research director of international business at the India, China and America Institute (USA) and a visiting fellow at the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies (China) and EU Center (Singapore)

The original version was published by China Daily on June 29, 2015.

See also

Recalibrating the ‘Pivot to Asia’: Behind the 7the Sino-US Strategic & Economic Dialogue

While ratcheting down the military confrontation, it is too little, too late. China is already arming up and the PLA is under no illusions about US objectives as long as its policy is global hegemony.

Pepe Escobar — American dreaming, from G1 to Bilderberg

The bottom line is that these three mega-deals – TTP, TTIP and TiSA – are the ultimate template of what could be politely described as global corporate governance, a Bilderberg wet dream. The losers: nation-states, and the very concept of Western democracy. The winners: mega-corporations.

Julian Assange, in a statement, succinctly nailed it “It is a mistake to think of the TPP as a single treaty. In reality there are three conjoined mega-agreements, the TiSA, the TPP and the TTIP, all of which strategically assemble into a grand unified treaty, partitioning the world into the West versus the rest. This 'Great Treaty' is described by the Pentagon as the economic core to the US military's 'Asia Pivot.' The architects are aiming no lower than the arc of history. The Great Treaty is taking shape in complete secrecy, because along with its undebated geostrategic ambitions it locks into place an aggressive new form of transnational corporatism for which there is little public support."....

Now for the counterpunch. As the show in the Bavarian Alps unrolled, the first BRICS Parliamentarian Forum was taking place in Moscow – ahead of the BRICS summit in Ufa next month.

Neocons – with Obama in tow - knock themselves out dreaming that Russia has become “isolated” from the rest of the world because of their sanctions. Since then Moscow has signed major economic/strategic contracts with at least twenty nations. Next month, Russia will host the BRICS summit – 45 percent of the world’s population, a GDP equivalent to the EU, and soon bigger than the current G7 – as well as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit, when India and Pakistan, currently observers, will be accepted as full members.....

RT
American dreaming, from G1 to Bilderberg
Pepe Escobar

Joseph Joyce — The U.S.: Inept Diplomacy, Indispensable Currency

All this demonstrates the discrepancy between the diplomatic and financial power of the U.S. On the one hand, the U.S. must deal with countries that are eager to claim their places in global governance. The dominance of the U.S. and other G7 nations in international institutions is a relic of a world that came to an end with the global financial crisis. On the other hand, the dollar is still the predominant international currency, and will hold that place for many years to come. The use of the renminbi is slowly growing but it will be a long time before it can serve as an alternative to the dollar. Consequently, the actions of the Federal Reserve may have more international repercussions than those of U.S. policymakers unable to cope with the shifting landscape of financial diplomacy.

Angry Bear
The U.S.: Inept Diplomacy, Indispensable Currency
Joseph Joyce

Is There Any Bureaucracy (Or Orthodoxy) In The World With An Intact Legacy? World Upheaval Now Guaranteed.

(Commentary posted by Roger Erickson)

On the Verge of Disaster - Or a Miracle

(but not for the reasons the author imagines)

(& all this from an author who thinks that the USA has a "massive debt overhang")

(yet there is agreement that, "financial repression finally backfires" )

Back in Oct, 2014: "the Bank of Japan shocked the world, announcing a massive expansion in its own asset purchases timed to coincide with the government pension fund’s announcement that it was getting out of JGBs and into global equities."

Huh? Given all this out-of-paradigm nonsense, the author is surprised that predicted outcomes sometimes don't occur? Someone should tell him that we have zero predictive power.

[Not to mention that Japan had already announced an increase in sales taxes actually DESIGNED to equalize & thereby invalidate the effect of their fiscal "stimulus" - and was about to hike them further!]

First, Japan's "Gov pension fund" is simply an accounting agency within the Japanese Gov, i.e., one obscure expression of Japanese policy.

Second, let's not even dwell on how the Japanese gov's move into foreign equities turned out. Instead, look for coherence in their internal logic. Is there any?

How many would actually applaud if the Japanese gov next "shocked" the world by issuing Yen (¥) not to directly provision the nation & population of Japan, but instead to directly invest in foreign equities? (Would many eyebrows be raised? How many would really be shocked?)

You couldn't make this up.

Not only does it seems like the Japanese gov agencies collectively don't know what they're doing, ..... but it also seems as though their different bureaucracies and policy lobbies either don't know, don't understand or don't care what one another are doing!

And the picture is not markedly different in the USA or Europe, or elsewhere around the world!

Everywhere you look, in G7 or other country policies, the ongoing outcomes seem more like the results of mob rule by independent agencies or lobbies running on their own auto-pilots, operating at least semi-independently. Regardless of their respective paradigms, there is no coherent, overall policy logic (unless some entity is purposely sowing confusion, in order to disorient, divide & conquer).

Our electorates are electing no leaders capable of commanding? Anywhere? (Or else it's worse, and actual instigators are still operating in stealth mode?) It sure looks that way.

This all means great risk, and complete uncertainty, as well as great opportunity. Seemingly, any dark horse nation has a great chance to win this chess tournament, because every bureaucracy worldwide seems to be operating out of paradigm for current contexts.

I can't sense any coherence in announced policy steps from the USA or G7.

Are you sure we changed administrations? Either we're leaderless, or there really are active agendas which continue to incidentally confuse, divide & conquer the entire world, coming from distributed lobbies now dominating USA (& G7) policy.

Either way, too few lobbies pushing this many boundaries ALWAYS clumsily produce unpredictable outcomes.

This world population is too big & too inter-connected to be either:
a) without a coherent policy formation process (e.g., leaderless &/or fractious), or
b) amenable to world governance (regardless of which Central Planners make a play).

I see only approaching turmoil, or at best, incredible dumb luck.

What's your sense?