The Multipolar World Order (yes, it's here)

While there have been a number of posts about this over the last few months (mainly on WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia and The Putin thread), I felt it really needed to be its own standalone topic.

My decision was prompted by this most excellent new video, principally featuring geopolitical analysts Alexander Mercouris and Matthew Ehret (whose website is https://canadianpatriot.org).

The discussion is deep, well-informed, impeccably historically referenced, and two hours long. It's also the kind of thing one might listen to twice, the second time taking detailed notes. :)

So it's not for the fainthearted, but I learned a great deal more about this topic which will definitely become much more widely discussed in 2023. I'm not advocating listening to the entire video, unless you're already very interested in this (in which case it may be most worthwhile). But it's a perfect starting point for the new thread.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mNh7pihcEgk

Shucks, the world's worst enemy has been usurers - for "only" 3500 years.
Every religion I checked denounced it - including Satanism (go figure).
Even ancient philosophers condemned it.
And yet millions and millions have personal, interest bearing bank accounts.
Of course, Academia apologizes for it and turns a blind eye to the fact that usury is mathematically unsustainable in a finite money token system.
Worse, the exponential equation for compound interest requires an INFINITE MONEY SUPPLY.
Bankers don't care what government or religion has the appearance of power, as long as they have their hooks in it, THEY are the RULERS.

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The Multipolar World Order (yes, it's coming)

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It's the yes it's coming part that bothers me. As such, does anyone see a brief respite of freedoms etc. before the New World order & one World Gov is ushered in? I know there are many that feel America will rise like the Phoenix once again. The alternative sucks.... If America falls so does the rest of the free World.

”Pluto enters Aquarius on March 23rd, 2023. The last time Pluto was in Aquarius was between 1778 and 1798, a period of massive change all over the world.”

https://astrobutterfly.com/2021/06/3...to-the-people/

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Posted by mojo

If America falls so does the rest of the free World.

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But America isn't the 'Free World' any more — and neither is Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia or New Zealand. Freedom needs to come from elsewhere now.

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Posted by Bill Ryan

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Posted by mojo

If America falls so does the rest of the free World.

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But America isn't the 'Free World' any more — and neither is Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia or New Zealand. Freedom needs to come from elsewhere now.

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In others words: the anglo/saxon project has failed, time to go. :sarcastic: :clap2: Next!...

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Posted by Bill Ryan

While there have been a number of posts about this over the last few months (mainly on WW3? Ukraine/US vs. Donbass/Russia and The Putin thread), I felt it really needed to be its own standalone topic.

My decision was prompted by this most excellent new video, principally featuring geopolitical analysts Alexander Mercouris and Matthew Ehret (whose website is https://canadianpatriot.org).

The discussion is deep, well-informed, impeccably historically referenced, and two hours long. It's also the kind of thing one might listen to twice, the second time taking detailed notes. :)

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Watched/listened to it this morning. A fascinating listen it was too and Matt Ehret had an amazing depth of knowledge that I was barely aware of.

It seems that the self-obsessed would be world-shapers and rulers of the world have seriously miscalculated and have zero kind of alternate contingency plans. They, (sadly I mean the West, where I reside), will become the vine that bears no fruit and we know what happens to that.

Sadly I doubt they'll fade away quietly. More likely they will double down on the lies and rhetoric and create chaos in the belief they can triumph in the long run. It has proven an effective strategy before.

The only thing that might prevent that is if truth continues to be revealed and enough 'good men' stand up to be counted. It would also require a considerable change in editorial policies from the MSM, perhaps they will see the writing on the wall and realise they never wrote that script and its too late to avoid it now. They'll be planning who can be the fall-guys soon.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=zgXIcs8N7VA

• I wonder if the word: "Order" is so much more than just an opposite to "Disorder"

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"Ordo Ab Chao" is Latin for: "Order out of Chaos" ...

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When you have natural dynamic chaos that comes from real freedom & free spirits that are 100% non-violent & non-imposing, still it will be seen as "evil" for psychopathic control-freaks and framed as such.

• So a need for order "any order" that wants to impose, to control, to enslave, to restrict, to mandate, to limit, to demonize, to steer, to manipulate >>> are all tied to a specific "Order".

And they sell it to fight "dis-order" ... What if some "disorder" and/or perceived "chaos" are 100% justified for a specific reason they do not want to allow any discussion to explain why it is justified!

• What if some disorder and/or chaos are deliberately created to justify more rigid (more tyrannical) "order".

