Open Left

Former stockbroker Max Keiser commented on the article

in an interview with RT.

China, Russia and other countries moving to shift from dependence on the dollar are tired of funding US wars, says activist and former stockbroker Max Keiser.

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by: counterspin @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 22:45:55 PM CDT

Story has been essentially debunked...

...over at Bloomberg.  The Independent's sources are crap.  Even if the story were true, something like this would actually help the economy.  A weaker dollar encourages domestic manufacturing and energy self-reliance.

Personally, this reeks of someone putting a rumor out trying to inflate gold prices.. i.e. pulling a Goldfinger.  It worked!  Gold skyrocketed today!

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 23:15:33 PM CDT

Yes, but....

So far, yes, we've got everybody by the cojones. Bretton Woods and all that. This isn't likely to change in the short run, so successful have we been in tying every merging economic power to the world economy we've dominated for seventy years. And yet, and yet..... We've been guilty in recent times of the most outrageous provocations. So far, only Osama bin Laden has been able to strike back at us, and that only because, in a very fundamental sense, he hasn't any skin in the game.

If we look forward a couple of decades, though, we shouldn't take any great comfort in the unshakeable dominance of the Communist hierarchy in China, or in the staying power of the corrupt principalities of the Middle East, or in the decisive control of Israel arms over the militarily weaker powers of the region, or even of the stability of the Islamic Republic in an Iran in which 50% of the population is under 25. It doesn't take a Nostradamus to foresee that the coming realignments are very unlikely to look anything like those which the best and the brightest -- be they pessimists or optimists -- are touting now.

Is this a good thing? It depends, doesn't it? Am I taking odds one way or another? In a word, no.

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by: William Timberman @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 23:47:10 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

So how's our manufacturing been lately?

Or our reliance on foreign energy?

No.

You are espousing myths.

Most Americans have their wealth in dollar denominated assets.

You have swallowed Chamber of Commerce style propaganda.

The type of propaganda that has given political cover to the a weak dollar, "free" trade, and the export of our manufacturing base.

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by: Paul Goodman @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 05:25:32 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Hardly...

The chamber prefers a strong dollar...a strong dollar encourages trade deficits and the export of manufacturing to other countries.  It makes domestic manufacturing more expensive and imports much cheaper.  The 19th century progressive movement was based on a weak dollar, and Keynes was a strong proponent of it.Why do you think that FDR got off the gold standard?

A strong dollar is great when you're traveling abroad and good for national pride, however, it is not useful for domestic economic growth.  You want to encourage home production of goods?  Make foreign goods more expensive.  

REID: Voting against us was never part of our arrangement!
SPECTER: I am altering the deal! Pray I don't alter it any further!
REID: This deal keeps getting worse all the time!

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by: lord_mike @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 11:58:24 AM CDT

[ Parent ]

Can't happen in a big way

Yes, the next decade and more will see countries moving away from the dollar. But if they do it any more quickly, they get wasted probably more than we do.

Think about what happens to China if they start selling dollars, causing the dollar value to drop. They can't sell dollars fast enough to avoid getting bit by the huge drop in value of their remaining dollar reserves. On top of that, selling a lot of dollars would destabilize virtually all of their major trading partners.

Not going to happen abruptly, but it will happen gradually.

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by: MadScientist @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 23:39:01 PM CDT

more

China probably also has to free the Yuan before it can start devaluing the dollar by selling off its reserves.

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by: MadScientist @ Tue Oct 06, 2009 at 23:40:43 PM CDT

[ Parent ]

This is not looking good.

Despite what 'lord_mike' says (why he'd trust an American corporate news source over a foreign one with something more than a shred of credibility is beyond me), I am pretty sure this is going to happen, and sooner than we care to think.  A couple of years ago there was a piece by Robert Reich called Double Decoupling which described how both foreign nations and American corporations are decoupling from the U.S. economy.  It's happening; the holders of America's massive debts are getting fed up with us and they're about to call them all in.

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by: Michael Kwiatkowski @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 06:30:57 AM CDT

My Swiss friends

claimed that one of the major proponents of this plan was Saddam Hussein, the US boogeyman, and he was trying to implement it back in 2002. Last straw for the Bush/Cheney Junta in their mind. They never had any real evidence, but few of the stories about the 9/11 to Iraq trajectory have much evidence behind them.


"It sounds wrong...
     ...but its right."

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by: SpitBall @ Wed Oct 07, 2009 at 08:31:40 AM CDT