Tin Foil Hats, Economic Reality and the Total Perspective Vortex

[Unca Walt]

Not enuf. Kill the mutha, find the muthafekker and kill him too.

 

[Casey Jones]

(*sigh*)

One.

Last.

Attempt...

This is the brenschluss. Obvious to everyone, even those that cannot conceive the dollar going (*poof*). It WILL happen inevitably, nem. con. We are in that pregnant time when inexorable events are known to be coming; this is a time for crucial action that will NEVER return:

The time to trade overvalued paper for gold.

Let me try this: At 11:40 on April 10, 1912, the Titanic hit an iceberg. The passengers on board were not particularly bothered at all. At first, there was nothing really to note. (Ding! shift to today! Data start point!)

Some young men who were up, and played soccer with the ice chunks on deck. Some men, however, knew within ten minutes that the ship was irrevocably doomed.

The engineers kept the lights on as they shorted out. (Current time: Bank in Pacific Rim is selling gold under spot in a futile attempt to keep the dollar working a while longer even in the face of unavoidable coming total failure as the entire ship was clearly beyond help and was sinking.)

There were not nearly enough lifeboats at all for the passengers. Many were doomed even as they walked around and calmly talked to each other on the giant boat. <-- There is NOT enough gold for all the passengers on the ship. Only some will have gold = a seat on lifeboat.

So yer Unca will tell you one last time: The Dollar Titanic IS going down. NOTHING, especially wishing, is going to change that. Denial of reality will not change that.

Now the only thing you should be doing is getting your seat on the lifeboat. It will not be as comfortable as your First Class stateroom was, but your First Class stateroom will be under a mile of water after a while as th e sinking rate picks up to the esimated 90MPH when it hit bottom.

Get your butt off the chair and get your hands on the PM's NOW. The last guys on the stern of the Titanic did not have life rafts because they dicked around for more than TWO HOURS before their feet were wet for eternity...

Your two hours are clicking down. How long those "two hours" will be is unknown. Just that it is clicking down to zerio.

Shee-itt, Cap'n. I've been wearing my cork life-vest and standing by the lifeboat since long ago, when you told me we MIGHT just hit.

I've done all I can. Warm clothes (out of paper investments) packet of wrapped food (PMs) and ready to help whoever comes to join me and send this thing down the track, over the side.

Problem is, no battle plan lasts longer than the first five minutes. Elsewhere, this morning, someone linked an article of a guy my age (late 60s) in Montana...he bought in, here, about the same time I first came out here. I was working for a contracting company out of Connecticut that had field crews working from Whitefish to Spokane.

This guy bought and stayed. I wandered the planet.

He bought a nice modest home. What was cheap then is several million dollars assessed value now, and his taxes are five-figures, up from about $5000 a few years ago.

I'm in an apartment, and I'm seeing a pattern. As less picturesque places get overrun with third-world invaders, where toddlers get stabbed in grocery carts while mom grabs a can of beans...here it's safe.

But here we're getting priced out.

I know, I know, we've talked about alternate choices. But my point is, I could have all these preps, and then be forced into $2000-a-month rent (many people are paying that NOW...RIGHT HERE...) while trying to find a way to live out of my pickup while still getting my mail and not disqualifying myself for my retirement (I have to have an address to get it, no lie, Railroad Retirement regs).

So it all goes to excrement. Just like that night on that riveted leaky British tub. Some guys planned and then didn't make it. Some stayed at their posts, like the one Marconi operator, and got saved by pure fate. Others didn't plan, panicked, and got a seat somehow. Too many rich men made it, and not enough steerage women and children.

You just never know. FWIW, I agree completely with your assessment of the current situation.

 

[Joe King]

There's this news..

SA has joined the Mbridge project. It's a blockchain based payment system that does not use the dollar.

Lena seems to think that SA will play the middle ground between China and the US. In that they want to play both sides against the other in order to get the best deal for themselves.

 

[pmbug]

Back in April of this year, Saudi Arabia and Iran started playing nice together at China's behest (as a pre-condition to being invited to the BRICS table). I wonder how the Iran/Hamas attack on Israel while Israel was negotiating an accord with Saudi Arabia is going to affect Saudi-Iran relations (and prospects for each to become BRICS members).

