Kim discusses the shift away from the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency, and how the BRICS alliance, made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, is actively trying to dent the dollar’s dominance as the anchor of the international financial system.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rnCudOKNzm0[/youtube]
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Interesting information, on how the global monetary system works… which I didn’t know.
you guys have to know that before america collapses it’ll drop nuclear bombs all over the place whether it is a good idea or not
gadaffi shook hands with every us president for like 4 or 5 decades and once he decided that he wouldn’t trade lybian oil for anything but gold he was dragged into the streets and torn apart and beaten to death on camera for the whole world to see. thats just how we roll.
i love it that the video ends with her shilling for a gold exhange company
Of course the US is an empire.
It has this thing called the petrodollar.
From what I gather, the petrodollar is basically a protection racket.
Petrol producing nations like Saudi Arabia must only accept payment, for the petrol they sell to other nations, in American dollars, or the US will bomb them, like they bombed Iraq and many others who tried to circumvent them.
In exchange, the US will protect them from foreign invasion and pirates.
So countries that want to buy petrol from say Saudi Arabia must buy American dollars first.
This makes the US the middleman in every international petrol transaction; ‘you want to buy petrol from them, you gotta go through us/pay tribute first’.
This is what guarantees the dollar’s high value.
The US can get away with this because, it’s the strongest, not just militarily and economically, but politically, even culturally, altho its reputation has been in steep decline ever since it illegally invaded and destroyed Iraq, murdering about 1 million Iraqis in the process, with the help of its partners in crime like the UK.
And so it can spread its norms and values around the world to some extent, which’re collectively known as ‘liberalism’, America’s official ideology (liberalism isn’t left or right per say, there’s both left (see social liberalism) and rightwing (see classical liberalism and neoliberalism) versions of it), as well as its corruption (banksterism, crony capitalism, arms, drug and human trafficking, its unconditional support for and worship of Israel, and so on).
What the US is doing is far from unprecedented, back when Britain was the top dog during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, it governed international trade, whoever wanted to do business had to go through them.
And before Britain; France, Holland, Spain and Portugal (Portugal was the first global empire because it occupied parts of Eurasia, Africa and the Americas, like the US occupies every continent and dozens of countries today).
The US for better and worse, ultimately makes the rules, not the UN, which was largely established by the US anyway.
The US routinely breaks international law without consequence.
Ideally I guess, international law should govern the conduct of all nations, not just some of them, but in practice that’s not what we have, and we may never have such a thing.
In practice governments themselves are governed by the most powerful nation state(s), which happens to be the US for the moment.
But its power and clout appears to be waning, and a handful of developing nations; Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa (BRICS) would like to change all that.
It looks like they’re pooling their resources together, attempting to build some sort of alternative word order to the western ‘liberal’ world order.
Only time will tell for sure how successful they’ll be, and what their alternative world order will look like.
We’re in another cold war with Russia, maybe China, maybe BRICS too.
The world is bipolarizing again, or multipolarizing, the unipolar world order the Americans created after the collapse of the Soviet Union is dead, Russia with the help of China, India and other developing nations killed it by defying the US, so we’re in a new era now, cold war 2, between the western ‘liberal’ world order led by the US and BRICS led by China, and Russia.
we have torture prisons in secret places all over the world and we kidnap people and sometimes keep them there for decades. a dude just got out of gitmo after like 20 years and he was never even charged.
imagine if countries in south america decided to band with russia and china against the us. russia and china have a bit of resources and some distance between us and them and can probably bear a good bit of pressure. but those south american countries would fall to pieces in a heartbeat if they drew the ire of america and they know that. not a single one of them is capable of economic independence without access to our markets. not to mention that none of them have much of a sophisticated security apparatus and that if the cia decided to overturn one of their govts they’d get it done in short order the same way they have for decades if not longer. the ability of the us to destablize central and south american countries can’t be discounted.
Basically the UN is a sham.
Maybe there’ll come a time, for better or worse, when international, or global government dominates, but that time is not now.
The US, together with its two greatest allies; Israel and the UK with its commonwealth, largely rules the world.
The rest of the world is getting sick of living under the US.
They see through the UN and US’s hypocrisy.
The US, and the west as a whole, have grown very corrupt.
Increasingly westerners are sick of living under their governments too.
Westerners want either a less corrupt liberalism, or to do away with liberalism altogether, exchange it for another ideology; traditionalism, progressivism, populism or something else.
For over 5 centuries the west has ruled the world.
Portugal, Spain, Holland, France, the UK and the US each took turns ruling it.