"Order" has many layers & angles, how to define the word "order" in the proper context related to (psychopathic) control freaks versus (spiritual minded) freedom fighters.

How many blindly assume that "order" is "always" a "good thing" because it "sounds right" ... right? :facepalm:

• He who controls/manipulates the mass perceived (tunnel vision) pushed narratives controls the outcome if the masses are stupid enough to fall for it.
• He who questions the mass perceived (tunnel vision) pushed narratives (full of bogus assumptions) exposes the outcome if the masses are smart enough to rise above it and move on.

cheers,
John Kuhles aka 'ExomatrixTV'
December 18th, 2022 🦜🦋🌳


https://www.freemason.pt/wp-content/...gtrtrf7667.jpg


https://i.pinimg.com/originals/09/e0...ea20499322.png

• Max Igan ~ The Great Collapse "Ordo Ab Chao"
• Study Dozens of "Ordo Ab Chao" insights on Rumble & Bitchute :dog:
  

Can you give a brief summary on the video?

I liked the idea that the west did what good drug dealers don't do - get high on their own supply - for the west it's believing in their own made up propaganda.

It's really an amazing video and I'm diving into Matt's book now. Thanks for posting it Bill!

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Posted by Bill

The Multipolar World Order

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And this is a new part of it, a very major development — the big first step towards the end of the Syrian war, with an imminent summit meeting between Erdogan (Turkey), Assad (Syria) and Putin (Russia).

The US is sidelined in all this, its forces isolated.

Here we see three world leaders being statesmen, as world leaders are meant to be... but which seems an alien, impossible idea to the Neocon hawks in the west and their clones in Europe.

A 19 minute historical summary from Alexander Mercouris:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=uv_KTpuL6Gc

https://twitter.com/AZgeopolitics/st...03024076308482

https://thecradle.co/Article/news/19625

Iran, Nicaragua sign strategic agreement to boost bilateral relations
On 18 December, Iran’s Foreign Minister Hossein Amir Abdollahian met with his Nicaraguan counterpart Denis Moncada Colindres in Managua to discuss ways to bolster bilateral relations and international and regional developments.

Amir Abdollahian praised the Central American state for retaining steady relations with Tehran, adding that the two countries should strive to boost economic cooperation and increase trade.

The foreign ministers signed a strategic plan to expand relations during the first Iran-Nicaragua joint commission. Colindres expressed hope that the newly signed agreement will have promising results soon.

The two counterparts last met on the sidelines of the 77th UN General Assembly session in New York back in September.

Due to the imposition of western sanctions against Iran, the Islamic Republic has attempted to expand its ties with other Latin American states, such as Venezuela, which also suffers from US-led sanctions.

In November, Iranian and Venezuelan delegates met to sign six bilateral agreements in Tehran.

These agreements revolve around cooperation in education, nanotechnology, biotechnology, petrochemistry, radiology, social data analysis, and the design of scientific-technological systems.

Weeks later, 1,000 vehicles from Iran were sent to the South American state as part of the agreements.

Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi later stressed that Tehran’s policy of enhancing cooperation with Latin American nations is a priority.

Raisi further emphasized the significance of consolidating relations with Latin American nations due to their diverse capacities and opportunities.

In July, Tehran increased its oil delivery to Venezuela so that Caracas could bolster its refineries’ productivity and increase the total output of its motor fuels.

During the year’s first half, Iran’s Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro signed a 20-year cooperation agreement that increased their agriculture and food production.

“I believe that between the two of us we will create an indestructible friendship for the future of our people and we will witness how our countries grow in the face of difficulties and how a new world is growing,” Maduro told president Raisi.

The two sanctioned states increased cooperation to overcome the restrictions of US sanctions.

https://multipolarista.com/2022/12/0...llar-currency/

Latin America’s plan to challenge US dollar with new currency and ‘regional financial architecture’

The US dollar is used in the majority of international trade, and its status as the global reserve currency gives the United States an “exorbitant privilege” that underpins its geopolitical and economic dominance.

Yet opposition to Washington’s hegemony is growing around the world. Institutions of Eurasian integration are proposing their own currencies and payment systems. Latin America, too, has ambitious plans to end its dependence on the US dollar.

Prominent economist Andrés Arauz, a leftist leader who came close to winning Ecuador’s 2021 presidential elections, published a blueprint for a “new regional financial architecture” to unite Latin America, challenging the hegemony of the dollar and Washington-dominated institutions like the International Monetary Fund.

His plan centers around creating a new regional currency for international transactions, thereby bypassing the dollar.

