patrick.net

cisTits says

richwicks says

Noo, cisTits - answer the question. Don't point to a fucking haystack and say the needle is in there.

What does Russia need US or European currency for? To trade for what?

HAS nothing to do with what I was talking about OR it covers your answer...depending on WHATEVER THE FUCK PLANET YOU ARE ON.

https://patrick.net/post/1344246&offset=0#comment-1828713

Learn to fucking read.

OK, fine.

What do the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) need US dollars for?

Congratulate the Neocons for joining Russia, India and China at the hip. South Africa is a major gold producer which is why they are included.

You know why?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BRICS#History

The summit's focus was on improving the global economic situation and reforming financial institutions, and discussed how the four countries could better co-operate in the future. There was further discussion of ways that developing countries, such as 3/4 of the BRIC members, could become more involved in global affairs.

So.... Why exactly do they need US toiler paper?

I remember hearing about the BRICS over 10 years ago. It was THEN heralded as the end of the petrodollar.

The problem with the current "reserve" currency is that the US just keeps making more of it. They don't do any work to make it. It's astounding that the world hasn't abandoned it yet. It seems like the only reason that the rest of world keeps to it, is that they are either bribed, blackmailed, threatened, or murdered to stay in it.

About 20% of Russia's GDP was imported goods and services as of 2017.

When you are talking that percentage of an entire economy it is a lot of everything. Russia was and still is connected to the international economy.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/russia/#economy

Misc says

About 20% of Russia's GDP was imported goods and services as of 2017.

When you are talking that percentage of an entire economy it is a lot of everything. Russia was and still is connected to the international economy.

https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/russia/#economy

I'm looking at the Imports - commodities:

cars and vehicle parts, packaged medicines, broadcasting equipment, aircraft, computers (2019)

They import some electricity. 1.377 billion kWh, but export 12.116.

They do import some refined petroleum products. and natural gas. I don't know from where and if it's from Europe.

My point, is they don't have heavy external dependence, and even their dependence might be entirely luxury goods. The only think I see in there is computers, and I think (well almost know) they can source from China directly for that. Cars and car parts may become a problem in the long term. I know there is a "not" BMW plant or two in Russia - they don't technically import, but they build the cars in Russia, and it's BMW but I don't think its labelled that way. This is to get around sanctions. I doubt that's labelled as an import though.

My point is I think Europe is FAR more dependent on Russia than the other way around. Another thing is, I'm not certain this conflict between Russia and the US is really a war against Russia - it may be the US has gone to war with the EU and is using this war to wage it.

When imports are 20% of your entire economy its more than just luxury goods

In the US it is about 10% of GDP and you see how much bitching there is on reliance on China imports.

cisTits says

To trade with other countries in dollars because that is the world's reserve currency.

OR you can just do currency swaps. Russia is a net exporter, all they need to do is request the nation purchasing their energy (which is mostly what they export), to pay in Rubles to do it, or Renminbi, or gold, or whatever.cisTits says

China and Russia even had a deal to swap yuan but the Chinese backed out, leaving Russia with a load of yuan that not even the Chinese wanted.

I doubt it. Nothing prevents Russia from going into China and spending the Renminbi.

cisTits says

Yes, the dollar is shit. But RELATIVELY against other currencies, it is the best game in town. Gold is probably an exception. The Russians have proved this.

Russia isn't going to stop trading with China, and India CANNOT stop trading with Russia. They are highly dependent on Russian energy. Even if they wanted to go along with US sanctions, they can't, they'd end up with likely food shortages then revolution.

cisTits says

BTW, in the last 30+ years, which countries have seriously tried to set up gold standard currencies OR considered just conducting international trade in gold?

Yugoslavia, Iraq, and Libya.

Didn't know about Yugoslavia.

Russia isn't Iraq or Libya either and India is highly dependent on Russia. If Russia really breaks up, India might be next, after a massive famine.

You forgot the wonderful example of Venezuela. Largest oil deposits in the world, all their reserves in gold.

AND no toilet paper, or pretty much anything people needed.

Misc says

You forgot the wonderful example of Venezuela. Largest oil deposits in the world, all their reserves in gold.

Yeah, they were stupid. Wasn't a very large portion of their gold at the Bank of England which they can't get back because Juan Guaido is "really" their president?

Misc says

AND no toilet paper, or pretty much anything people needed.

I don't know anything about their internal economy, and I know I cannot trust US news reports about that nation since they were made "an enemy".

Nope, they pulled their gold from the US Fed and we let them do it even though we knew they were gonna default on their bonds.

Misc says

Nope, they pulled their gold from the US Fed and we let them do it even though we knew they were gonna default on their bonds.

Mmm, I don't remember honestly, and I'm not going to look it up.

Don't know enough about the situation in Venezuela, I have a tendency to find out what is going on when my nation is fucking with it, and the fuckery hasn't reached that level. If they do a coup or a war, I'll have to do due diligence then.

The fundamental problem with government central planning is what Ludwig von Mises called the Socialist Calculation Problem. That's what imperial governments usually have. Both Russians and Chinese have long histories of imperial governments and central-planning. They need external trade to mollify the Calculation Problem and Corruption. Usually through using external price signals so their economies can know what to produce (and use what input factors). When asked how would his socialist paradise set prices on everything, Trotsky infamously said they would just copy down all the prices the night before socialist revolution. Of course that wouldn't work in the long run: technologies and available input factors change.

Historically, a sea-borne civilization had better price discovery process as various islands and ports could communicate with each other via open sea lanes whenever an existing port pseudo-monoply intermediary charges too much . . . whereas land-based trade routes tend to collapse into wars due to those trade routes are serial so the owner of one fortress along the only path has an incentive to raise taxes at the expense of the transit points both before and after his own thereby giving rise to land-based empires monopolizing a land trade route, leading to bureaucratic inefficiency, civil strife and collapse.

Ironically, the US has been witnessing the same Calculation Problem this century thanks to fiat money central banking progressing to its late stages . . . just look at the widespread "unicorn" frauds in the tech sector and the bubbles and busts (all essentially ponzi scams) in the financial sector.

I have a hard time believing Chinese can do any government-sponsored technology programs like cutting edge chip development any better than Theranos was (i.e. fraud). Whatever outfit doing it not going bankrupt would only suck even more blood from the economy upon which the sponsoring government is feeding off. After seeing how easily the American Empire was prone to be captured by Communists/Fascists in recent years (visibly in the streets of 2020-2021), the world's elite investors might be thinking of transitioning to a "multi-polar" world with physical border separations to prevent systematic capture, similar to the Biblical story about God breaking up the tower building crowd into numerous countries speaking different languages. That's why they have paid agents deliberately waging losing wars in Europe, as a way of breaking up the American Empire while harvesting the bank accounts of European vassal states' citizens.