Briefly Noted: China, Oil, Money
While we in America obsess over the Deep State assault on what remains of our republic, the world continues to turn. Events wait for no man, and there are some important events ongoing—including some that ultimately play into the crisis of the American Empire. For example, we learn today that Saudi Arabia will be selling oil to China for yuan—no longer for dollars:
Alex Krainer comments:
To put this in perspective, China is far and away the biggest importer of oil in the world, even outstripping the US. In round numbers China accounts for nearly 25% of oil imports, whereas the US—in second place—comes in at about 13%. Where does China get all that oil? Its top two country sources—and it’s not even close when it comes to countries further down the list—are Saudi Arabia and Russia. Other large countries have already been doing oil/gas for rubles deals with Russia, and the Saudi move will accelerate that trend.
As Krainer expresses it, this decoupling of the oil trade from the US dollar is hugely signficiant. The petrodollar system has been at the heart of the rise and dominance of the American Empire. That system, as Tom Luongo maintains, has also been manipulated to enable the Globalist WEF movement. Pulling the plug on the petrodollar system—a trend which appears to be unstoppable at this point—will increase financial pressure on both the EU and the US. The US has the resources to survive this, but not without serious dislocation. Brace yourselves!
I’m not an economist or expert in financial matters—I think I’ve mentioned that, right? Nevertheless, I’ll go out on a limb and speculate that the Saudi willingness to accept yuan for one of China’s most, if not the most, important imports surely means that China will have less reason to maintain its enormous dollar reserves—since it will have far less need to pay for oil with those dollars. I assume that the need to pay for oil in dollars, in the past, was a major reason for China to maintain such enormous dollar reserves. China may now start lowering those reserves, which should be expected to have a major impact on US financial markets. It’s a big deal—a very big deal.
Meanwhile, there’s this article that was republished at Zerohedge:
It's Game-Over For The Fed - Expect A Monetary "Rug Pull" Soon...
How many times have your heard financial pundits assuring one and all that the Fed will have to stop raising rates? The reality, as I understand it, is that the entire world monetary system is cruising for a reset, with the fall of King Dollar at the heart of that reset. I quote here the concluding paragrapsh, but as always—follow the link. Place what the author is saying in the context of the Chinese-Saudi move:
In short, the Federal Reserve is trapped.
Raising interest rates high enough to dent inflation would bankrupt the US government.
We can see this dynamic in the below chart of the federal debt and the federal funds rate, the Federal Reserve’s primary benchmark interest rate. The higher the federal debt, the harder and more painful it becomes to raise interest rates.
In short, the US government is fast approaching the financial endgame. It needs to raise interest rates to combat out-of-control inflation… but can’t because it would cause its bankruptcy.
In other words, it’s game over.
They have no choice but to “reset” the system—that’s what governments do when they are trapped.
Think of it like this.
Imagine a spoiled child playing a board game, and rather than admit he is losing, he flips the board. This is what governments will do now that they are financially checkmated. They can’t win, even in their own rigged game, and now are left with the choice of losing power or flipping the board. Since power does not relinquish itself voluntarily, we should presume they’ll choose to flip the board.
Here’s the bottom line.
The current monetary system is on its way out. Even the central bankers running the system can see that. So they are preparing for what comes next as they attempt to “reset” the system.
I suspect it could all go down soon… and it’s not going to be pretty.
It’s going to result in an enormous wealth transfer from you to the parasitical class—politicians, central bankers, and those connected to them.
Things that can’t go on forever, do eventually stop.
There is a counter-argument to the "Fed is trapped" argument. I have seen it made in several places but here is the one I just was able to find:
https://wolfstreet.com/2022/06/27/can-the-government-even-pay-the-rising-interest-expense-on-its-gigantic-debt-as-the-fed-pushes-up-rates-yes-heres-why/
I like Mark am not an economist but in simple terms the argument being made here is that 1) there is a lag between rates raising and the impact of such on servicing government debt, since higher rates only apply to new debt; and 2) In an inflationary environment, nominal rates of GDP growth and tax revenue will be able to compensate for the loss of real GDP growth and real tax revenue inherent in a recession. It sounds sort of like sticking steel needles in your eyeballs to make you forget about that leg you just broke... and then deciding which injury needs to be treated first... but there you go.
Luongo makes a similar argument about the "goodness" of rising rates (https://tomluongo.me/2022/08/08/economic-redution-inflation-expansion-everything-out-stock-nothing-cheaper/):
"The way out of this situation for the US is to raise the cost of capital, which the Fed is doing through raising interest rates and force fiscal discipline on Congress by curbing their ability to run deficits while simultaneously lowering taxes at all levels especially on small businesses and wealth preservation. "
The bad thing as Luongo notes is that Congress can still pass outrageous unneeded spending bills and thereby make the Fed's job of curtailing inflation that much harder. No fiscal discipline is statutorily enforced like it is with many states. Now of course Luongo does not think the Fed raising rates is about taming inflation, anyway. If he is right, the notion of them raising rates high enough to make any real difference to overall inflation on the demand side is moot from their point of view anyway.
https://tomluongo.me/2022/08/10/from-davos-without-love-true-detective-or-true-conspiracy/
Tom Luongo is a fan of Mark's Substack! He gives it a thumbs up in this article.
I think that's pretty cool :)