The framework is based on a proposal made by Brazil’s President-elect Lula da Silva, who pledged before winning the October election that “we are going to create a currency in Latin America,” in order to “be freed of the dollar.”

The currency is expected to be called the Sur (“south” in Spanish), and would be overseen by a newly created Banco Central del Sur (Central Bank of the South).

To do all of this, Arauz has advised Lula to revive and strengthen existing institutions of regional integration like the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) and the Banco del Sur (Bank of the South), which were undermined by US-backed coups and the rise of right-wing governments.

The goal is “to harmonize the payment systems of” the countries that make up UNASUR in order “to carry out inter-bank transfers to any bank inside of the region in real time and from a cellphone,” explained Arauz.

The Ecuadorian economist also insisted that Latin America should reject the US-dominated International Monetary Fund (IMF) and work with Africa to create debt relief and new economic opportunities

US dollar used in 96% of trade in the Americaa

Both Lula and Arauz have made it clear that the Sur would not replace local currencies, like the European Union’s euro. Countries in Latin America would still have their own national currencies, so they can pursue a sovereign monetary policy.

Rather, the idea is to use the Sur for bilateral trade between countries, in place of the dollar.

The proposal is very popular in Latin America, given that it is the world’s most dependent region on the US dollar.

The dollar was used in 96% of trade transactions between countries in the Americas from 1999-2019, according to the Federal Reserve.

The creation of the Sur currency could fundamentally change this.

Latin America’s combined economy is nearly one-half of the US economy

Most trade in the Americas is dominated by the United States, which has the world’s second-largest economy (after the People’s Republic of China, when measured with purchasing power parity).

The GDP of the United States is roughly $23 trillion, while that of Canada is nearly $2 trillion.

It is often reported that the nominal GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean is around $5.5 trillion, according to World Bank data, and that the three largest economies in the region are Brazil ($1.6 trillion), Mexico ($1.3 trillion), and Argentina ($491 billion).

But nominal GDP measurements can be misleading, and only reinforce the hegemony of the US dollar. A much more accurate measurement of GDP, purchasing power parity (PPP), takes into account the cost of living in each respective country.

Adjusted accordingly with PPP measurements, the more precise estimate of the GDP of Latin America and the Caribbean is actually $11.4 trillion, with Brazil at $3.4 trillion, Mexico at $2.6 trillion, and Argentina at $1.1 trillion.

This shows that the combined economies of Latin America and the Caribbean make up nearly half of the size of the US economy.

The region is also very rich in natural resources, including oil, minerals, and agriculture.

If Latin America could unify with its own independent financial institutions, it has enormous economic potential.

The (aborted) birth of the Bank of the South

Latin America’s vast economic potential has long been recognized by left-wing, anti-imperialist leaders in the region.

In the 2000s, the leftist presidents of Venezuela (Hugo Chávez), Brazil (Lula da Silva), Argentina (Néstor Kirchner and Cristina Fernández de Kirchner), Bolivia (Evo Morales), Ecuador (Rafael Correa), and Paraguay (Fernando Lugo) made plans to create alternative financial institutions to challenge the US-dominated World Bank and IMF.

The World Bank and IMF have a history of trapping Global South countries in unpayable odious debt, and subsequently imposing neoliberal “structural adjustment” programs that force governments to implement suffocating austerity policies that benefit US corporations.

Following the vision of Venezuela’s revolutionary President Hugo Chávez, Latin America’s left-wing leaders agreed to create a bank aimed at regional unity, called the Banco del Sur (Bank of the South).

Chávez, Lula, the Kirchners, Morales, and Correa met in Argentina in 2007 and signed a treaty officially creating the bank.

But the launch of the Banco del Sur was delayed.

In 2009, the leaders of these countries met again for the Africa-South America Summit (ASA) in Venezuela, where they vowed a combined $20 billion in initial capital.

These plans were never realized, however.

Several leftist governments in Latin America were destabilized and overthrown in a series of brutal geopolitical attacks waged by the United States and right-wing oligarchies – namely several US-sponsored coups: a military coup in Honduras in 2009, judicial coup in Paraguay in 2012, internal coup in Ecuador in 2017, soft coups in Brazil in 2016 and 2018, and violent coup in Bolivia in 2019, as well as numerous failed coup attempts in Venezuela and Nicaragua.

These US attacks and the ensuing right-wing surge also led to the sabotage of another key instrument of regional integration, the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR).

While the Banco del Sur was meant to economically integrate the region, political integration was be overseen by UNASUR.