For over 5 centuries, only western countries could challenge a western country’s hegemony, like the USSR rivaled the US from 1945 to 1991 during the cold war.
The first nonwestern country capable of challenging a western country was Japan, but now Japan is largely a satellite state of the US.
Some of the keys to western success were its emphasis on exploration, which led to the relative discovery of the new world, its science, technology, industry, and liberalism.
But slowly the developing world is catching up with the western world.
To varying degrees they’ve adopted its science, tech, industry, and liberalism, putting their own spin on them.
I think we’re at a pivotal point in history, where the country most capable of challenging the west led by the US is not another western power, but an eastern one; China.
China is allying itself with other developing powers, some of them western adjacent, like Russia and Brazil, others nonwestern, like India and South Africa.
I think it’s only a matter of time before China attacks Taiwan, and only a matter of time before the petrodollar collapses or declines in significance.
Both Putin and Xi are excited for the petroyuan.
We could see the petroyuan come into existence and equal or surpass the petrodollar soon.
If the 1st cold war was between the west with its liberalism led by the US and the eastern bloc led by the USSR with its socialism, this one will be between the developed world and developing one, those in the developing world who want to challenge western/US hegemony.
Only time will tell what the outcome of all this will be, perhaps WW3, or decades of proxy wars,
Can the US ultimately keep the developing world down, or is a bipolar or multipolar world order inevitable, or perhaps a unipolar world order with China at the helm, or perhaps a genuine internationalist, or globalist order will emerge from all this, where the UN, or some World Union, has the power to ubiquitously enforce internationalist, or globalist law?
That’s what Klaus Schwab and the ‘global progressives’ at the WEF want, whereas national conservatives want the opposite, they would like to see the UN abolished.
These questions may take decades to answer, they will not be answered overnight, but these questions are being asked, BRICS is asking them.
What sort of geopolitical order are we going to have, and also what are we to do about liberalism?
Is liberalism fine as it is.
Does it need an overhaul or to be largely abandoned for national conservatism, populism, global progressivism or some other ideology?
We’re in a new era now geopolitically.
Pax Britannia gave way to WW1, WW1 to the interwar era, the interwar era to WW2, WW2 to Cold War 1, Cold War 1 to the inter-cold war era, and the inter-cold war era to Cold War 2, which may or may not erupt into a hot war/WW3.
You could say this era began last year with the west’s opposition to Russia’s peacekeeping mission in the Donbass, or in 2014 when the west helped stage a coup in Ukraine, overthrowing the pro-Russian government.
This era may be short-lived or it may go on for decades.
This time it’s the developed/western, ‘liberal’ word order led by the US versus the developing/nonwestern, ‘illiberal’ world order led by Russia and China, but just how liberal are we anyway?
There was a time when the west was far more liberal, and advanced scientifically, technologically and industrially than the rest, but that time may have largely passed us by.
Western societies are more illiberal in all sorts of ways than they’ve been in quite some time, while nonwestern societies are more liberal than they’ve ever been, and advanced.
The nonwestern world is catching up with the western, if they get organized, pool their resources together, which they’re trying to do with BRICS and other international organizations, they, or some of them at least, the more powerful ones like Russia, China and India, may be able to rival the west.
What will the outcome of all this be?
Will the US be able to restore its unipolar world order?
Or will this bipolarization between the west and BRICS continue for decades?
Or will China be able to establish a Sinic unipolar world order?
Or will we have a multipolar world order, where the US merely rules North America, Brazil rules South America, Russia rules Eurasia, India rules South Asia and China rules East Asia?
And if so, who’ll rule Europe; Germany, France, the UK?
Or can a genuine internationalist, or globalist world order emerge out of all this?
Or is WW3 and the end of civilization or man himself inevitable?
These’re some possibilities.
Not only are we in a new era geopolitically, internationally, but we’re in a new era intranationally.
After WW2, the west had a pretty strong sense of itself.
We were liberals building a liberal world order, not fascists, Marxists, anarchists or whatever else.
Anarchism was defeated in 1937 by Franco during the Spanish civil war, fascism was largely defeated in WW2 and Marxism largely by 1991.
There’s both left and rightwing versions of liberalism, just as there’s both left and rightwing versions of populism.
The west was largely under social liberalism from the 1920s and 30s to the 1980s, when it was supplanted by Thatcherism/Reaganism/neoliberalism, an update of classical liberalism.
Progressives, populists and traditionalists existed, but they were largely fringe.
But liberalism has grown increasingly corrupt, capitalism more crony, so the people have become disillusioned with it.
Since the 2010s there’s been a shift, radicals left, right and center have much larger platforms than they did decades prior.
