Free Republic

KEY TAKEAWAYS The European Commission wants to hand Ukraine $300 billion seized from Russia. Doing so likely would sound the death knell for the dollar and eventually the euro. The message from the EU and the Biden administration is crystal clear: Western financial markets are now a dangerous place to park your money. The talk of seizing foreigners’ assets is exposing these dollar-denominated loans as less than safe. Indeed, they’re more of a liability. Confidence in Western financial markets has already been shaken enough by the 20% devaluation of the dollar over the last few years. But now the European...

We are living in the USA where corruption, favoritism, open borders and an out-of-control Federal budget and debt are destroying this once great nation. Former Kansas City Fed President Thomas M. Hoenig was absolutely right when he said recently that The Federal Reserve panders to Wall Street, Congress and special interest groups, prioritizing immediate relief over financial stability. Bernanke’s zero-interest rate policies (ZIRP) and Quantitative Easing (QE) were short-term fixes that never went away. Indeed, since the subprime mortgage crisis of 2008-2009, US Dollar purchasing power is DOWN -32% and M2 Money is up a staggering 177%. While Yellen stuck...

Two crypto influencers on X have called on their followers to snap up Bitcoin BTC, gold and silver, citing the risk of rising national debt in the United States. In an X post on March 11, entrepreneur and angel investor Balaji Srinivasan argued that Bitcoin is the only realistic solution to escape the inevitability of unsustainable government spending and potential asset confiscation. “We’re in the looting-the-treasury phase of imperial collapse,” the former Coinbase chief technology officer told his 994,000 followers. Srinivasan argued that government debt and wasteful spending continue to grow rapidly at unsustainable levels. U.S. national debt is currently...

Police are searching for a group of suspects accused of targeting a man in a violent incident outside a gas station on February 22 in Kansas City, Missouri. Surveillance video shows a man exit the gas station, located on the 4500 block of Cleveland Ave., just before 11:00 p.m. when three suspects approach him, KMBC reported Friday. Law enforcement said the suspects asked the man for a dollar and the man gave it to them. However, as the man appeared to try and get back into his vehicle, the suspects closed in and one of them allegedly shot the man,...

KEY TAKEAWAYS Biden’s unprecedented freezing of U.S. dollars owned by a foreign central bank has fundamentally jeopardized the currency’s hard-won reserve status. Janet Yellen dropped a bombshell last year, casually admitting that not only is de-dollarization happening, but Americans should expect more. At a minimum, it’d be multiple years of double-digit inflation like we’re used to seeing in third world countries. At worst, it’d be a full-blown Weimar Republic. America’s political establishment has less respect for the U.S. dollar than our foreign adversaries. That was made clear when Tucker Carlson recently interviewed the Russian strongman President Vladimir Putin, who clearly...

Five of the six countries invited to join the BRICS bloc of developing nations from Jan. 1 have confirmed they are joining, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Ethiopia, Iran and Egypt, South African foreign minister Naledi Pandor said on Wednesday.

De-dollarization is the process of reducing the US dollar's hegemony in global trade and financial operations by shifting to alternative exchange methods such as national currencies and domestic payment systems, as well as transferring currency reserves. A third of UN member states have already opted for de-dollarization and decided to rely on national currencies to conduct payments, Sputnik's analysis has found. The analysis, which looked into statements made by officials from 193 UN countries in international and Russian media, showed that representatives of at least 68 UN nations openly supported the process of de-dollarization or stated that they were taking...

Jackson Browne said it best. The US economy is “running on empty.” M2 Money growth is negative. And M2 Money growth has been negative for the last year. The third and largest round of fiscal stimulus was in March of 2021. That’s when Biden’s popularity peaked at 55.1 percent. Base image from 588 Biden Approval Ratings. Why Biden’s Approval Rating Is Miserable Income is rising and so are wages. Even real income is up. But real wages are another matter. Personal income data from the BEA, hourly wages from the BLS, real hourly earnings and chart by Mish. Rental income...

Multinational investment bank Morgan Stanley downgraded the outlook for the U.S. dollar from ‘Bullish’ to ‘Neutral’ on Friday. The global bank cited that the Federal Reserve initiating interest rate cuts led to the decline of U.S. Treasury yields. Morgan Stanley’s outlook for the U.S. dollar is now officially ‘Neutral’ and downgraded from its previous stance of ‘Bullish’. The downgrade comes at a time when the BRICS alliance is advancing to uproot the U.S. dollar’s global supremacy. ...The U.S. dollar index might dip to $100, and if it slips to double digits, local currencies could begin to strengthen. The development coincides...

Iraq will ban the US dollar from the start of next year as the global movement against the greenback gathers pace, one of the country's top financial policymakers told Reuters. People won't be able to withdraw cash in dollars or use the greenback in transactions from January 1, 2024, Iraqi central bank director-general of investment and remittances Mazen Ahmed said in an interview with the outlet.