UNASUR was formally created in a 2008 treaty, and officially operational by 2011.

But as Washington prepared another coup attempt against Venezuela, in 2018 and 2019, the right-wing leaders of Brazil, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, Peru, and Paraguay coordinated together to withdraw from UNASUR, leaving the institution very weak.

Another important regional institution created in parallel to the Banco del Sur and UNASUR was the ALBA: the Alianza Bolivariana para los Pueblos de Nuestra América (Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America).

Venezuela and Cuba formed the ALBA in 2004 as an economic alliance of left-wing governments in Latin America and the Caribbean.

The ALBA created its own currency for inter-state trade in the region. Adopted in 2009, it was called the Sucre: the “Unified System for Regional Compensation.” (This acronym also referenced the South American revolutionary Antonio José de Sucre, who joined General Simón Bolívar in the anti-colonialist struggle against the Spanish empire in the early 19th century.)

At its peak, the ALBA brought together Venezuela, Cuba, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Honduras in a trade bloc, and they used the Sucre in more than $1 billion in bilateral trade in 2012.

Chávez’s dream of unifying the region was undermined by his untimely death in 2013, and what followed was a devastating US economic war waged against Venezuela, including an artificial US-orchestrated commodities crash in 2014, several violent Washington-backed coup attempts, the imposition of harsh sanctions that gradually escalated into a Cuba-style embargo, and the Donald Trump’s attempt to forcibly install unelected coup leader Juan Guaidó as supposed “interim president.”

The left again rises in Latin America

Despite setbacks in the previous decade, by 2022, the left is back on the rise in Latin America.

For the first time in history, the region’s seven most-populated countries are governed by left-wing leaders (Brazil, Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela, and Chile).

Colombia’s deeply pro-US right-wing governments were always a thorn in the side of the patria grande (the project of Latin American unity). But that changed with the election in June of Colombia’s first-ever left-wing president: Gustavo Petro.

Recognizing the potential of this historic moment to realize true regional unity, Ecuador’s leftist leader Andrés Arauz has laid out a blueprint for not only political but also economic integration.

Arauz has called for reviving both UNASUR and the Banco del Sur, and strengthening them further with a new Banco Central del Sur (Central Bank of the South).

Arauz is an accomplished economist. He spent more than a decade working at Ecuador’s central bank, eventually serving as its general director. He is currently completing his PhD in financial economics.

Under Ecuador’s former socialist President Rafael Correa, Arauz served as minister of knowledge and human talent.

Arauz has since become a leading figure in Ecuador’s leftist Correísta movement, continuing the “Citizens’ Revolution” launched by Correa.

Arauz was Correísmo’s candidate in the 2021 presidential elections. He won the first round in a landslide, but lost the second round with 47.6% of the vote compared to the 52.4% of Ecuador’s current President Guillermo Lasso, a right-wing multi-millionaire banker notorious for his corruption.

Although he is not formally in office, Arauz has served as an economic advisor for left-wing politicians in the region.

Arauz is a co-founder of the Grupo de Puebla, a political forum bringing together progressive forces in Latin America. He is also a member of the council of the Progressive International.

Lula da Silva, who governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010, is closely allied with both of these organizations. This makes it likely that Arauz will serve in some capacity as an advisor for the new Brazilian government.

In 2020, Lula published an article at the Progressive International website, titled “For a Multipolar World.” In it, the Brazilian left-wing leader said he seeks “the creation of a multipolar world, free from unilateral hegemony and from sterile bipolar confrontation.”

During his presidential campaign, at a rally in May 2022, Lula promised, “We are going to create a currency in Latin America, because we can’t keep depending on the dollar.”

Lula won the October 30 presidential election and will once again become head of state of the largest country in Latin America on January 1, 2023.

Blueprint to revive the Bank of the South and UNASUR with new regional currency ‘Sur’

In response to Lula’s electoral victory, Arauz wrote a blueprint outlining steps that Brazil can take to help develop “a new regional financial architecture.”

The article, published at the pan-Latin American website NODAL, is a guide that Lula can follow when he becomes president.

“The goal: that on January 1, 2023, in the inauguration of Lula, the treaties are signed for the new UNASUR,” Arauz wrote.

“We must put in operation the Bank of the South and sign the founding treaty of the Central Bank of the South and the Sur, the regional currency – in addition to national currencies – that President Lula proposed,” he added.

“The initial step should be immediate,” Arauz stressed.

The system will seek “to harmonize the payment systems of UNASUR to carry out inter-bank transfers to any bank inside of the region in real time and from a cellphone,” he explained.

