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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.(*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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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?
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This is the oil for dollars deal?It doesn't appear likely that the deal is going to happen.
This is the oil for dollars deal?
Quid pro quo.This is curious:
Just an investment, or something related to a developing BRICS quid pro quo?
"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."
The original agreement in '74 also made no mention of oil.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.
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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.
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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.
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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 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.
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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.
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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.
BIS Annual Report said:... The priority for monetary policy is to firmly re-establish price stability. ...
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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. ...
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.
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... 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.”
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Turkey is making a strategic play to join the BRICS group of emerging-market nations, a move reflecting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's ambition to broaden Turkey's global influence. This bid comes as Erdogan's administration seeks to pivot away from Western alliances and enhance ties with key global players. The push for BRICS membership highlights Turkey's frustration with stalled EU accession talks and its growing rifts with NATO allies over its relations with Russia. ...
A top official from Saudi Arabia said the country is “open to new ideas” – including use of the yuan in crude settlements – as the oil-rich Middle Eastern nation looks to incorporate Chinese products like electric vehicles (EVs), the C919 passenger jet and renewable energy infrastructure while it attempts to diversify its economy.
Bandar Al-khorayef, Saudi minister of industry and mineral resources, made the comments as the two countries have moved closer despite an escalating rivalry between China and the US, Saudi Arabia’s traditional ally.
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The National Bank of Ras Al Khaimah (RAKBANK) has become one of the first banks in the United Arab Emirates to successfully execute an international remittance using China’s digital yuan (eCNY) in exchange for the digital dirham, the UAE’s CBDC, it said on Tuesday.
This transaction highlights the transformative potential of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs) in revolutionizing cross-border payments by delivering in real-time with enhanced transparency and reduced costs. With this, RAKBANK has become one of the first banks globally to be part of a live CBDC platform and is ready to transact.
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