The Federal Reserve kept its benchmark lending rate unchanged at a two-decade high, but suggested at least one more increase is likely between now and the end of the year as inflation remains elevated and the economy continues to perform. The Fed's Open Markets Committee held its key policy rate at between 5.25% and 5.5%, the highest in 22 years, in a move that was widely expected from markets following a quarter point rate hike in July. The Fed's new Summary of Economic projections, known as the dot plots, now calls for GDP stronger growth of 2.1% this year, more...

China is leading the way in a growing anti-Western economic alliance known as BRICS, a Wall Street term that has morphed into a diplomatic and trading power bloc that threatens U.S. interests abroad. Originally formed by Brazil, Russia, India and China in 2009, these countries invited South Africa to join the political group a year later, when an “S” was added to the BRIC acronym. At the 15th BRICS Summit in Johannesburg last month, six more nations joined the confederation. Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were just admitted to the coalition at the annual...

Billions in Russian oil sale profits are stuck in Indian banks, marking a blow to President Vladimir Putin's attempts to stop using the U.S. dollar for trade. ... ...accumulation of up to $1 billion each month in rupee assets in Indian banks that cannot be accessed due to restrictions by the Reserve Bank of India, which prevent Russian companies from transferring rupees stored in bank accounts in India to Russia and converting them into rubles, Bloomberg reported. ... "India operates a partially convertible capital account, which entails that the [Indian rupee] can be swapped for foreign currencies and vice-versa for...

Dollar stores are one of the bright spots in America's ailing brick-and-mortar retail industry: These discount retailers will represent one-third of all new store openings in the U.S. this year. Their ubiquity, however, is prompting questions about their low-cost operations, impact on communities and worker safety. The stores, which sell items for $1 each or slightly higher, provide communities with much-needed discount products, ranging from household staples like groceries to Halloween decorations. But workers and labor advocates are increasingly warning that the cheap items come at a price for their communities. Some of these issues were raised after last month's...

The shooter who killed three black people at a Dollar General in Jacksonville, Florida, Saturday once worked at a discount retailer — and stopped at a Family Dollar, where a security guard’s presence caused him to leave just before he carried out what police say was a racially motivated attack. Ryan Palmeter, 21, who is white, had worked at a Dollar Tree from October 2021 to July 2022, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said Monday. “Based off what we saw: him stopping off at the Family Dollar and working at a Dollar Tree previously and then him going to Dollar General,...

On Monday, Argentina’s central bank raised #interestrates to 118% as Argentina 30-year mortgage is now at a record 82.2%. There is a record 350 Argentine Pesos for each US Dollar. All courtesy of Argentina’ version of Bidenomics … top down direction of spending and regulation and an out of control Central Bank. Don’t cry for Argentina. .They voted for endless Peronist polices (Justicialist Party). Say, are Joe and Jill Biden the new Juan and Eva Peron?

The use of the US dollar as a reserve currency is under threat — and the greenback is headed for a vicious cycle that will further erode its dominance, according to the Australian think tank the Lowy Institute. That's because the declining use of the dollar could lead to hyperinflation, which would, in turn, lead to higher interest rates as central banks combat high prices. And those rate hikes will weigh on asset prices like stocks, researcher Michael Roach said in a recent op-ed for The Interpreter, a publication run by the think tank. This outlook is furthered by speculation...

China's major state-owned banks were seen selling dollars to buy yuan in the offshore spot market in early Asian trades on Thursday, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said. Such state bank dollar selling was meant to slow the pace of yuan declines, one of the sources said. China's central bank on Thursday also announced a relaxing of a cross-border financing rule, making it easier for domestic firms to raise funds from overseas markets and easing depreciation pressure on the yuan currency. China's offshore yuan strengthened more than 0.7 per cent to a high of 7.1812 per dollar...

Greenback weaponization prompting efforts to likely introduce new currency A potential world-changing financial event is on the horizon next month. The nations that make up the BRICS — Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa — reportedly plan to introduce a joint currency backed by gold when they meet for their summit on Aug 22-24 in Johannesburg. The BRICS venture underscores an effort to "de-dollarize" amid concerns over Washington's ability to "weaponize" the greenback through economic sanctions.

The BRICS alliance with Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa recently announced that they were planning to float a gold-backed currency to settle international trade payments to challenge the global reserve status of the US dollar. The bloc of the five nations is projected to decide on introducing the new BRICS currency during its next summit in Johannesburg, South Africa, in August. “A tremendous change is taking place in the international economy,” Rasoul Mousavi, the head of the South Asia Department at Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said on Sunday. “The BRICS’s introduction of a gold-backed currency, which is supported by...