June 11 (Xinhua) -- Iran's Caretaker Foreign Minister Ali Bagheri Kani and Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud on Tuesday reaffirmed their countries' commitment to improving bilateral relations and cooperation.

In a meeting on the sidelines of the BRICS Foreign Ministers' Meeting in Nizhny Novgorod, Russia, the two sides also highlighted the necessity to ensure sustainable stability and security in the region, according to a statement released by the Iranian Foreign Ministry.

Bagheri Kani said bilateral ties were reflecting a progressing trend, expressing confidence that Iran and Saudi Arabia were determined to strengthen all-out relations with each other.

He stressed that the two countries' determination to develop bilateral ties had impacted all areas of their relations.
...

Iran, Saudi Arabia reaffirm commitment to promoting ties, cooperation

Iran, Saudi Arabia reaffirm commitment to promoting ties, cooperation-

www.chinaview.cn

 

[pmbug]

There's this news..

SA has joined the Mbridge project. It's a blockchain based payment system that does not use the dollar.

https://www.pmbug.com/threads/tin-f...d-the-total-perspective-vortex.75/post-103461

Lena seems to think that SA will play the middle ground between China and the US. In that they want to play both sides against the other in order to get the best deal for themselves.
...

For the record, I don't think Saudi Arabia will do anything sudden or drastic. They are happy playing the USA and China against each other to extract maximum leverage from both.

I've been saying that (both here and on X) for almost a week now.

 

[pmbug]

This is curious:

Saudi Arabia's Public Investment Fund (PIF) intends to invest some $15 billion in Brazil, in areas such as green hydrogen, infrastructure and renewable energy, the South American country's minister for energy said on Wednesday.
...

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabias-pif-plans-invest-15-billion-brazil-says-brazilian-minister-2024-06-12/

Just an investment, or something related to a developing BRICS quid pro quo?

 

[pmbug]

Jewish media commentary on the pending USA-KSA treaty the Biden admin is trying to broker:

...
It’s a mystery. The White House knows that Israel is on board when it comes to offering military support, one way or another, to the Saudis against an Iranian threat. The White House also knows that for the Saudis, the Palestinian State thing is nothing more than decoration, and for Netanyahu’s right-wing majority government, it is a do-or-die issue, or rather, don’t-do-or-die. So why would the Americans try to force a Palestinian State on the Israelis and the Saudis when both parties would rather be left alone and run their cooperation in the shadows?
...

US Offers Saudis Huge Defense Treaty, Insisting Israel Must Be Dragged into It

God help us from Americans pursuing visions. They tend to be lethal.

www.jewishpress.com

It doesn't appear likely that the deal is going to happen.

 

[Joe King]

It doesn't appear likely that the deal is going to happen.

This is the oil for dollars deal?

 

[pmbug]

This is the oil for dollars deal?

IMO, yes, but that's not explicit. It's actually a defense/security deal where the USA pledges to defend KSA with our military. I assume there is an unofficial quid pro quo element to it.

 

[Casey Jones]

This is curious:

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/saudi-arabias-pif-plans-invest-15-billion-brazil-says-brazilian-minister-2024-06-12/

Just an investment, or something related to a developing BRICS quid pro quo?

Quid pro quo.

The specifics don't even matter. And I think the Saudis know it, this "Green Energy" scheisse, will come to nothing.

They're buying in and kick-starting BRICS. This shows the depth to which they're fed up with the Untied Skates. For reasons valid, fair, and emotional and based on religious-cultural dogma and 5000-year hatreds...they're going forward without the US.

This is what the current Political Elites have done to our formerly-functional system and order.

 

[pmbug]

I was searching for something today and ran across a couple of old posts related to Saudi Arabia and the petrodollar. They are a trip down memory lane and provide some perspective on this "June 9 petrodollar end" claim. There never was any specific language binding KSA to trading oil for dollars. That's always been a quid pro quo understanding that they could abandon at their peril and something that they have been threatening for over a decade now.