In my view it’s only a matter of time, soon neoliberalism will come to an end, the question is, what will its successor be?
Will it be succeeded by an update of social liberalism, or something more radical?
Social liberalism, progressivism, populism and traditionalism are all candidates for its replacement.
Which one of these will ultimately prevail in the west, or perhaps different ones in different nations, or in different regions within nations?
We could see civil wars fought over this question.
I believe the west is in an identity crisis.
Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, we more or less shared the same values and worldview.
We don’t anymore, we’ve lost all sense of ourselves, and so we will have to struggle with ourselves and one another, as individuals, demographics and factions over who we are and want to become.
Perhaps the west is just too diverse, ethnically, religiously, politically, economically and so on to function as a democracy.
Maybe only (an) autocrat(s) could hold this entity, this amalgamation together, be they leftwing, rightwing, or pragmatic autocrats.
So the west is struggling with the rest, with uppity nations in the developing world like Russia and China, but we’re also struggling with ourselves, which may be the more important struggle.
Who is going to meet Russia and China in our struggle with them?
Do we even want to resist them?
Ask a dozen people and you’ll get a dozen different responses.
As a people, we no longer share a common sense of purpose and direction on these or any other matters.
And I’m not saying we should have one either, don’t get me wrong, maybe we shouldn’t or can’t have a common purpose.
In any case, I’m sure Russia and China sense our disunity, which gives them all the more motivation to defy ‘us’, whoever we are.
Well then I guess WW3 is inevitable, because nothing lasts forever, including US hegemony.
Only a matter of time before the dollar ceases being the world’s reserve currency.
This doesn’t necessarily mean the US will totally collapse, but it does mean its quality of life/standard of living and power will be dramatically reduced.
World reserve currencies tend to last for about 100 years and empires tend to decline after about 250 years.
The dollar has been the world’s reserve currency since 1920 and the US was founded in 1776, so its present sociopolitical turmoil should come as no surprise.
US hegemony is slipping.
The US has grown ever more corrupt.
The oligarchs who run the show are struggling with BRICS to maintain hegemony, and they’re struggling with the masses to maintain dominance.
The masses know their ‘liberal democracy’ is largely a lie, and the political class will have an increasingly difficult time in keeping that lie afloat.
Yep, and we also roll by rigging capitalism, so in the long run the rich get richer and the poor poorer, how long can the oligarchs who run the US and the west keep hundreds of millions of people who’re getting screwed at home and billions around their world who’re getting bombed on their side?
It’s just a matter of time before the system comes crashing down, the question is, what will its replacement be, and how corrupt?
More or less?
How long will the US be able to maintain hegemony?
Another decade, another century, another millennium?
Pax Britannia lasted for about 100 years, Pax Hispania for merely 23, Pax Romana for about 200.
Civil war, regime change and/or world war are inevitable, it’s just a matter of time.
What about Brazil?
It’s a huge country (the 5th largest) with a ton of resources (nice weather and good farmland in the south, the amazon in the north, lots of minerals).
Its GDP is comparable to Russia’s.
And if Brazil bands together with Russia and China against the US, other Latin American countries may follow.
Developing countries will probably continue to reorganize themselves to achieve greater political, economic and military independence from the US.
What goes around comes around.
Maybe not today or tomorrow, but sooner or later.
You don’t just do things like murder 1 million Iraqis without consequence.
The world is turning against US oligarchs, American citizens are turning against US oligarchs and/or each other…
Brazil has also achieved energy independence.
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One Nation dominating all others, or Nations working together… which would more intelligent life-forms prefer/adopt/do?
So less totalitarian globalist-rule, more multilateral ahegemonic-rule.
In theory sure, but in practice, if official history is correct, we’ve never had such a state of affairs, the most powerful state or states have always dominated the rest.
If someone like Tulsi Gabbard, RFK Jr or Rand Paul were elected, maybe they’d end US imperialism, but people like that never get elected, either because elections are too rigged, or because most people trust imperialists.
If I were American, I’d vote for one of those 3 if they’re running in 2024 or in other words, for an antiestablishment, antiimperialist populist, left or rightwing.
Perhaps the era, of the need to exercise such a practice, needs to come to an end?
Those who ‘want to/can’ play nicely together, should… all else are free to govern their Empires at their voters dictat (needs/requirements/wants/whims, even).
How can anyone trust the Dems, after this current Term of them impoverishing their own citizens? …tho the insularity of its citizens, dictates that they be a very un/ill-informed demographic.
…so intentionally engineered to be that way, or simply took advantage of the situation… or both? 