Dollar Demise
Gold and crypto rally as the world seeks substitutes to the once-mighty greenback...
Bill Bonner, reckoning today from Youghal, Ireland...
The big news this week. Seeking Alpha:
Bitcoin (BTC-USD) briefly surpassed its November 2021 record high on Tuesday as demand for the token continued to be fueled by excitement over spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds and the April halving event.
The highest-profile cryptocurrency advanced as much as 2.5% to $69.1K at 10:10 a.m. ET, before paring back gains to $67.3K at 10:53 a.m. ET. The token's previous record of $68.9K was reached on Nov. 10, 2021.
But that’s not all. Gold is moving up too. Benzinga:
Gold prices, as gauged by the SPDR Gold Trust (NYSE:GLD), soared 0.8% to $2,150/oz during midday trading in New York, surpassing the previous peak of $2,146/oz set in December 2023. The yellow metal is now on track for its seventh consecutive day of gains.
The proximate cause of these bull markets is the Fed’s talk of lowering its key interest rate. But there’s more to the story.
Appalling Slaughter
The Russo-Ukrainian war is of little interest to most sensible people. It is, after all, a very familiar border war in Europe. Unlike the appalling slaughter in Gaza, in the Ukraine, soldiers are trying to kill each other, not civilians. That’s the way it is supposed to work.
The area, now called The Ukraine, was part of the Hunnic Empire in about 400 AD. A hundred years later, it was controlled by Slavic tribes. Then, only 100 years further on, it was part of the Avar Khaganate, until the Teverians, whoever they were, took over in the 8th century. On and on. Skipping ahead, over a long period of tribal conflict, conquests, and confusion….Hungarians, Moldavians, Uzes, Pechenegs, the Golden Horde, the Austrian-Hungarian Empire…we arrive, in 1991, for the first time in history at an independent country called The Ukraine. “The Ukraine” means ‘borderland.’ And now, Mr. Putin is determined to make a borderland adjustment…bringing the Russian speakers in the Eastern provinces under the protection of the Russian Federation.
Putin says that people in the Eastern provinces ought to have the right to speak their own language, worship in their own churches and decide on their own leaders. The CIA, the Biden Administration and US firepower industry disagree. They say the war is a naked power grab by Putin, and even imagine that if he is not stopped at Kiev, he will soon be holding a victory parade on the Champs Elysee.
People can think what they want. But the US chose to involve itself in the war, not just by giving money and arms to the Ukrainians, but also using the US-dominated international banking system to try to bring Russia to heel.
SWIFT Reaction
Foreigners now see how easily they can fall afoul of the US…and how it can use its control of the world’s reserve currency to shut down their economies. Naturally, they look for workarounds. A headline in today’s Bloomberg:
Xi tells Putin, both nations need to oppose foreign meddling
And here’s Larry Johnson on Substack:
What a colossal screw up. And the Biden Administration doubled down on [its meddling] by cutting off Russia’s access to SWIFT. The actual effect of the sanctions led Russia to move quickly to form new economic alliances with China and other major economies in the global south and the sanctions accelerated the development of an alternative payment system that was independent of the U.S. dollar. Either the Biden Administration ignored warnings from CIA analysts that Russia’s enormous reserve of natural resources, oil, gas, coal, aluminum, nickel, nitrogen and rare earth minerals insulated it from Western sanction or the CIA failed to analyze accurately the strength of the Russian economy.
Instead of weakening public support in Russia for Vladimir Putin, his political position became stronger. Instead of isolating Putin, NATO’s proxy war helped Putin solidify and expand relations with China, India, Iran, North Korea, South Africa and Brazil.
Nobody does more meddling than the USA. And as long as it has the most powerful, best funded firepower industry…and the world’s reserve currency…it will probably keep meddling.
Just the Beginning
But nothing lasts forever. Borders move. Reserve currencies change. Since 1400, the life expectancy of a reserve currency has been around 100 years. The US dollar became the world’s go-to money back in 1944 – at the Bretton Woods conference.
If the future mirrors the past, the world’s nations – including its biggest exporter, China – will continue looking for alternatives to the US money system, and the dollar will give up its “exorbitant privilege” as the world’s reserve currency over the next 20 years.
The result could be a gradual catastrophe for people with their pensions, assets or savings in dollars. In round numbers, there are about $2 trillion worth of dollars in the world. And about half of them are outside of the US. If they were no longer needed abroad, they might be quickly liberated from their overseas mattresses and vaults and come back home. That could, in effect, double the supply of ‘walking around money’ in the US and greatly increase the level of inflation.
But that is just the beginning.
The US federales also have $34 trillion worth of dollar-denominated debt. Roughly a quarter of that is said to be in foreign hands. The foreigners – including foreign central banks – hold it because it is a safe way to protect their purchasing power in the global economy. But now they see that if they get on the wrong side of the US, it can and will ‘cancel’ their money. So, they look for alternatives, substitutes and workarounds.
This week two of those substitutes hit new all-time highs.
Regards,
Bill Bonner