Free Republic

France's political and business establishment has hit out against the hegemony of the dollar in international transactions after U.S. authorities fined BNP Paribas $9 billion for helping countries avoid sanctions. Michel Sapin, the French finance minister, called for a "rebalancing" of the currencies used for global payments, saying the BNP Paribas case should "make us realize the necessity of using a variety of currencies". He said, in an interview with the Financial Times on the sidelines of a weekend economics conference: "We [Europeans] are selling to ourselves in dollars, for instance when we sell planes. Is that necessary? I don't...

Tyler Durden 07/06/2014 Submitted by Adam Taggart via Peak Prosperity, This week's podcast sees the return of Mike Maloney, monetary historian and founder of precious metals broker GoldSilver.com. Based on historical patterns and the alarming state of our current monetary system, Mike believes the fiat US dollar is in its last years as a viable currency. He sees its replacement as inevitable in the near term -- as in by or before the end of the decade: All of this is converging with the crazy experiments the Federal Reserve has done. I absolutely believe that there are economic consequences to...

July 04, 2014DailyWealth Dr. Steve Sjuggerud writes: So... if the dollar "dies"... what do you do with your money? In yesterday's DailyWealth, we looked at "The Coming Death of the Dollar." But we didn't cover what you should do with your money to protect yourself. In Jim Rickards' book, The Death of Money, he has five recommendations. More specifically, he has an asset allocation of five different investments that have stood the test of time in previous inflations and deflations. Jim says this portfolio should offer "an optimal combination of wealth preservation under conditions of inflation, deflation, and social unrest......

China designated a clearing bank in Seoul for yuan transactions in South Korea on Friday, coinciding with a visit by President Xi Jinping, as Beijing promotes greater use of its currency overseas, AFP reports. Read more: http://voiceofrussia.com/news/2014_07_04/Beijing-Seoul-agree-to-direct-trade-in-national-currencies-4477/ China's central bank has authorised the Bank of Communications, the country's fifth largest lender, to undertake yuan clearing business in the South Korean capital, the People's Bank of China (PBoC) said in a statement. The announcement came as Chinese President Xi Jinping wrapped up a state visit to South Korea on Friday. China is seeking to make the yuan - also known...

Paul Bedard June 3, 2014 Influential financial publisher and former presidential candidate Steve Forbes is out with a new warning that the U.S. faces an economic catastrophe due to the Federal Reserve's loose dollar policy, and returning to a strict “gold standard” is the only way to avoid disaster. In Money: How the Destruction of the Dollar Threatens the Global Economy -- and What We Can Do About It, Forbes blames President Obama's money team for the stagnant economy, high prices, declining mobility and big government. "[The Fed's] vastly misguided monetary policies are now setting the stage for a new...

So, with another “plunge” in the economy coming, how’s the dollar going to hold up? Williams explains, “You are not seeing an annual deficit of $400 or $500 billion dollars. You are really seeing something close to $6 trillion. That is beyond control, and it raises the question of long term solvency of the U.S. It is a big concern for the global markets. It’s really the reason why nobody outside the United States wants to hold the dollar. Now, look at the U.S. economy, it is turning down. Economic strength is a big factor in the value of a...

The end of America and the fall of the US dollar.

In March 2011, Reuters announced a secret order signed by Barack Obama to provide covert support for Libyan rebel forces. The operation became known as Zero Footprint, but after Obama finished with it, Big Foot was identified. For about 18 months before the attacks on our Benghazi Special Mission, intelligence had successfully identified terrorist factions inside the rebel factions. Those terrorists included the Muslim Brotherhood as well as al-Qaeda. Nevertheless, Senator John McCain said the rebels were his heroes. Qadhafi made a fatal mistake, literally, by working toward one currency for Africa, which threatened the West. The idea of a...

Recent weeks have led to a fairly significant drop in stock valuations, with many expert analysts struggling to figure out exactly why it’s happening. You’ll hear them cite the weather, or market overreaction, or any number of reasons for why stocks have seen their share prices reduced and why they’ll be rebounding in the near-term. What they won’t show you on mainstream financial channels is what’s really happening behind the scenes. Forget about all the minute-by-minute noise for a moment and take a look at the following chart. It gives a very simple overview of earnings growth trends for stocks...

