sanctions against the leading Russian billionaires. The same dynamic of undercutting ostensible U.S aims has occurred with U.S. confiscations of its dollar and euro reserves may finally lead Russia to end its adherence to neoliberal monetary philosophy, as Sergei Glaziev has long been advocating, in favor of Modern Monetary Theory (MMT). Its central bank can create the rubles needed to pay domestic wages and finance capital formation. dollars as backing for the ruble’s exchange rate. Russia is discovering (or is on the verge of discovering) that it does not need U.S.
When the Baltic states obeyed American sanctions and lost the Russian market for their cheese and other farm products, Russia quickly created its own cheese and dairy sector – while becoming the world’s leading grain exporter. The United States provided the help that was needed by imposing domestic self-reliance on Russia. Russia had remained too enthralled by free-market neoliberal ideology to take steps to protect its own agriculture and industry. For Russia, these sanctions had the same effect that protective tariffs would have had. This global fracture process actually has been going on for some years, starting with the sanctions blocking America’s NATO allies and other economic satellites from trading with Russia. diplomats themselves have chosen to end international dollarization, while helping Russia build up its own means of self-reliant agricultural and industrial production. I had expected that the end of the dollarized imperial economy would come about by other countries breaking away. orbit to see the writing on the wall and overcome whatever hesitancy they had to de-dollarize. officials are forcing Russia, China and other nations not locked into the U.S. I thought that de-dollarization would be led by China and Russia moving to take control of their economies to avoid the kind of financial polarization that is imposing austerity on the United States.
#FAIR TRADE COFFEE COOPERATIVES DAVID REISS FREE#
financial markets and banks, giving Dollar Diplomacy a free ride. Treasury-bill standard has channeled foreign savings to U.S. The basic theme of my Super Imperialism has been how, for the past fifty years, the U.S. So I am somewhat chagrined as I watch the speed at which this U.S.-centered financialized system has de-dollarized over the span of just a year or two. And the recent confiscation of the gold and foreign reserves of Venezuela, Afghanistan and now Russia, along with the targeted grabbing of bank accounts of wealthy foreigners (hoping to win their hearts and minds, enticed by the hope for the return of their sequestered accounts), has ended the idea that dollar holdings – or now also assets in sterling and euro NATO satellites of the dollar – are a safe investment haven when world economic conditions become shaky. sanctions blocking Europe, Asia and other countries from trade and investment with Russia, Iran and China has imposed enormous opportunity costs – the cost of lost opportunities – on U.S. diplomacy to impose neoliberal policies on the rest of the world, without having to use much military force of its own except to grab Near Eastern oil. This monetary privilege – dollar seignorage – has enabled U.S. balance-of-payments deficits end up in the central banks of payments-surplus countries as their reserves, while Global South debtors need dollars to pay their bondholders and conduct their foreign trade. The resulting Treasury-bill Standard has enabled America to finance its foreign military spending and investment takeover of other countries simply by creating dollar IOUs. During the half-century since the United States went off gold in 1971, the world’s central banks have operated on the Dollar Standard, holding their international monetary reserves in the form of U.S.
America’s economic sanctions and military confrontation have driven these two countries together, and are driving other countries into their emerging Eurasian orbit.Īmerican economic and financial power was expected to avert this fate. diplomats have warned about what they thought would represent the ultimate external threat: an alliance of Russia and China dominating Eurasia. But nobody thought that The American Empire would self-destruct this fast.įor more than a generation the most prominent U.S. diplomatic confrontation with Russia and allies alike. Observers across the political spectrum are using phrases like “shooting themselves in their own foot” to describe U.S. Such reasoning is of no help in today’s world. The basic assumption of economic and diplomatic forecasting is that every country will act in its own self-interest.
That certainly is the case with the American Empire as it dismantles itself in not-so-slow motion. Empires often follow the course of a Greek tragedy, bringing about precisely the fate that they sought to avoid.
0 kommentar(er)
