Instead, the event with the most long-term significance may be one that received little attention in the mainstream media — Saudi Arabia’s movement toward accepting currencies other than the US dollar for oil payments.

I’ve calculated the rate of de-dollarization since 2000 and posted results in comments of various threads. The steady but moderate rate of de-dollarization from 2000 to 2013 accelerated substantially in 2014 and I’m waiting new data to examine whethert it accelerated again in 2022. Both breakpoints (2014 and 2022) are timed at the start of the use of Western finantial structures to hurt Russia.

If you want to anticipate with good probability when is the perfect time to take advantage of or cut losses from the coming

economic meltdown worse than the Great Depression

follow the de-dollarization trend as a predictor and its connection with macro variables as response and try to develop mathematical models of the observed patterns in data. Probably some AI systems in China, Russia, India, etc, are already giving and updating the answer.

However, after the Biden administration accused the Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared a reduction in spending on Social Security and Medicare — big drivers of the federal deficit — “off the table.”

So we can conclude with certainty that cutting Social Security and Medicare expenses is the most favoured bipartisan approach to tackle the coming economic debacle.

Most Republicans will fall back on the standard “eliminate waste, fraud and abuse” line instead of making needed cuts for fear of losing the next election. The Social Security system only worked when you had a lot of workers paying into it. In 1950 the ratio of workers to retirees was 18 to 1. In 2030 after the last of the Boomers retire it will be closer to 2 to 1. Many younger workers are immigrants and they and their families receive more in government benefits than they pay in taxes. Rather than direct cuts to Social Security, yearly benefit increases won’t keep up with inflation. The cuts will likely take place that way.

The other big expenditure, the 900-billion-dollar defense budget, will also see cuts. Rather than America as world policeman, we will move to a multipolar world. We will eventually give up on the Ukraine as we eventually gave up on Vietnam and Afghanistan. Interest on the national debt will be paid with increasingly worthless dollars as inflation rises or there may be an official default of the debt. I’m an optimist and agree with Ron Paul that we will eventually move back to limited government and liberty, but it may take decades. Limited government and liberty were a major factor in bringing this country a high standard of living in the past and it is a necessary ingredient to make this a successful nation once again.

If there were any congress critters with balls they would be demanding to cut out the heart of the cancer: Defense, CIA, FBI, etc

Once the evil ones are removed then, and only then, can we begin to rebuild a republic.

So we can conclude with certainty that cutting Social Security and Medicare expenses is the most favoured bipartisan approach to tackle the coming economic debacle.</blockquot

Nicely done Levtraro:

Nice play in reasoning & critique of both Twin puppet political gangs on how they manipulate the public. They work in tandem, utilizing phony differences, and phony elections. In the end, they will shaft our citizens – in the end.

The KEY point in any discussion about America's economy – must be, in Ron Paul‘s own words, fixing the “welfare-warfare-fiat currency system.” Yes. Military spending adds up to HALF the Government’s budget. Social Security, is paid for by its recipients-not the Government, and ought not be included in Government Budget discussions. Medicare, and repairing our infrastructure, and resolving our HOMELESS tragedy, and other issues, are workable/fixable issues if America had a modest military budget of, as many nations in NATO, of 2% of our nation’s GDP.

Furthermore, we Americans might abolish the ruinous NAFTA act, and re-industrialize, thereby increasing the strength of our economy ( by increasing the economic strength, prosperity, and numbers of our employed, Middle Class). We would further increase our GDP, and by translation, our Tax Base.

Now, some of you doubters at UNZ might declare -that it would take a REVOLUTION to achieve that humane budget balance. SO BE IT!

* did not intend to Blockquote entire comment.

Will the End of the Petrodollar End the US Empire?

We’ll find out experimentally soon enough.

Military spending adds up to HALF the Government’s budget. Social Security, is paid for by its recipients-not the Government, and ought not be included in Government Budget discussions.

The federal government budget for 2023 is seven trillion dollars. Military spending is not half of that. You can’t pretend Social Security is not part of the budget. Social Security has always been a system in the past where most people received back more than they paid in. We need to stop pretending it is anything other than just another wealth transfer program. It’s basically a Ponzi scheme and, like all Ponzi schemes, it will end.

Everyone wants a no pain solution where the programs they benefit from are left untouched while everything else is cut. We are not going to have a future where everyone can retire at 65 and have a comfortable thirteen-year vacation until they pass away at 78. The math just doesn’t work. It was never meant to be that way anyway. When the retirement age was set at 65 the average life expectancy was 65.

There is going to be great hardship in future years because Americans kept kicking the can down the road and kept pretending that we could keep up the overspending forever.

Dr. Ronald Ernest Paul writes:

“De-dolarization will negatively impact the U.S. government’s ability to manage its over 30 trillion dollars debt.

With a few exceptions, there is still no real support in Congress for spending cuts.

Republican leadership members may say they will not support a debt-ceiling increase unless it is tied to spending cuts.

However, after the Biden administration accused the Republicans of wanting to cut Social Security and Medicare, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy declared a reduction in spending on Social Security and Medicare — big drivers of the Federal deficit — “off the table.”

Similarly, despite the growing skepticism of foreign interventionism among Republicans, the military-industrial complex maintains a vise-like grip on congressional leadership and the White House.

Therefore, do not expect any reduction in military spending.

Instead, the Pentagon’s budget will likely increase.”

Dr. Paul — who is a physician — wants to cut benefit-programs such as Socialist Security and Medicare of America, which will ignite “Blue-State” voter-revolt in America; because, American Socialist Security program has kept American crony-capitalism flourishing for so many years while keeping average American citizens’ desire for socialism and socialized medicine at bay!