Arauz cautioned that these actions must be taken soon and quickly, because “the political window of opportunity is between January and September 2023, the date of primary elections in Argentina.”

Argentina’s right-wing opposition, which is much more pro-US and supportive of dollar hegemony and neoliberal economics, could win these elections, throwing a wrench into the project of regional unity.

Arauz warned, “We can’t give up this historic window of opportunity to the slow inertia of the foreign ministries and the backwardness of malinchismo” – a pejorative term that refers to people in Latin America who feel self-hate toward their own societies and have internalized the inferiority complex of cultural imperialism.

“Progressive presidents must create an immediate channel of communication between each other,” he emphasized. “The political will is there, there is no time to lose.”

If Latin America manages to create this “new regional financial architecture,” the Ecuadorian economist argued, it could “allow a breather for Argentina.”

Argentina has faced a deep economic crisis, caused largely by unpayable odious debt owed to the IMF, after the previous right-wing government in Buenos Aires took the largest loan in the fund’s history.

Arauz has been a vocal critic of the IMF. In his article, he said Latin America should take “collective action to retroactively nullify the illegal surcharges of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).”

IMF surcharges are extra interest payments that the US-dominated financial institution imposes on borrowing countries that owe it large debts.

The Bretton Woods Project noted that “civil society organisations, human rights experts and others have argued that surcharges effectively discriminate against and punish countries that are most in need of IMF assistance.”

Arauz proposed that, in order to annul these IMF surcharges, “if necessary,” Latin America and Africa should propose a resolution in the United Nations General Assembly.

He added that Latin America should work together with Africa to demand that the United States issue them IMF special drawing rights to help their economies.

The region could then “recycle” these special drawing rights to help Argentina, Arauz said.

The Ecuadorian economist also wrote that UNASUR could try to make some of the capital fleeing the region to the United States instead return to its countries of origin, by invoking article VIII.2.b of the founding articles of agreement of the IMF.

Arauz offered economic advice for Brazil’s domestic affairs as well.

Lula should “undo the de facto privatization of the Central Bank of Brazil that was implemented” by current far-right President Jair Bolsonaro, and “rearticulate the Central Bank of Brazil in the line of development, integration, and democracy,” he wrote.

“It is very difficult to be able to meet the goals of eradicating hunger and the reindustrialization the Brazilian people need if he has a central bank permanently boycotting it,” Arauz added.

He noted that Colombia’s central bank has already taken actions to oppose the proposed reforms of new left-wing President Gustavo Petro.

But Arauz pointed out that “this wave of regional integration cannot remain only at the level of presidents; it should be a true integration of the peoples.”

“That implies profound participation of the social movements of all of the region, but above all, immediate and tangible benefits for the citizenry,” he stressed.

“It also implies giving preferential treatment to the smallest countries,” Arauz added. “The leadership of President Lula is crucial to join together the countries with distinct ideological orientations.”

In the article, the Ecuadorian economist proposed another idea: creating a “massive program of student exchange,” so that “the youth of Latin American public education are able to study a semester or a year in another country in the region.”

The goal should be “a million youths in student exchange in” 2023, Arauz wrote. “This will be the motor of integration.”

He called for forms of cultural integration as well, proposing a regional contest inviting musicians, writers, and poets to make a hymn for UNASUR.

Arauz concluded the blueprint suggesting that Lula should create a “plenipotentiary ambassador for regional integration.”

The Ecuadorian leftist leader made it clear that he has major ambitions for the region.

It’s not enough for Latin America only to unite, Arauz argued. It needs more representation in international institutions.

“The countries of UNASUR should demand a collective position at the table of the G20, which the African Union is about to obtain,” he wrote.

https://twitter.com/BenjaminNorton/s...37107636158470

Trapped in IMF debt, Argentina turns to Russia and joins China’s Belt & Road

The United States constantly intervenes in the internal affairs of Latin America, organizing coups d’etat, destabilizing independent governments, trapping nations in debt, and imposing sanctions. Washington sees the region as its own property, with President Joe Biden referring to it this January as “America’s front yard.”

Seeking alternatives to US hegemony, progressive governments in Latin America have increasingly looked across the ocean to form alliances with China and Russia.

Argentina’s President Alberto Fernández did exactly that this February, taking historic trips to Beijing and Moscow to meet with his counterparts Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin.

Fernández signed a series of strategic agreements, officially incorporating Argentina into Beijing’s international Belt and Road Initiative, while expanding economic partnerships with the Eurasian powers and telling Moscow that Argentina “should be the door to enter” Latin America.

