Russia and China Threaten to Destroy the Almighty Dollar
Is Russia bluffing, or is the world as we know it about to change for ever?
On
Tuesday Reuters reported that a Kremlin aid Sergei Glazyev had
announced that if the U.S. were to impose sanctions on Russia Moscow may
drop the dollar as a reserve currency and refuse to pay off any loans
to U.S. banks saying that Moscow could recommend that all holders of
U.S. treasuries sell them if Washington freezes the U.S. accounts of
Russian businesses and individuals.
"We would find a way not just
to reduce our dependency on the United States to zero but to emerge
from those sanctions with great benefits for ourselves," said Glazyev.
"An
attempt to announce sanctions would end in a crash for the financial
system of the United States, which would cause the end of the domination
of the United States in the global financial system"
That
statement is startling by itself, but the true gravity of this situation
is only evident when you consider it in context. China has taken
Russia's side in the Ukraine conflict (they are after all allies) and
China holds the lion's share of U.S. treasuries. If Russia puts out the
call to drop the dollar China would have a choice: either hold on to
those treasuries while the dollar slides (losing their shirt in the
process) or join Russia and dump their holdings as well. It should be
pretty obvious which way China would go.
Related: The Extreme Right Emerging as the Dominant Voice in Ukraine
http://scgnews.com/the-extreme-right-...
The
effects of a coordinated bond sell off by China and Russia would be
earth shattering. This would be the financial equivalent of a nuclear
bomb being dropped. It is no exaggeration to say that such a move would
mark the end of an era.
You would think that this would prompt
some serious reflection and that diplomats would be scrambling to
resolve this peacefully, but instead today Obama signed a sanction order
anyway and revoked the visas of a number of Russian officials. All of
this supposedly in response to the violence in Kiev even though we now
have leaked phone conversations that indicate that it was in fact the
new coalition government in Ukraine that was responsible for the
shootings and that the West knows this. Combine this with the fact that
several U.S. officials met directly with known Neo-Nazi leaders prior to
the coup in Ukraine and these sanctions are even more non-nonsensical.
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