MOSCOW/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Russian state-controlled oil producer Gazprom Neft said it had received positive responses from Asian clients about the possibility of using euros as a settlement currency instead of the dollar. Company head Alexander Dyukov said this week Gazprom Neft had broached the idea of dropping the dollar, traditionally the currency of choice for the global energy sector, in response to a possible new round of Western sanctions over Russia's annexation of Crimea. He said the company had discussed with buyers the possibility of switching contracts to euros and that 95 percent had said they were ready to do...

Deep discount retailer Family Dollar announced on Thursday it will begin laying off workers and closing 370 stores nationwide after suffering a 35% drop in profits last quarter. Analysts cite competition from Dollar General and Dollar Tree as contributing to Family Dollar's cost-cutting move. In response, Family Dollar says it plans to lower prices on 1,000 items to remain competitive with its price sensitive lower-income customers.

A global clash of nations is underway in full gear. The time is finally right. The urgency is acute. The banking system insolvency is widespread. The illiquidity has reached the surface. The geopolitical chessboard has busy movements of many pieces, even with a delayed check in Ukraine after a devious capture of the Cyprus castle but not the Syrian knight. The Saudi support via OPEC for the Petro-Dollar has fallen out of view, dragging its pummeled chin on the desert sands. The Eastern superpowers are marching arm in arm, ready to challenge the West. It seems the Western leaders, in...

Shepherd Smith on Fox News Channel ... NOW

A common argument for dumping the Euro is that it is overvalued, and that the ECB (European Central Bank) is unwilling to correct this so-called “problem.” This overvaluation is regularly cited as being over 10 percent against the dollar. The Swiss central bank surrendered control of its money supply by fixing its currency at 1.2 against the Euro essentially on the notion that its currency was “overvalued.” Advocates of a Euro breakup consider that a country with its own currency can then follow an independent monetary policy ensuring a competitive exchange rate. Never mind that neither the USA nor Great...

A month ago we reported that according to much delayed TIC data, China had just dumped the second-largest amount of US Treasurys in history. The problem, of course, with this data is that it is stale and very backward looking. For a much better, and up to date, indicator of what foreigners are doing with US Treasurys in near real time, the bond watchers keep track of a less known data series, called "Treasury Securities Held in Custody for Foreign Official and International Accounts" which as the name implies shows what foreigners are doing with their Treasury securities held...

Just before the bankruptcy of the Mt. Gox bitcoin digital-money (or virtual-currency) exchange, Japanese finance minister Taro Aso predicted the inevitable failure. “No one recognizes them as a real currency,” he told reporters. “I expected such a thing to collapse.” I totally agree with Mr. Aso. For weeks and weeks I have been tweeting and broadcasting that bitcoin is not real money. It is not a reliable medium of exchange, nor is it a reliable store of value. It has no central-bank regulation, network operations, or even centralized issuance. And because of its wild price fluctuations, bitcoin can never...

The value of our dollar is tied to our own economy. Is our economy also tied to the power of our military? As our military shrinks to a smaller size, will this have a direct effect upon the value of our dollar? If so, where will it lead?

In order for our current level of debt-fueled prosperity to continue, the rest of the world must continue to use our dollars to trade with one another and must continue to buy our debt at ridiculously low interest rates. Of course the number one foreign nation that we depend on to participate in our system is China. China accounts for more global trade than anyone else on the planet (including the United States), and most of that trade is conducted in U.S. dollars. This keeps demand for our dollars very high, and it ensures that we can import massive quantities...

<p>World asleep as China tightens deflationary vice We keep our fingers crossed as we glimpse the first foam of a deflationary Ch'ient'ang'kian coming our way from China. The world's central banks have no margin for error Societe Generale has defined its hard landing as a fall in Chinese growth to a trough of 2pc, with two quarters of contraction. .snip. The balance of evidence is that most powerful Chinese leader since Mao Zedong aims to prick China's $24 trillion credit bubble early in his 10-year term, rather than putting off the day of reckoning for yet another cycle.</p>

Concerns about high debt and an overvalued currency are sucking gold imports into China, according to a new report from Lombard Street Research. It adds that the authorities may possibly be moving in the direction of using gold in a plan to make the yuan an international currency. China's official reserves of gold stand at 1,054 metric tons, that's worth about $45 billion. This figure has not been updated since 2009 and Lombard says the number may not be accurate because since that last update imports of gold and domestic production amount to over 4,500 metric tons.