October 2013 - KSA threatens major shift in US relationship:

"The shift away from the U.S. is a major one," the source close to Saudi policy said. "Saudi doesn't want to find itself any longer in a situation where it is dependent."

October 2016 - KSA threatens to dump US treasuries (and implicit is that they reduce trade of oil for dollars)

October 2018 - KSA murders Jamal Khashoggi and MbS escapes punishment (petrodollar must flow)

Now that I took the time to compose this post, I'm starting to wonder if I can build a bunker between now and October. As a reminder, the BRICS meeting is scheduled for this October...

 

[Joe King]

IMO, yes, but that's not explicit. It's actually a defense/security deal where the USA pledges to defend KSA with our military. I assume there is an unofficial quid pro quo element to it.

The original agreement in '74 also made no mention of oil.

 

[searcher]

RE: Concerning Saudi Arabia ( fwiw / dyodd )


Stories about the collapse of a longstanding 'petrodollar' agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia spread like wildfire on social media. But the agreement never existed.

It seemed like big news, and many wondered why the mainstream media had seemingly ignored it. Turns out, there was a very good reason.

Earlier this week, reports circulating widely on social-media platforms like X offered up a shocking proclamation: A 50-year-old agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia requiring that the latter price its crude-oil exports in U.S. dollars had expired on Sunday.

Reports of the petrodollar system's demise are 'fake news' - here's why

www.morningstar.com

 

[pmbug]

^^^ Exactly as I've been saying - it's been a quid pro quo arrangement whereby the USA provides security (military muscle in the mid east) and KSA trades in USD.

 

[pmbug]

Regarding KSA/petrodollar - Rickards says pretty much what I've been saying:

...
The deal was never a formal treaty ratified by the Senate, which would rise to the level of law. It was a non-binding executive agreement; not much more than a written handshake. It contained annual renewal provisions and could be terminated at any time by either party.

The Saudis held up their end by pricing oil in dollars and buying U.S. Treasuries. The U.S. held up its end by sending troops and repelling Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in Operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm in 1990–91. The agreement suited both sides and so it continued.

The agreement never had an explicit “expiration date” so reports that the deal has expired are overstated. The Saudis have notified the U.S. that they’re not extending the deal, but that decision has to be put in the context of other U.S.-Saudi discussions.

The U.S. and Saudi Arabia are currently in negotiations on a new financial and security arrangement that would supersede the old petrodollar deal.
...

More:

Did the Saudis Just Kill the Dollar? - Daily Reckoning

Rickards Weighs In

dailyreckoning.com

He also had a note about the BRICS/"unit":

...
Putin also met with Dilma Rousseff, former president of Brazil and current president of the New Development Bank, which is a de facto central bank and development lender to the BRICS+ and associated members.

That meeting was to discuss the roll-out of the new BRICS currency. It will be called the Unit and its value will be based on a weight of gold (40%) and a basket of BRICS+ currencies (60%).

The key to implementation of the BRICS currency plan is an expansion of the membership. A bilateral currency arrangement between two weak emerging markets will never be successful because there’s not much for the seller of goods to buy once it receives the currency.

But a currency union with 20 members or more using the Unit can be successful because the seller of goods can “go shopping” in many other markets and is likely to find goods or services that meet its needs. The success of the euro with 20 members and worldwide acceptance is the model for this.

The Unit won’t be launched for another year or longer although some formal announcements may come at the BRICS leaders’ summit in Kazan, Russia, this October. It’ll still take a few years to add members, build out the infrastructure and firm up some valuation issues. Still, this currency is coming.
...

Interesting point about the BRICS membership expansion although I'm not sure that classifying China and Russia as "two weak emerging markets" is necessarily fair. China exports a lot of critical goods (including rare earth metals and such) while Russia is a huge exporter of energy (oil/gas).

 

[chieftain]

Look for CDS triggers...

 

[pmbug]

This video regurgitates much of the information that has already been shared here...

...
This is my takeaway from the interview:

1) BRICS+ MBridge “the Unit” currency consists of a basket of 60% sovereign currencies and 40% physical Gold.