China offered $23.7 billion in funding for infrastructure projects and investments in Argentina’s economy.

In the meetings, Fernández also asked for Argentina to join the BRICS framework, alongside Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa. Xi and Putin reportedly both agreed.

“I am consistently working to rid Argentina of this dependence on the IMF and the US,” Fernández explained. “I want Argentina to open up new opportunities.”

The Argentine president’s comments and meetings with Putin and Xi reportedly angered the US government.

The rest is here,

https://multipolarista.com/2022/02/0...ina-belt-road/

https://twitter.com/NationalEr_Int/s...17963494494216

¤=[Post Update]=¤

https://twitter.com/apocalypseos/sta...49357532205057

https://twitter.com/Inteldinner/stat...61368910594049

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and India focus on a multipolar world order
The new tensions and conflicts among the global superpowers are opening new opportunities for ambitious middle-power countries.

While Europeans fear a division of the world into new blocs, with the U.S. and its allies on one side and China and Russia on the other, others are not at all unhappy with the new, confrontational global dynamic. For a number of self-confident middle powers, the end of undisputed global leadership by the United States offers an opportunity to rebrand and reposition themselves. These are countries that have close ties with the United States, especially in the area of security. At the same time, these countries refuse to be drawn into a confrontation. Instead, they are betting on a continuation of the profitable relationship with Russia and China, regardless of geopolitical tensions.

Saudi Arabia, Turkey and India are betting on a future «multipolar» world order that will allow them to diversify their relations – and position themselves as independent power-political «poles.» All three are in a different league than the U.S. and China. But they are large and influential enough to be heard globally and play an important role regionally. Each of these three countries balances among the great powers, each in its own way.

Red carpet for the Chinese president

Saudi Arabia just demonstrated its quest for independence again with its grand reception of the Chinese president. Admittedly, this was not Xi’s first visit to Riyadh. But the images of harmony from the Saudi capital contrasted sharply with the tensions in the Saudi-U.S. relationship that had been the focus of Biden’s visit in July. What is clear is that Saudi Crown Prince and de facto ruler Mohammed bin Salman’s red carpet for Xi also signaled to Washington that he has other options.

Riyadh has also forged close ties in recent years with Russia, which has once again become an important regional player via its intervention in Syria. Just how close the relationship is, the U.S. was forced to realize through gritted teeth in October. Biden’s visit to Riyadh had been aimed at persuading Saudi Arabia to put more oil on the market in order to bring down the price of oil, which had been increased by the Russian sanctions. But Riyadh did not care about the Americans’ concerns. On the contrary, in October Saudi Arabia and Russia together ensured that OPEC-plus actually reduced production volumes to achieve an increase in price through shortages.

However, it would be inaccurate to conclude from all this that Saudi Arabia also wants to orient itself permanently toward China in terms of security policy. Riyadh still needs the United States as a key partner in its regional rivalry with Iran and for the supply of advanced weapons. China has neither the capabilities nor the interest to become massively involved in the region in terms of security policy. De facto, China also remains dependent on U.S. management of the regional order.

A different idea of regional order

This is also true of Turkey, which, for all its tensions with the U.S., continues to view NATO membership as the foundation of its security. For all its struggle for independence and unwillingness to subordinate itself to American strategies, Ankara does not go so far as to seriously question the transatlantic relationship. But within this framework, Turkey is trying to achieve the greatest possible freedom of action in order to make room for its own ideas of regional order and its national interests.

This tension has crystallized in recent years, particularly over the issue of Turkey’s relations with Russia – and the dispute over Turkey’s purchase of the Russian S-400 air defense system.

Turkey’s relationship with Russia is complex. There are elements of fierce competition. In Syria and Libya, and to some extent in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, the two countries are on opposite sides; both have claims to regional hegemony. Similar tensions exist with regard to Ukraine – it does not suit Ankara at all if Russia becomes even more powerful and dominant on the northern coast of the Black Sea. Therefore, Turkey supports the Ukrainian side militarily, especially by supplying armed drones and closing the Bosphorus passage for Russian warships.

A loophole for Russia

For all the competition, however, there is also a partnership between Putin and Erdogan. Both avoid allowing tensions and competition to spill over into direct conflict, both are united in their efforts to keep the West largely out of their region, and both are committed to keeping the bilateral relationship constructive, including in the economic sphere. Turkey is not joining the sanctions against Russia because of the Ukraine war and is even buying more Russian oil. There is also currently growing concern in Western capitals that Turkey is being used by Russia as a loophole to circumvent Western sanctions.

