Another Step Towards Collapse of Petrodollar

Note: Please see the source for currency swap agreements chart.

 

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For the past year and half a major topic throughout the alternative press has been the new Chinese oil futures contract settled/priced in yuan. The fact that China is directly challenging the Federal Reserve Note, U.S. dollar, is quiet a significant change. For those that have been paying attention this new futures oil contract is nothing more than the next step in China moving completely away from the Federal Reserve Note, and the “world reserve currency” system and towards a multi-polar world with several currencies being used for international trade.

Crash of 2014: Like 1929, you’ll never hear it coming

SAN LUIS OBISPO, Calif. (MarketWatch) — Imagine, you’re in the exciting new 21st century. Civilization still exists on Planet Earth. Wall Street’s still in business. But you’re still asking: Why can’t we hear the next crash? Are we deaf? No. The warnings are always long and loud. So why can’t we “hear” them? In fact, it’ll get worse. Here’s why…

Yes, crashes will keep coming: History lesson: The 1929 crash led to the Great Depression. On March 20, 2000 we warned: “Next crash? Sorry, you’ll never hear it coming.” Few listened. The 1990’s dot-com mania led to Wall Street losing $8 trillion in the 2000-2003 bear-market recession. Nothing changed. Another round of warnings roared from 2004 into 2008. Few listened. Another crash. Wall Street lost even more, $10 trillion.

Morgan Stanley’s Doom Scenario: Major Recession in 2013

The global economy is likely to be stuck in the “twilight zone” of sluggish growth in 2013, Morgan Stanley has warned, but if policymakers fail to act, it could get a lot worse.

The bank’s economics team forecasts a full-blown recession next year, under a pessimistic scenario, with global gross domestic product (GDP) likely to plunge 2 percent.

“More than ever, the economic outlook hinges upon the actions taken or not taken by governments and central banks,” Morgan Stanley said in a report.

IMF Head Warns Time Running Out for Euro Zone

“Is it one minute to midnight in Europe?” they write. “The failure of German public opinion to grasp the dire state of affairs in Europe today is inviting a repeat of precisely the crisis of the mid-20th century that European integration was designed to avoid.” Germans, they write, “would do well to remember how a European banking crisis two years before 1933 contributed directly to the breakdown of democracy not just in their own country but right across the European continent.”

The authors argue that Germany’s prosperity is largely a result of the monetary union. “The euro has given German exporters a far more competitive exchange rate than the old deutsche mark would have. And the rest of the euro zone remains the destination for 42 percent of German exports,” they argue. “Plunging half of that market into a new Depression can hardly be good for Germany.”

Full article: IMF Head Warns Time Running Out for Euro Zone (Spiegel Online)

China And Japan Currency Swap: Nail In US Dollar’s Coffin

On 25 December 2011, the government of Peoples Republic of China and Japan unveiled plans to promote direct exchange of their currencies. This agreement will allow firms to convert the Chinese and Japanese currencies directly into each other, thus negating the need to buy dollars. This deal between China and Japan followed agreements between China and numerous countries to trade outside the sphere of the US dollar. A few weeks earlier, China also announced a 70 billion Yuan ($11 billion) currency swap agreement with Thailand.

After visiting China, the Prime Minister of Japan Yoshihiko Noda went on to India and signed another currency swap agreement with the government of India. These currency agreements in Asia came in a year when the countries of the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam) were seeking to deepen ways to strengthen their firewall to protect their economies from the continued devaluation of the US dollar. In the year of the ‘Eurozone crisis’ when the future of the EURO as a viable currency was fraught with uncertainty, many states were reconsidering holding their reserves in the US dollar.

Continue reading article: China And Japan Currency Swap: Nail In US Dollar’s Coffin (Eurasia Review)