2) BRICS+ MBridge began testing in 2022.

3) In 2023 during the BRICS+ meetings, the BRICS+ heads of state gave the go-ahead for MBRidge and “the Unit” to launch by 2025.

4) Hong Kong via the BIS (Bank of International Settlements) overseen by the PBOC (People’s Bank of China) is a major MBridge hub where the BIS is operating out of. Shanghai and Dubai are the other hubs.

5) The current USD Gold price does not provide enough liquidity for MBridge & “the Unit” to fully rollout. (When the Petro Dollar came to be in the 1970s, Oil price had to more than 3X to provide enough liquidity for the USD, as explained by @LukeGromen).

6) The West via IMF is launching their own version of MBridge to compete with BRICS+.

For reference...

The Unit:
https://www.pmbug.com/threads/tin-f...d-the-total-perspective-vortex.75/post-101495

mBridge:
https://www.pmbug.com/threads/tin-f...nd-the-total-perspective-vortex.75/post-84168
https://www.pmbug.com/threads/tin-f...tal-perspective-vortex.75/page-25#post-103461

 

[searcher]

In this 20-minute BIS podcast they talk about regulating non-bank financial intermediaries, digital payment systems and more. Nothing to see, can listen in one tab, play around the forum in a different tab. Key word = regulate.

BISness podcast - Regulating non-bank financial intermediaries​

Jun 20, 2024

Former US Fed Chair Alan Greenspan referred to non-bank financial intermediaries (NBFIs) as the “spare tyre” for the financial system. This is because they can support the real economy when the banking system is under stress. NBFIs play a critical role in the financial system and include all financial intermediaries that are not banks. Within this universe are a subset of firms with various business models that provide credit to consumers and small businesses (“NBFI retail lenders”).

However, NBFI retail lenders are not subject to the same globally harmonised rules as banks. Therefore, a key question is whether a “bank like” prudential regulatory regime should apply to NBFIs, and if so, what it should look like.

In the latest episode of the BISness podcast, Financial Stability Institute Senior Advisors Johannes Ehrentraud and Raihan Zamil discuss these issues with Emma Claggett. Their recently published FSI Insights paper, co-authored with Elisabeth Noble (EBA) and Ségolène Mure (Bank of France), examines a range of regulatory regimes applicable to non-bank retail lenders and proposes a holistic policy approach to enhance their effectiveness: Safeguarding the financial system's spare tyre: regulating non-bank retail lenders in the digital era (bis.org)

 

[pmbug]

For more than three years, the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) and the central banks of China, Hong Kong, Thailand and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been working on a cross-border central bank digital currency (CBDC) project known as mBridge. In a nutshell, the project aims to improve efficiency, speed and transparency in cross-border payments.
...
One possibility now that Saudi Arabia has joined mBridge is that the platform will be increasingly used for commodity settlement that bypasses the U.S. dollar. In Nov. 2023, the People's Bank of China and the Saudi Central Bank signed a local currency swap agreement worth RMB 50 billion ($6.9 billion). In December 2022, Chinese President Xi Jinping told Gulf Arab leaders that Beijing would work to buy oil and gas in renminbi, but as of last November, it had not yet used the currency for Saudi oil purchases.
...

More:

Cross-Border CBDC Focused Project MBridge Moves Forward

Central Bank Digital Currencies have the potential to make cross-border payments faster, better, and cheaper. That just took a big step forward.

www.forbes.com

 

[searcher]

RE: Concerning Saudi Arabia ( fwiw / dyodd )


Stories about the collapse of a longstanding 'petrodollar' agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia spread like wildfire on social media. But the agreement never existed.

It seemed like big news, and many wondered why the mainstream media had seemingly ignored it. Turns out, there was a very good reason.

Earlier this week, reports circulating widely on social-media platforms like X offered up a shocking proclamation: A 50-year-old agreement between the U.S. and Saudi Arabia requiring that the latter price its crude-oil exports in U.S. dollars had expired on Sunday.

Reports of the petrodollar system's demise are 'fake news' - here's why

www.morningstar.com

More here along with some history.