Despite all the Western anger at Turkey, the country has at the same time positioned itself as a central player that has a good relationship with all sides – and could thus move into pole position in mediation attempts. When Moscow and Kyiv were still negotiating in March, these talks took place in Istanbul. And the grain deal that opened a corridor for Ukrainian grain exports through the Black Sea came about under Turkish direction.

The rest is here,

https://www.nzz.ch/english/saudi-ara...ktcval=Twitter

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/1...-long-goodbye/

The Petrodollar’s Long Goodbye

As part of their concern about “currency power,” many countries in the Global South are eager to develop non-dollar trade and investment systems, writes Vijay Prashad.

On Dec. 9, China’s President Xi Jinping met with the leaders of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss deepening ties between the Gulf countries and China.

At the top of the agenda was increased trade between China and the GCC, with the former pledging to “import crude oil in a consistent manner and in large quantities from the GCC” as well to increase imports of natural gas.

In 1993, China became a net importer of oil, surpassing the United States as the largest importer of crude oil by 2017. Half of that oil comes from the Arabian Peninsula, and more than a quarter of Saudi Arabia’s oil exports go to China. Despite being a major importer of oil, China has reduced its carbon emissions.

A few days before he arrived in Riyadh, Xi published an article in al-Riyadh that announced greater strategic and commercial partnerships with the region, including “cooperation in high-tech sectors including 5G communications, new energy, space, and digital economy.”

Saudi Arabia and China signed commercial deals worth $30 billion, including in areas that would strengthen the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Xi’s visit to Riyadh is one of his few overseas trips since the Covid-19 pandemic.

His first was to Central Asia for the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) in September, where the nine member states (which represent 40 percent of the world’s population) agreed to increase trade with each other using their local currencies.

At this first China-GCC summit, Xi urged the Gulf monarchs to “make full use of the Shanghai Petrol and Gas Exchange as a platform to conduct oil and gas sales using Chinese currency.” Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia suggested that it might accept Chinese yuan rather than U.S. dollars for the oil it sells to China.

While no formal announcement was made at the GCC summit nor in the joint statement issued by China and Saudi Arabia, indications abound that these two countries will move closer toward using the Chinese yuan to denominate their trade. However, they will do so slowly, as they both remain exposed to the U.S. economy. (China holds just under $1 trillion in U.S. Treasury bonds).

Talk of conducting China-Saudi trade in yuan has raised eyebrows in the United States, which for 50 years has relied on the Saudis to stabilise the dollar. In 1971, the U.S. government withdrew the dollar from the gold standard and began to rely on central banks around the world to hold monetary reserves in U.S. Treasury securities and other U.S. financial assets.

When oil prices skyrocketed in 1973, the U.S. government decided to create a system of dollar seigniorage through Saudi oil profits. In 1974, U.S. Treasury Secretary William Simon — fresh off the trading desk at the investment bank Salomon Brothers — arrived in Riyadh with instructions from U.S. President Richard Nixon to have a serious conversation with the Saudi oil minister, Ahmed Zaki Yamani.

Simon proposed that the U.S. purchase large amounts of Saudi oil in dollars and that the Saudis use these dollars to buy U.S. Treasury bonds and weaponry and invest in U.S. banks as a way to recycle vast Saudi oil profits. And so, the petrodollar was born, which anchored the new dollar-denominated world trade and investment system.

If the Saudis even hinted towards withdrawing this arrangement, which would take at least a decade to implement, it would seriously challenge the monetary privilege afforded to the U.S.

As Gal Luft, co-director of the Institute for Analysis of Global Security, told The Wall Street Journal, “The oil market, and by extension the entire global commodities market, is the insurance policy of the status of the dollar as reserve currency. If that block is taken out of the wall, the wall will begin to collapse.”

The petrodollar system received two serious sequential blows.

First, the 2007–08 financial crisis suggested that the Western banking system is not as stable as imagined. Many countries, including large developing nations, hurried to find other procedures for trade and investment.

The establishment of BRICS by Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa is an illustration of this urgency to “discuss the parameters for a new financial system.” A series of experiments have been conducted by BRICS countries, such as the creation of a BRICS payment system.

Second, as part of its hybrid war, the U.S. has used its dollar power to sanction over 30 countries. Many of these countries, from Iran to Venezuela, have sought alternatives to the U.S.-dominated financial system to conduct normal commerce.

