WW3: Money Front Update (Part One)
I hope the EMP Update scared you. But there’s bad news. Avoiding an EMP attack doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. In fact, you could, in a sense, liken the impending dethroning of King Dollar to something like a monetary EMP attack.
There’s a lot going on on this front and, short of a for real EMP attack, this is likely the Real War. The military aspect is proceeding toward its conclusion, but the Money War is still involved with preliminary skirmishing, as world players engage in a sort of Chinese Fire Drill. I saw a humorous tweet the other day (I can’t recall where, now) which stated that there’s a name for those who intend to ride the market out in the belief that they’ll be positioned for the upswing: bagholders. That’s the kind of thing that’s going on now, and Germany—for one—doesn’t want to be a bagholder of any sort. Germans are notoriously inflation-phobic, and that monster is raising its head. So Germany is openly looking to get around the US imposed sanctions regime:
Germany wants Russia to remove them from the “unfriendly countries” list:
I’ve heard that Poland is negotiating with Germany to buy gas from Germany that Germany gets from Russia. At what price? Russia also has a message for Poland, that Poland’s provocative statements could affect not only relations with Russia but could also affect the security of Western Europe: Kremlin Warns Poland Over Becoming 'NATO's Front Line'. Nobody, least of all the Germans, would thank Poland for upsetting their apple cart of accommodation with the new monetary and economic realities.
You can read more about the decree requiring payment in rubles here: Putin Signs Decree Ordering Gas Exports To Be Halted If Buyers Don't Pay In Rubles. What’s wrong with these people who think Putin is bluffing? Or misinformed?
Peter Alexander @PeterAlexander
NEW: "We believe that Putin is being misinformed by his advisors about how badly the Russian military is performing and how the Russian economy is being crippled by sanctions," a US official tells me, "because his senior advisors are too afraid to tell him the truth.”Japan has a very large economy and, despite often testy relations with Russia, seems uninterested in the Neocon scheme to “isolate” Russia economically.
This is coming—if you look behind you in the tunnel, it’s that light you see. Interestingly, reports are that 70% of Russian banks are still connected to SWIFT—but I doubt that will change Russian intentions at this point. It’s a matter of trust, now:
March 31 (Reuters) - Financial sanctions imposed on Russia threaten to gradually dilute the dominance of the U.S. dollar and could result in a more fragmented international monetary system, Gita Gopinath, IMF's First Deputy Managing Director, told The Financial Times.
So what’s Plan B for the Neocons?
Tom Luongo at GGG has a new podcast up on this topic. His take along w his cohost Dexter White is that a collapse of the dollar is unlikely. A continuing decline in its use to somewhere around 40% of reserve ststus along w an emerging basket of other currencies is the future. This will still hurt and may trigger hyperinflation but absent some cataclysmic event or the emergence of a clearly superior currency and bond market, people looking for a place to park cash will still look to the dollar and US bonds, at least for the next x years.
Invest in platinum or palladium. See Zerohedge.