Apocalypse Now? Statist Paul Krugman Says There’s No Real Risk To The Dollar Unless The US Defaults On Its Debt ($187 TRILLION In Unfunded Liabilites That Keep Growing Requiring MORE Debt)

The Federal government in Washington DC is broken beyond repair. Politicians get elected by promising free or cheap things, so they keep delivering the bacon. Or pork to political donors. The top 1% get massive payoffs (like green energy subsidies or bank bailouts), the bottom 99% get out of control entitlements like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. And other unsustainable entitlements. In fact, student loans are now an entitlement since some voters will vote for the corrupt politician (no, Joe Biden isn’t the only corrupt politician in Washington DC) who will forgive their student loans.

In fact, we now have $187 TRILLION in UNFUNDED liabilities that were promised to the 99%. The 1% will always get their political contributions paid. Biden and Schumer have promised their donor class trillions in spending, so that are threatening to let the US debt default to protect the 1%.

And this headline, “Biden Not Ready Yet to Invoke 14th Amendment to Avoid US Default”. That means Biden would adopt extraordinary powers to prevent a debt default. Hence, the idiocy like the trillion dollar coin.

The can’t cut promised entitlements. Look at France where Macron raised the retirement age by 2 years and there are endless riots. So debt default is the only option, though painful.

Will Congress and future administrations stop prominsing endless spending that benefits the 1%? Not likely. Our political system is hopelessly broken.

I am sure that China’s Communist Party has sent Dementia Joe a message “We own you! You better now default on what you owe us!!”

Three of the four horsemen of the financial apocalypse. Yellen is the fourth, but is too short to appear in the picture.

De-dollarization kicks into high gear
By Pepe Escobar (Posted Apr 29, 2023)

“now established that the U.S. dollar’s status as a global reserve currency is eroding. When corporate western media begins to attack the multipolar world’s de-dollarization narrative in earnest, you know the panic in Washington has fully set in.

The numbers: the dollar share of global reserves was 73 percent in 2001, 55 percent in 2021, and 47 percent in 2022. The key takeaway is that last year, the dollar share slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades.

Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024, coinciding with the next U.S. presidential election.

The defining moment—the actual trigger leading to the Fall of the Hegemon—was in February 2022, when over $300 billion in Russian foreign reserves were “frozen” by the collective west, and every other country on the planet began fearing for their own dollar stores abroad. There was some comic relief in this absurd move, though: the EU “can’t find” most of it.

Now cue to some current essential developments on the trading front.

Over 70 percent of trade deals between Russia and China now use either the ruble or the yuan, according to Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov.

Russia and India are trading oil in rupees. Less than four weeks ago, Banco Bocom BBM became the first Latin American bank to sign up as a direct participant of the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), which is the Chinese alternative to the western-led financial messaging system, SWIFT.

China’s CNOOC and France’s Total signed their first LNG trade in yuan via the Shanghai Petroleum and Natural Gas Exchange.

The deal between Russia and Bangladesh for the construction of the Rooppur nuclear plant will also bypass the U.S. dollar. The first $300 million payment will be in yuan, but Russia will try to switch the next ones to rubles.

Russia and Bolivia’s bilateral trade now accepts settlements in Boliviano. That’s extremely pertinent, considering Rosatom’s drive to be a crucial part of the development of lithium deposits in Bolivia.

Notably, many of those trades involve BRICS countries—and beyond. At least 19 nations have already requested to join BRICS+, the extended version of the 21st century’s major multipolar institution, whose founding members are Brazil, Russia, India, and China, then South Africa. The foreign ministers of the original five will start discussing the modalities of accession for new members in an upcoming June summit in Capetown.

BRICS, as it stands, is already more relevant to the global economy than the G7. The latest IMF figures reveal that the existing five BRICS nations will contribute 32.1 percent to global growth, compared to the G7’s 29.9 percent.

With Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Turkey, Indonesia, and Mexico as possible new members, it is clear that key Global South players are starting to focus on the quintessential multilateral institution capable of smashing Western hegemony.

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman (MbS) are working in total sync as Moscow’s partnership with Riyadh in OPEC+ metastasizes into BRICS+, in parallel to the deepening Russia-Iran strategic partnership. ...”

https://mronline.org/2023/04/29/de-dollarization-kicks-into-high-gear/

The US needs to default.

Spoken like a true leftist who champions shirking responsibility. You're ok wth students not paying back loans as well, comrade?

Sure, The End will come some day. However, America is an economic fortress. Fortresses come under assault and take hits. But America and her fortress economy stand alone.

Before the Eeyores start in, here are a few things for perspective.

America makes up 4% of the world's population...

...and yet we crank out 24% of the planet's GDP.

And while we are at the top of the Countries that Consume the Most Oil (2020 barrels per day)

United States — 17,178,000
China — 14,225,000
India — 4,669,000
Saudi Arabia — 3,544,000
Japan — 3,268,000
Russia — 3,238,000
South Korea — 2,560,000
Brazil — 2,323,000
Canada — 2,282,000
— Germany 2,045,000

...we also top the list of Countries with the Highest Oil Production (barrels per day)

United States - 11,567,000
Russia - 10,503,000
Saudi Arabia - 10,225,000
Canada - 4,656,000
Iraq - 4,260,000
China - 3,969,000
United Arab Emirates - 2,954,000
Brazil - 2,852,000
Kuwait - 2,610,000
Iran - 2,546,000

Thus, we Americans, making up only 4% of the planet's headcount, produce about a quarter of GDP - punching way above our weight. In relative contrast, China is a joke.

And if THAT wasn't cool enough, America's 4% of the population is at the top of the equity market food chain:

And, of course, we win the gun race by a mile...

....but we're not losing the murder race.

As for the national debt, we have trillions in untapped oil and gas and mineral resources. IER estimated the worth of the government’s oil and gas technically recoverable resources to the economy to be about 8 times our national debt.

De-dollarization is a fantasy of the Harvard faculty, anti-Americans, and fearporn salesmen. Usually, they are all the same people, unless you're using FR as a conservative beard.

Nothing any neocon, who continues to fantasize of unending dominance over all creation, can say will undo this present reality:

De-dollarization kicks into high gear
By Pepe Escobar (Posted Apr 29, 2023)

“The numbers: the dollar share of global reserves was 73 percent in 2001, 55 percent in 2021, and 47 percent in 2022. The key takeaway is that last year, the dollar share slid 10 times faster than the average in the past two decades.

Now it is no longer far-fetched to project a global dollar share of only 30 percent by the end of 2024, coinciding with the next U.S. presidential election. ...”

https://mronline.org/2023/04/29/de-dollarization-kicks-into-high-gear/

Or this:

Independent Sentinel
Countries Look to De-Dollarize, Breaking from the “Demons in Davos”
4/2/23

“According to Min News, fifty-six countries, including Israel and Japan, want to de-dollarize. ...”

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