Moderator: Peak Moderation
Pro-Russian activists, some armed, have stormed the HQ of Ukraine's navy in the Crimean city of Sevastopol.
Several Ukrainian servicemen have left, the Russia flag is flying and there are reports that Ukrainian navy chief Serhiy Hayduk has been detained.
It comes a day after Crimean leaders signed a treaty with Russia absorbing the peninsula into Russia.
CBM is bad news environmentally, but it may be a significant energy resource, and the preponderance of ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine may be all the excuse Putin needs to annex this coal fields as well.Eastern Ukraine’s giant Donbas coal field is estimated by many analysts as holding very impressive quantities of coalbed methane, with published outline estimates from the US EIA and other sources extending well above 1 trillion cubic metres.
Notice that for ten years the Russians have not been jumping up and down as the USA hops from one Central Asian state to the next blowing things up and arranging affairs so that hundreds of thousands of people get killed — quite a few by our cunning model airplanes controlled by military video gamesters, who blow away “folks” on morning watch before repairing to the nearest Taco Bell for an order of Doritos Locos (and a chance to watch Lady Gaga get vomit-tagged on their iPhones). I wonder how the USA would feel if the Russian foreign ministry ginned up an operation to persuade Texas to secede from the Union (again).
And now add bilateral trade denominated in either Rubles or Renminbi (or gold), add Iran, Iraq, India, and soon the Saudis (China's largest foreign source of crude, whose crown prince also happened to meet president Xi Jinping last week to expand trade further) and wave goodbye to the petrodollar.
Was just about to post it myself.emordnilap wrote:What do you think of this article? There's a big game being played.
Petrodollar Alert: Putin Prepares To Announce "Holy Grail" Gas Deal With China
And now add bilateral trade denominated in either Rubles or Renminbi (or gold), add Iran, Iraq, India, and soon the Saudis (China's largest foreign source of crude, whose crown prince also happened to meet president Xi Jinping last week to expand trade further) and wave goodbye to the petrodollar.
To understand why trade deals between Russia, China and India are potentially huge, a little history is useful: Back in the 1970s, the US cut a deal with Saudi Arabia — at the time the world’s biggest oil producer — calling for the US to prop up the kingdom’s corrupt monarchy in return for a Saudi pledge that it would accept only dollars in return for oil. The “petrodollar” became the currency in which oil and most other goods were traded internationally, requiring every central bank and major corporation to hold a lot of dollars and cementing the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This in turn has allowed the US to build a global military empire, a cradle-to-grave entitlement system, and a credit-based consumer culture, without having to worry about where to find the funds. We just borrow from a world voracious for dollars.
But if Russia, China and India decide to start trading oil in their own currencies — or, as Zero Hedge speculates, in gold — then the petrodollar becomes just one of several major currencies. Central banks and trading firms that now hold 60% of their reserves in dollar-denominated bonds would have to rebalance by converting dollars to those other currencies. Trillions of dollars would be dumped on the global market in a very short time, which would lower the dollar’s foreign exchange value in a disruptive rather than advantageous way, raise domestic US interest rates and make it vastly harder for us to bully the rest of the world economically or militarily.
For Russia, China and India this looks like a win/win. Their own currencies gain prestige, giving their governments more political and military muscle. The US, their nemesis in the Great Game, is diminished. And the gold and silver they’ve vacuumed up in recent years rise in value more than enough to offset their depreciating Treasury bonds.
The West seems not to have grasped just how vulnerable it was when it got involved in this latest backyard squabble. But it may be about to find out.
Put that way, this could be it, the biggie. What do you think?UndercoverElephant wrote:http://dollarcollapse.com/currency-war- ... trodollar/
To understand why trade deals between Russia, China and India are potentially huge, a little history is useful: Back in the 1970s, the US cut a deal with Saudi Arabia — at the time the world’s biggest oil producer — calling for the US to prop up the kingdom’s corrupt monarchy in return for a Saudi pledge that it would accept only dollars in return for oil. The “petrodollar” became the currency in which oil and most other goods were traded internationally, requiring every central bank and major corporation to hold a lot of dollars and cementing the greenback’s status as the world’s reserve currency. This in turn has allowed the US to build a global military empire, a cradle-to-grave entitlement system, and a credit-based consumer culture, without having to worry about where to find the funds. We just borrow from a world voracious for dollars.
But if Russia, China and India decide to start trading oil in their own currencies — or, as Zero Hedge speculates, in gold — then the petrodollar becomes just one of several major currencies. Central banks and trading firms that now hold 60% of their reserves in dollar-denominated bonds would have to rebalance by converting dollars to those other currencies. Trillions of dollars would be dumped on the global market in a very short time, which would lower the dollar’s foreign exchange value in a disruptive rather than advantageous way, raise domestic US interest rates and make it vastly harder for us to bully the rest of the world economically or militarily.
For Russia, China and India this looks like a win/win. Their own currencies gain prestige, giving their governments more political and military muscle. The US, their nemesis in the Great Game, is diminished. And the gold and silver they’ve vacuumed up in recent years rise in value more than enough to offset their depreciating Treasury bonds.
The West seems not to have grasped just how vulnerable it was when it got involved in this latest backyard squabble. But it may be about to find out.
Well said Steve.stevecook172001 wrote:There is a growing bullshit narrative that seeks to argue that all of the growing crony capitalist woes of the West are really examples of too much socialism.
Like the EU (according to Victoria Nuland).emordnilap wrote:The IMF should just fúck off.
And "agreed their energy ministers would work together to reduce dependence on Russian oil and gas and increase energy security" (read fracking, ecg and giving more money to the RGRalphs of this world).