Free Republic

p>It’s no secret that China and Russia have been stashing away as much gold as possible for many years.China is the world’s largest producer and buyer of gold. Russia is number two. Most of that gold finds its way into the Russian and Chinese governments’ treasuries.Russia has over 2,300 tonnes—or nearly 74 million troy ounces—of gold, one of the largest stashes in the world. Nobody knows the exact amount of gold China has, but most observers believe it is even larger than Russia’s stash.Russia and China’s gold gives them access to an apolitical neutral form of money with no counterparty...

All of these similarities and differences are setting up a sea-change revaluation of capital, resources and labor that will be on the same scale as the extraordinary transitions of the 1920s and 1970s. The awakening of inflation after decades of slumber has triggered a flurry of comparisons to the 1970s accompanied by a chorus of projections for 1970s-type stagflation, defined as inflation plus economic stagnation-- limited or negative growth and high unemployment. A less popular comparison is with the 1920s: a massive expansion of debt, an equally massive speculative bubble in assets and extreme wealth-income inequality, all against a backdrop...

Technological innovation always drives disruption, creates fear and panic among powerful incumbents and forces the globally connected to lock arms in defense of their supremacy. This isn’t theory, conjecture or hypothesis, it’s merely a truth observed and recorded over thousands of years of history. This very short video clip perfectly explains how technological disruption eventually breaks through barriers of resistance. FUD is an acronym that stands for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. FUD is used in many forms to distract, divert, diminish and discourage the general public from understanding truth, embracing change, making rational/objective decisions to alter the “status quo” and/or...

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Friday played down the functionality of cryptocurrencies while again expressing his skepticism about adopting a central bank digital currency when consumers already have access to fast payment systems. “These things aren’t payment instruments at all,” Waller said of cryptocurrencies during a virtual panel on central bank digital currencies. “My view is these things are just electronic gold. They're forms of storage carrying wealth across time. Look at art, look at baseball cards. Look at all of this stuff that's intrinsically useless that people pay a lot of money and hold on to because they...

It’s been rightly said that “he who holds the gold makes the rules.”After World War 2, the US had the largest gold reserves in the world, by far. Along with winning the war, this let the US reconstruct the global monetary system around the dollar.The new system, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, tied the currencies of virtually every country in the world to the US dollar through a fixed exchange rate. It also tied the US dollar to gold at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce.The dollar was said to be “as good as gold.”The Bretton...

On Sunday, Russia entered the third month of its invasion of Ukraine, with no sign of an end in sight. Despite severe pushback in the shape of the toughest economic sanctions ever imposed on a country, the ruble, the Russian currency, appears to be strengthening.What’s become evident is that, despite an enormously broad package of sanctions on Russia’s government and oligarchs, as well as an exodus of foreign enterprises, the moves are mostly ineffectual if foreign nationals continue to consume Russian oil and natural gas, which supports the ruble.On Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, the ruble traded...

Mapping Interest RateS AROUND THE WORLDIN2022 MARKETS INA MINUTE The global economy is facing complex struggles, including inflation and the war in Ukraine. Against this backdrop, many countries are projected to rise interest rates over the course of 2022. Here's an early snapshot of global interest rates this year. Short-Term

Israel has now moved to add the Chinese yuan to its reserve currency portfolio, which will create a natural hedge against the risk of insanity pushing for war by the United States and Europe. Adding the yuan to the reserve portfolio will automatically reduce the exposure to the dollar and especially to the euro, thereby creating a natural hedge, whereas a decline in the dollar and euro would imply a rise in the yuan and even the ruble. The Middle East is divided and Zelensky pretends to be the Jewish hero, yet before the war, at the United Nations, Zelensky...

The US and its allies have slapped a grand total of over 9,600 sanctions against Russian officials, the state, companies, tycoons and other entities in connection with the crisis in Ukraine. Moscow now has more restrictions against it than Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar combined. Russia has successfully withstood unprecedented sanctions pressure from the West, President Vladimir Putin has said. "The calculation was to quickly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, to provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system, and a large-scale shortage of goods in stores," Putin said, speaking at...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while there is inflation taking place everywhere in the world, America’s inflation numbers are “significantly higher” than the numbers in most of the other comparable countries and this is due to both Federal Reserve policy and “our extremely expansionary fiscal policy, federal spending.”

