Reminds me of my possibly rose tinted experience of the 70’s – in terms of history & land – going back further :

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/guy-standing/why-youve-never-heard-of-charter-thats-as-important-as-magna-carta

A superb article by Micheal Hudson.

Thoughts? Life in the UK would certainly be very different if we had not allowed the credit boom, imagine homes being much more affordable, wages not drained by high mortgage and rent costs? Imagine no big money to be earned in financial industry only more modest prospects from providing real goods and services, everyone working pretty modest hours. We pay a very high price to maintain the levels of inequality the current system produces.

“I agree with you that the Chinese will of course still need dollars if they want to buy stuff made in America.

The Chinese run a massive trade surplus with the USA. That is the source of their $ holdings. Their difficulty is spending them.

” And they will need more of whatever currency those and other commodities are traded in. This will effect the balance of who holds how much of what currency and whose debt.

I don’t see it as an issue. Traders borrow the money for the trade into existence from commercial banks. Government holdings are generally used as an exchange rate tool.

As for being gold backed – in a way I agree with you – it is not really ‘needed’. But I do think the Chinese and Russians will make a thing of saying ‘their’ settlement system ‘is backed by gold’.

Only for those traders who want gold. I don’t think there are many. Gold is a relic.

I also think when traders and nations are concerned with the fragility of fiat currencies, especially those where they see that private and central banks have printed up vast amounts of debt instruments and derivatives in a particular currency, then they may feel they should spread their risk by moving trade and holdings to the new currency.

Central banks do’t create currency that way. Government deficits create the currency that buys the debt instruments.
If I don’t want to hold the trading currency I can easily exchange the currency I do want to hold into that currency when I need to. Or I can get bank credit from a bank in the country of the trading currency.

I’m not saying I know this will happen. Of course I don’t. All I am saying is that the Chinese and Russians do seem to have been carefully putting in place all the necessary agreements and components for this to happen.

Are they moving away from trading in $US? Yes.
I don’t think it will have the effect that a lot of people do.

These $ out there have little effect on the real economy.

Jeff J Brown is an American writer who has lived in China for many years. He recently article about China saying that the government owns all the land and 100% of all the large industry and banking leaving only 30% of the economy in private hands to make high turn over low profit margin products, like consumer electronics. He says China is still a mostly communist country and the leadership recently reaffirmed its commitment to Karl Marx.

http://www.unz.com/article/how-can-western-capitalism-beat-this/

Excerpt:

How Can Western Capitalism Beat This? That’s the Rub, It Can’t, by Jeff J Brown.

I grew up in Oklahoma, USA, ground zero for God, guns, gays and the sanctity of unfettered individualism and jungle capitalism: cowboys, cattle, wheat, churches and oil wells, all gleefully stolen from exterminated Natives. The whole process of getting to my current informed and enlightened awareness was akin to climbing an arduous summit, with a howling occidental hurricane blowing against my face. This is why I am so patient with friends, family, colleagues and strangers, when talking about their convictions and beliefs about how humanity works. With all due respect, most of them are still at base camp, at the bottom of that propaganda mountain, which is no fault of their own. They all grew up behind the Great Western Firewall and are just as brainwashed as I was for about 55- of my 63-year life.

In June, 2017, an instructive meeting took place between California Governor Jerry Brown and Chinese President Xi Jinping. While talking about climate change, the topic of high speed trains (HST) came up. Governor Brown supposedly lamented that his state has not been able to build even one puny HST line, since his governor-father began pushing for it back in the 1950s.

Why? While China is zeroing in on 30,000km of HST track, more than the rest of the world combined, along with hundreds of architecturally inspiring train stations to serve them, California has 2,000 lawsuits fighting its proposal. Why? Greedy capitalists and their purchased government employees and representatives are fighting each other for the loot, like cannibals in a kill pit of corruption, while selfish citizens are putting their individual interests ahead of the greater good. The latter is called NIMBY, Not in My Backyard.

In the West, NIMBY is worn like a badge of honor to express Euranglolanders’ sense of freedom and independence. Meanwhile, with communism-socialism’s mantra of harmony, sharing, cooperation and stability for the greater good, the Chinese are laughing all the way to a much higher standard of living and better quality of life.

Western capitalism talks and Chinese communism-socialism walks – no it flies at 350 kilometers per hour in a bullet train.

Donna has perhaps seen the writing on the wall in terms of the eventual downfall, with other aspects such as Wasserman Schultz’s legal problems & perhaps other likely litigation that could beset the Clinton court…..should get very interesting:

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/11/02/clinton-brazile-hacks-2016-215774

http://therealnews.com/t2/story:20366:Rep.-Tulsi-Gabbard-on-Donna-Brazile%27s-DNC-Bombshell

Hello John G,

I agree with you that the Chinese will of course still need dollars if they want to buy stuff made in America. All I am saying is that if oil and gas are no longer traded in dollars then they and everyone else will need far fewer. And they will need more of whatever currency those and other commodities are traded in. This will effect the balance of who holds how much of what currency and whose debt. And that I think will have bog effects on both the dollar and the Yuan and the debt levels of the issuing countries.

As for being gold backed – in a way I agree with you – it is not really ‘needed’. But I do think the Chinese and Russians will make a thing of saying ‘their’ settlement system ‘is backed by gold’. I also think when traders and nations are concerned with the fragility of fiat currencies, especially those where they see that private and central banks have printed up vast amounts of debt instruments and derivatives in a particular currency, then they may feel they should spread their risk by moving trade and holdings to the new currency.

I’m not saying I know this will happen. Of course I don’t. All I am saying is that the Chinese and Russians do seem to have been carefully putting in place all the necessary agreements and components for this to happen.

I just don’t agree that there is any such thing as a settlement currency or a reserve currency post Bretton Woods.
That most oil is traded in $US helps Wall St banks in that they get to create the bank credit is all.
The Chinese realise that paying for real goods and services with electronic credits in bank accounts is a good deal. Being the largest economy in the world should be enough to convince the much smaller OPEC nations that Renminbi holdings are as good as US$ holdings.There is no need for any gold.
But the Chinese still have to spend their US$ holdings on something that they want.

Fingers tightly crossed.

Wow. That could be a very valuable start of something. Thanks for posting it.