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Michael considered fate at 14:41   |   Permalink   |   Post a Comment

More fiat money talk is here, in a speech by Republican Ron Paul of Texas:

It all ended on August 15, 1971, when Nixon closed the gold window and refused to pay out any of our remaining 280 million ounces of gold. In essence, we declared our insolvency and everyone recognized some other monetary system had to be devised in order to bring stability to the markets.

Amazingly, a new system was devised which allowed the U.S. to operate the printing presses for the world reserve currency with no restraints placed on it-- not even a pretense of gold convertibility, none whatsoever! Though the new policy was even more deeply flawed, it nevertheless opened the door for dollar hegemony to spread.

Realizing the world was embarking on something new and mind boggling, elite money managers, with especially strong support from U.S. authorities, struck an agreement with OPEC to price oil in U.S. dollars exclusively for all worldwide transactions. This gave the dollar a special place among world currencies and in essence “backed” the dollar with oil. In return, the U.S. promised to protect the various oil-rich kingdoms in the Persian Gulf against threat of invasion or domestic coup. This arrangement helped ignite the radical Islamic movement among those who resented our influence in the region. The arrangement gave the dollar artificial strength, with tremendous financial benefits for the United States. It allowed us to export our monetary inflation by buying oil and other goods at a great discount as dollar influence flourished.

It is no real surprise, then, that at the turn of this century Iraq was making waves towards moving Oil sales to the Euro and, consequently, the U.S. decided Saddam should probably be overthrown. Likewise with Venezuela, who spoke of switching to the Euro.

Then who, do you suspect, might be discussing the Euro move now? Well, we need only to look to who the U.S. is posturing at now: Iran.

At the end of the day money conquers all. Those who think religion or ethnic/cultural nationalism are the true drivers of economic and political policy on the global scale might think again, and review the story of our small green earth over the last 50 to 100 years.

Then, maybe, go buy some gold?