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When the U.S. began to sanction Russia in 2014 and deepen its trade war against China in 2018, the two powers accelerated upon processes of dollar-free trade that other sanctioned states had already begun forming out of necessity.

At that time, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin called for the de-dollarisation of the oil trade. Moscow began to hurriedly reduce its dollar holdings and maintain its assets in gold and other currencies. In 2015, 90 percent of bilateral trade between China and Russia was conducted in dollars, but by 2020 it fell below 50 percent.

When Western countries froze Russian central bank reserves held in their banks, this was tantamount to “crossing the Rubicon,” as economist Adam Tooze wrote. “It brings conflict in the heart of the international monetary system. If the central bank reserves of a G20 member entrusted to the accounts of another G20 central bank are not sacrosanct, nothing in the financial world is. We are at financial war.”

BRICS and sanctioned countries have begun to build new institutions that could circumvent their reliance on the dollar. Thus far, banks and governments have relied upon the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications (SWIFT) network, which is run through the U.S. Federal Reserve’s Clearing House Interbank Payment Services and its Fedwire Funds Service. Countries under unilateral US sanctions — such as Iran and Russia — were cut off from the SWIFT system, which connects 11,000 financial institutions across the globe.

After the 2014 U.S. sanctions, Russia created the System for Transfer of Financial Messages (SPFS), which is mainly designed for domestic users but has attracted central banks from Central Asia, China, India and Iran.

In 2015, China created the Cross-Border Interbank Payment System (CIPS), run by the People’s Bank of China, which is gradually being used by other central banks.

Alongside these developments by Russia and China are a range of other options, such as payment networks rooted in new advances in financial technology (fintech) and central bank digital currencies.

Although Visa and Mastercard are the largest companies in the industry, they face new rivals in China’s UnionPay and Russia’s Mir, as well as China’s private retail mechanisms such as Alipay and WeChat Pay.

About half of the countries in the world are experimenting with forms of central bank digital currencies, with the digital yuan (e-CNY) as one of the more prominent monetary platforms that has already begun to side-line the dollar in the Digital Silk Roads established alongside the BRI.

As part of their concern over “currency power,” many countries in the Global South are eager to develop non-dollar trade and investment systems. Brazil’s new minister of finance starting on Jan. 1, 2023, Fernando Haddad, has championed the creation of a South American digital currency called the sur (meaning “south” in Spanish) in order to create stability in interregional trade and to establish “monetary sovereignty.”

The sur would build upon a mechanism already used by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay called the Local Currency Payment System or SML.


The rest here,

https://consortiumnews.com/2022/12/1...-long-goodbye/

Quote:

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Posted by Bill Ryan

https://youtube.com/watch?v=mNh7pihcEgk

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Didn't watch the video, want to comment on the idea behind the thread title.

Obviously the world order will change as the timeline we follow progresses.

At one (theoretical) end of the spectrum of outcomes we have pure anarchy - that is individual freedom, with no archons or rulers. At this end of the spectrum there are as many "poles" as there are humans. This one can only stabilize over the longer term if everyone is more interested in helping people other than themselves.

At the other end of the spectrum we have pure tyranny, and a uni-polar world order. I think tyranny would only be stable and maintainable in an environment of scarcity - necessary for the control system to operate with appropriate ruthlessness.

All the other options are varying degrees of abundance. In a world of abundance (which I believe is already alive and kicking if we could all see it) serving the needs of others is not actually much of a stretch when your own needs are taken care of.

We will settle somewhere on this spectrum, and it will be a place far different from today.

Conclusion: it is obviously correct that the world order will be n-polar where n>2. So not even bi-polar! Multi-polar is definitely where its at :)

Anchor the anarchon!


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[9eagle9 of times past once pointed out to me that anchor is an anagram of archon - it almost made me want to change my handle on this forum!!]


Anchor/John..

We are already seeing Anarchist communities rising elsewhere, I do know it will have a great division and it will affect everyone very personally, with that beloved family member that decided to go along with the game of deceive and so on. It already happened, and will just get worse, when the tyrannic forces pass more and more laws, labeling people in the other side of the spectrum as criminals.. we know how it goes on.

There are some important negatives to it:


No One World Currency

No One World Government


Which, we could probably say, the United Nations had this under its hood, as part of a plan, which is not going to work out.

Some of the advice that seems to be going around is simply not to do business with the London and Swiss bankers.

It may become more of an issue for AngloZionist regions to remain relevant.

What do you do when you have forced other nations to invent phrases like "agreement incapable"?