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Page added on October 8, 2017
This Is The Only Russia Story That Matters
The World Gold Council has reported that the Central Bank of Russia has more than doubled the pace of its gold purchases, bringing its reserves to the highest level since Putin took power 17 years ago.
Russia’s desire to break away from the hegemony of the U.S. dollar and the dollar payment system is well-known. Over 60% of global reserves and 80% of global payments are in dollars. The U.S. is the only country with veto power at the International Monetary Fund, the global lender of last resort.
Perhaps Russia’s most aggressive weapon in its war on dollars is gold. The first line of defense is to acquire physical gold, which cannot be frozen out of the international payments system or hacked.
With gold, you can always pay another country just by putting the gold on an airplane and shipping it to the counterparty. This is the 21st-century equivalent of how J.P. Morgan settled payments in gold by ship or railroad in the early 20th century.
Russia has now tripled its gold reserves from around 600 tonnes to 1,800 tonnes over the past 10 years and shows no signs of slowing down. Even when oil prices and Russian reserves were collapsing in 2015, Russia continued to acquire gold.
But Russia is pursuing other dollar alternatives besides gold.
For one, it’s been building nondollar payments systems with regional trading partners and China.
The U.S. uses its influence at SWIFT, the central nervous system of global money transfer message traffic, to cut off nations it considers to be threats.
From a financial perspective, this is like cutting off oxygen to a patient in the intensive care unit. Russia understands its vulnerability to U.S. domination and wants to reduce that vulnerability.
Now Russia has created an alternative to SWIFT.
The head of Russia’s central bank, Elvira Nabiullina, has reported to Vladimir Putin that “There was the threat of being shut out of SWIFT. We updated our transaction system, and if anything happens, all SWIFT-format operations will continue to work. We created an analogous system.”
Russia is also part of a reported Chinese plan to install a new international monetary order that excludes U.S. dollars.
Under that plan, China could buy Russian oil with yuan and Russia could then exchange that yuan for gold on the Shanghai exchange.
Now it appears Russia has another weapon in its anti-dollar arsenal.
Russia’s development bank, VEB, and several Russian state ministries are reportedly teaming up to develop blockchain technology. They want to create a fully encrypted, distributed, inexpensive payments system that does not rely on Western banks, SWIFT or the U.S. to move money around.
This has nothing to do with bitcoin, which is just another digital token. The blockchain technology (now often referred to as distributed ledger technology, or DLT) is a platform that can facilitate a wide variety of transfers — possibly including a new Russian-state cryptocurrency backed by gold.
“Putin coins,” anyone?
The ultimate loser here will be the dollar. That’s one more reason for investors to allocate part of their portfolios to assets such as gold.
74 Comments on "This Is The Only Russia Story That Matters"
Davy on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 8:58 pm
Grehg, when did you know you were a prick and know that was where your talent is?
Cloggie on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 9:36 pm
What this forum desperately needs is a separate thread where certain regulars can go at each others throat 24/7.
makati1 on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 9:49 pm
Greg, if the scale is 1 is not and 10 is a mental case … Davy is at least a 12.
makati1 on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 9:55 pm
cloggie, the site would die if all there was is a few techie dreamers to debate how much oil is left and the price tomorrow. Or the nonexistent future of ‘renewables’ The site mangers know this. The site would not get into the personal if the few here who are mentally challenged would just leave. (Boat, Davy, etc.) They are perfect examples of the new dumbed down, drugged up, mentally delusional American. The US brainwashing has worked beyond the wildest imaginings of Bernays.
deadlykillerbeaz on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 11:03 pm
Gold is useless unless you are building a computer, then it has plenty of value. Good to have for building satellites too.
You can have gold coins, but a bar of soap is better than gold when you need to clean your stinky body from time to time.
I have visited Canada many times. Why do people put down Canadians like they do, they’re good people too, you know. Besides, they invented the world’s greatest game, hockey, so don’t berate and belittle Canada, a Native American word for ‘big village’.
The Canadian paper one dollar bill is no longer printed and is out of circulation, is worth about five dollars US because it has become a rare find, a collectible. I wish I had ten million of them.
If you want to own something of value, find a Chopard watch out there and buy one. An old Bulova is a good find too, a Swiss made Clebar has value.
It is important to know how much time has elapsed now and then, so a good watch is handy to have around the garage.
Lots of Bulovas had gold in them, so don’t knock owning junk gold in the form of old watches.
Old watches have been melted down for their gold content. They are becoming rarer.
Multiply all US assets, the land from sea to shining sea, the satellites up in spaceland, everything inside the borders, the maritime ships at sea, the US Navy has plenty of ships for navy stuff, the US Air Force has a great deal of assets, the twenty trillion in debt is a piece of cake to pay back with US assets as collateral.
3,000,000 square miles of land, territorial waters, at 10,000 USD per acre as an average true value, the land alone is worth 19,200,000,000,000 dollars. 3,000,000×640×10,000=19,200,000,000,000,000.
That is just the land, the productive capacity makes the US worth much more.
Who else can put together a Boeing Dreamliner? Although, I did take ride in an A320, not a bad plane for what it is.
The US northern border should be at 54°40′, Canada would not be the big village and most Canadians would be American citizens.
Canada did produce the Guess Who, so it is good place, nonetheless.
Can’t we all just get along?