Since the West has declared a hybrid war against Russia, Moscow has to search for opportunities in other regions, the diplomat said. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will be at the heart of a new world order, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said. "In all respects ... these countries will become the basis of a new world order," the deputy foreign minister told RT when asked whether the BRICS countries would take a more important role in the world. Russia is working to establish contacts with any country that is interested in cooperation, he...

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday appealed to China to take action to help end Russia's war in Ukraine, warning in a landmark speech that Beijing's standing in the world would suffer if it fails to do so.In remarks prepared for delivery at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Yellen said she "fervently" hoped that China would make something positive out of its "special relationship" with Russia and help end the war.

A majority of Americans believe that oil companies, in addition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, should be blamed for the recent spike in oil and gas prices, according to an ABC News poll. The poll found that 71 percent of those surveyed blame Putin for the spike in gas prices amid his country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine while 68 percent said they blame oil and gas companies for the recent high gas prices.

People who speak out openly with concern about the potential death of the U.S. dollar have been written off as conspiracy theorists for the better part of the last few decades. But looking back, unfortunately, I’m sure history is going to be kind to these people and their prognostications. They will have been the ones who sounded the alarm in a relatively short amount of time before ultimately being proven right. I don’t say this to brag or boast in advance in any way, I say it because I truly believe we are at the “beginning of the end” of...

I have been involved in financial markets for roughly 40 years, the news out this past Thursday was in my opinion more important than ANY announcement during those years. In fact, when I heard it, I thought of it as “the shot heard ’round the world”! But here we are Sunday and almost no discussion nor coverage of “Russia will demand trade payment from the unfriendly countries (the West) in gold…or rubles if they wish”. Are people so dumbed down they do not understand what was said? First a little background. Russia has been sanctioned by the West and even...

The Group of Seven major economies have agreed to reject Moscow’s demand to pay for Russian natural gas exports in rubles, the German energy minister said Monday. Robert Habeck told reporters that “all G-7 ministers agreed completely that this (would be) a one-sided and clear breach of the existing contracts.”

Some of the world’s biggest oil traders expect oil prices to exceed $200 per barrel by the end of the year, the Financial Times reported, citing opinions shared at its Commodity Global Summit this week. “Wakey, wakey. We are not going back to normal business in a few months,” said Pierre Andurand, who has been super bullish on oil for a while. “I think we’re losing the Russian supply on the European side forever.”

The prices of risk hedges against “nuclear” sanctions and their knock-on effects shrank back to pre-war levels as Russia continues to sell oil and gas, and major trading nations continue to use the American dollar as the main instrument of exchanges. Fears of a dislocated energy market and a rush out of dollars following the seizure of half of Russia’s $630 billion in foreign exchange reserves haven’t materialized, as both the United States and Russia showed a certain amount of restraint. Oil fell sharply March 15 after Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the United States had accepted Russian...

The Russian central bank said it will suspend the buying of gold from banks from Tuesday to meet increased demand for the precious metal from households, its latest attempt to weather the storm on Russian markets in the face of Western sanctions. "Currently, households' demand for buying physical gold in bars has increased, driven, in particular, by the abolition of value-added tax on these operations," the central bank said in a statement. The central bank raised the key rate to 20% from 9.5% on Feb. 28 as the rouble crashed to record lows and people rushed to withdraw money from...

The very basis of the US superpower status- The dollar as only world reserve currency is under threat.The Colder War is a book by Canadian Author Marin Katusa—who is the Head of the energy division of investment advisory service Casey Research and this is a video describing some points of discussion.What makes the US dollar unique is the fact that since the early 1970s it has been, with a few notable exceptions, the only currency used to buy and sell oil on the global market. This began in the 1970s when US President Nixon’s administration began negotiations with the government...