Petrodollar Agreement Never Existed (Fake News) | World Still Runs on US Dollar​

Jun 28, 2024 #jenniferlammer #bondbeginners #bondmasters

FAKE NEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: There never was a Petrodollar agreement that could be expiring & there is no imminent threat of de-dollarization. Watch on as I talk about Petrodollars, Eurodollars & the agreement that the US & Saudi really have!


23:51

SOURCES & FOLLOW-UP VIDEOS FOR TODAY'S VIDEO:

- Our Video On The Dominance Of The USD: https://youtu.be/fOkrJfqM9kI
- Daniel Yergin's The Prize
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973_oil_crisis#/media/File:Crude_oil_prices_since_1861.png
- https://www.jstor.org/stable/4325256
- https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/09/archives/milestone-pact-is-signed-by-us-and-saudi-arabia-acclaimed-by.html
- https://www.energyintel.com/00000184-15bf-df66-a797-ddffc2380000
- https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/programs/geoeconomics-center/dollar-dominance-monitor/#
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-international-role-of-the-us-dollar-post-covid-edition-20230623.html#:
- https://www.federalreserve.gov/econres/notes/feds-notes/the-international-role-of-the-us-dollar-post-covid-edition-20230623.html#
- https://finance.yahoo.com/

 

[searcher]

Lotta stuff here. Need some time to peruse it.

Annual Economic Report 2024

We look at the outlook for the global economy and lessons learned from the past 25 years of monetary policy.

www.bis.org

 

[pmbug]

Skimming through the introduction...

... The priority for monetary policy is to firmly re-establish price stability. ...

If they truly wish to achieve price stability, they are going to need to stop with the inflation targeting bullshit. Price stability = zero inflation.

They talk about price stability and taming inflation purely in the context of interest rate policy. Their problem is that deficit spending fiscal policies force more money creation and that means inflation is coming no matter what they do with rates.

This (bold emphasis is mine) is complete nonsense:

...
These lessons highlight the importance of four features that could inform refinements to frameworks: robustness, realism in ambition, safety margins and nimbleness. Together, they can reduce the risk that monetary policy, just as fiscal policy, is relied upon excessively to drive growth – the “growth illusion” analysed in detail in last year’s AER. And they are designed to ensure that monetary policy focuses on maintaining inflation within the region of price stability while safeguarding financial stability. Consider the implications of these considerations for the definition of the inflation objective, for acceptable deviations from targets, for the deployment of the tools, and for the institutional arrangements that support policy, including the role of communication in that context.

The operational definition of price stability would need to help hardwire a low-inflation regime while allowing for deviations consistent with central banks’ ability to control inflation. ...

 

[pmbug]

Kitco's take on the BIS report:

The global financial system is facing its biggest challenge since the Great Financial Crisis (GFC), as inflation weighs heavily on global consumers and central banks continue to print money at a feverish pace.
...
... according to the Bank of International Settlements, moving forward, “monetary policy may well face an environment no less challenging than the one that has prevailed in the past decades,” with two factors that are “especially worrisome: fiscal trajectories and deep-seated adverse supply-side forces.”
...

More:

BIS: Unsustainable debt, supply chain issues threaten bigger crisis than GFC

The Kitco News Team brings you the latest news, videos, analysis and opinions regarding Precious Metals, Crypto, Mining, World Markets and Global Economy.

www.kitco.com

 

[searcher]

Found on a different forum. Posting as food for thought, take it fwiw and dyodd.

West's Colossal Failure: Peace Summit in Switzerland, US Decline, Rise of BRICS | Richard D. Wolff

Jun 21, 2024 Interviews

" when the capitalist class of the United States ,western Europe and Japan saw a profit opportunity in China, they went ,they made the deal, they said we want from you in China cheap labor and a growing market and the Chinese said we give you, that we give you cheap labor and we give you access to our Market It is the biggest fastest growing Market in the world and no capitalist could resist this they all went for the cheap labor the growing market and they gave the Chinese investment money and they signed contracts to Share technology. Nobody forced them to do any of this nobody had to steal anything from them they were willing to sell it they did sell it and the Chinese having figured out that the …"


32:37