Cheers!
deadlykillerbeaz on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 11:26 pm
Oops, three too many zeroes on the last 19,200,000,000,000.
GregT on Sun, 8th Oct 2017 11:35 pm
“Grehg, when did you know you were a prick and know that was where your talent is?”
When did you first come to the realization that you have both serious emotional and psychological issues? Clear as day, and plain for all to see. There is no possible way that you could have gotten to this stage in your life, without being fully aware of both of them.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 5:29 am
“What this forum desperately needs is a separate thread where certain regulars can go at each others throat 24/7.”
Great idea clog, we need a mad cat, grehg thread that I can moderate.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 5:34 am
“The site mangers know this. The site would not get into the personal if the few here who are mentally challenged would just leave.”
Mad cat, I have told you about moderating your extremism now for 4 going on 5 years but you refuse to listen. Moderate a little and show respect. How hard is that to do? You are the reason this board as gone into the gutter. Your buddy grehg is also by his stalking and pricking of Americans. You are the primary reason for the extremism of the regulars. You are disgusting individual. It is a good thing you are old maybe you will go into a nursing home soon.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 5:50 am
Delusions of grandeur.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 6:27 am
Look at grehg, couldn’t sleep thinking about stalking and pricking. Get help grehg before you destroy your family.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 6:37 am
The two common factors in all of these exchanges.
1- You.
2- Your rabid exceptionalist, American extremism.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 6:48 am
Come on grehg say something of use. There is nothing intellectual about pricking and stalking. It is obvious you have personality issues. You went to bed late last night pricking and up very early stalking and pricking. How about saying something intellectual like, you know, comment on an article or something. Get help grehg you are mentally ill.
fmr-paultard on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 10:39 am
if russia is so good wonder why snowden doesn’t like it there. cambridge five didn’t either.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 11:18 am
“The problem with you all is unless I as an American lay down and say we are beaten, you anti-American extremist are not satisfied. You want complete surrender. You Anglos are backstabbing fools who wish you were more than you are. You whine moan and complain constantly about the US and never look in the mirror. It is too hard to look in the mirror because you are also failures.”
Does the above sound rational to you delusionalist? Or more like rabid exceptionalist, American extremism.
Just because others see things differently than you do, does not mean that they are beating you down, anti-American extremists, want your complete surrender, backstabbers, fools, moaners, complainers, or failures.
Not rational at all. Emotional.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 11:22 am
Still hurt becuase your pricking backfired grehg? Say something and read the articles. People here don’t care about your hurt feeling. Quit being a child. You are a horrible person in my mind. You are he worst of what is wrong these days in the world and that is fake respectability. Go bite yourself and maybe you will feel something.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 11:40 am
China and Russia have made themselves very clear that they are not going to settle for a uni-polar world order. It makes no difference whether you are upset by that, or not. Nobody on this board has any say in the matter.
Your little emotional outbursts, are a waste of your time, and everybody else’s. How this all plays out is anybodies guess, but what Energy Investor said above makes perfect sense. Instead of going off on yet another emotionally charged temper tantrum, how about explaining why you believe EI to be so off track.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 11:47 am
Grehg, why not practice a 5 intelligent comments to one stalk and prick ratio comment policy. I think you will look more intelligent. I am not sure if you are capable of an intelligent comment that is not stalk and prick related. You are a sad example of a west coast Canadian anti-American extremist whiner. Wa wa, pussy.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 12:04 pm
Everything that Energy Investor said above, makes complete sense, and is exactly the way that I see it.
The US has made itself very clear that it is pushing for 21st century global dominance, both financially, and militarily. Russia and China have both made themselves perfectly clear that they will not allow that to happen, and want a multipolar world power structure.
How do you see this working out for the USA?
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 12:25 pm
“Everything that Energy Investor said above, makes complete sense, and is exactly the way that I see it.”
Sure she does grehg you both are Anglo’s who are anti-American. Of course you are going to find complete sense in what she said. Now try to take your emotional extremist blinders off and see this whole issue of global financialization is all about nuanced. Extremist hate nuance and relativity. They love hard binary black and white. They want to supercharge their emotions. So have a wonderful moment finding complete sense. I do not find complete sense because she left out significant details as you always do.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 1:48 pm
You are the one here who is binary. Everything to you is either pro, or anti-American. I could care less. I have no absolutely no say in geopolitics, and just because I see things heading in one direction or another, does not mean that I need to like, or agree with what I see.
Cloggie on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 2:20 pm
“if russia is so good wonder why snowden doesn’t like it there. cambridge five didn’t either.”
Because he is a stranger there. His home is elsewhere.
But don’t have illusions, the only ones interested to go the US are third worlders.
Davy on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 2:39 pm
Nope, grehg, I am all about balance. Most of what is discussed here is American critical which is why I am here. I am not flag waiving. I am on an anti-American site populated with mostly anti-Americans. What I do is make sure the extremist anti-Americans like you can’t peddle your extreme version of the topic. In your binary world it is “either or” “all or nothing”. You even take it as far as stalking and pricking Americans you don’t like. You do care about your nationalistic views and you care so much you are completely obsessive about having your extremist anti-American say in the matter. What is worse is you have this obsession with being respected and like I have said in the past you earn your respect it is not given to you. You are finding with me your pricking is backfiring. You are getting pricked back and not liking it.
GregT on Mon, 9th Oct 2017 2:43 pm
Completely delusional, as per usual.