Dr. Paul — who is a politician — wants to cut American military-spending, which will probably ignite military-revolt in “Red-State” America.

Then, average American citizens will be in the situation of “Howard Beale” of 1976 American satirical drama “Network”.

LINK

Video Link

For what is now recognized, the dollar has been used to exploit and live off the work of other peoples of the world. No wonder the colonial opulence of the white countries of the north.

We are not going to have a future where everyone can retire at 65 and have a comfortable thirteen-year vacation until they pass away at 78.

I believe we should WHIP TO DEATH anyone over the age of 65 (except for myself). That would save the Social Security program. No more coddling. No more comfortable 13 year vacations. The Bastards!

Now, if Retireds promise not to exceed 65 years of age, they may be spared the beating.

The Military, budget, combined with the budget of 16 secret agencies (ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL), and all ARMED/conjuncts/allies of the Military, adds up to 50% of our total budget.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=3f9cb38de050bb0bJmltdHM9MTY4MTY4OTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0yOWFhYzYwZi0xYmU3LTY1ZjgtMjNhNC1kNGY5MWE0MDY0MjgmaW5zaWQ9NTU0MQ&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=29aac60f-1be7-65f8-23a4-d4f91a406428&psq=military+budget+as+percentage+of+total+budget&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly9lbi53aWtpcGVkaWEub3JnL3dpa2kvTWlsaXRhcnlfYnVkZ2V0X29mX3RoZV9Vbml0ZWRfU3RhdGVz&ntb=1

There are other links, including an antiwar group that keeps track on military spending.

https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&&p=29dddee142bcf2cbJmltdHM9MTY4MTY4OTYwMCZpZ3VpZD0yOWFhYzYwZi0xYmU3LTY1ZjgtMjNhNC1kNGY5MWE0MDY0MjgmaW5zaWQ9NTIyNA&ptn=3&hsh=3&fclid=29aac60f-1be7-65f8-23a4-d4f91a406428&psq=antiwar+group+figures+for+american+military+budget&u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuc2Fsb24uY29tLzIwMjEvMTAvMTEvY2FuLXdlLXN0b3AtY2FsbGluZy1vdXItaHVtb25nb3VzLW1pbGl0YXJ5LXNwZW5kaW5nLXRoZS1kZWZlbnNlLWJ1ZGdldC8&ntb=1

Yes: The SS is essentially a Ponzi Scheme. But not all Ponzi schemes are equal. This one throws essential money back to elderly, who would have difficulty surviving without their monthly check. If you have an alternative, (to my whipping idea), let us know. Otherwise, let us get some good leather whips, and begin our work. Do we unionize? We deserve good pay$ – with retirement benefits?

How about free rent for all those over 70? Nah! You wouldn’t go for that! Back to the whipping. Do we get a day off? Sunday for Church? Atonement?

No more kicking cans. Raise the Retirement Age to 95. There’s a Reform we can live with. Wait!!!

I believe we should WHIP TO DEATH anyone over the age of 65 (except for myself). That would save the Social Security program. No more coddling. No more comfortable 13 year vacations. The Bastards!

It’s sad that people can only come up with feeble attempts at sarcasm when you try to point out the reality of the situation we are facing. This is a serious issue that needs to be discussed in a serious manner. There is going to be more money going out in Social Security benefits than coming in as taxes in the future. The cash flow deficit will be 450 billion dollars yearly by 2034. Your links didn’t work for me. I looked at:

https://www.govconwire.com/articles/us-military-budget-2022-how-much-does-the-u-s-spend-on-defense/

It looks like around a trillion dollars a year in total defense spending. If you cut it in half that would cover the average future shortfall in Social Security. Don’t forget, though, that costs for Medicare and Medicaid are increasing also. So are interest costs. The national debt will be 40 trillion dollars in a decade. Assuming a normal 5% interest rate, that will quadruple interest payments from 500 billion to two trillion dollars yearly.

At the same time, total tax receipts will be dropping. This isn’t just taxes dropping from the Boomers retiring. Due to the dysgenic effects of our welfare and immigration policies of the last 60 years, the younger generation will be more nonwhite and less productive than those in the past and will pay less in taxes. We are also likely heading into a multiyear Depression that will cause decreases in tax receipts. As the economic situation deteriorates, the unemployed will become more reliant on government assistance to survive and spending in that area will increase. In a future situation like what we are looking at, the Boomers are not going keep Social Security benefits at the current level.

The doolar is falling too slowly. Hurry up!

Mark, those arguments would be legitimate in a not that distant past but it’s actually worse than that when you think about how human capital isn’t really needed except as peripheral caretakers for the system, for the limited time being. The need for human capital in the production, sale and delivery of basic consumer goods can almost be eliminated today. What does that world look like? UBI and bug eating.

The only reason Social Security is part of the budget is because the funds were diverted for other uses, probably illegally, and now what should have been an investment vehicle that earned an income needs to be bailed out as part of the overall budget. Al Gore’s lock box was a lie.

Social Security was a promise made as part of an extortion by the gov’t and it was gov’t chicanery that helped create its current predicament.

Although there is no way to save the US economy from the inevitable implosion, an honest attempt to balance a budget should start with a 90% reduction in offense spending. Eliminating the numerous departments of inanity along with their useless and counter productive employees would further reduce the need for more funny money creation. If asked, I would volunteer my services to cut enough of what the Fed Gov shouldn’t be doing to actually produce a sizable surplus that would include telling all gov’t paper holders to pound sand via a 100% default on all outstanding debts.

Human desires are limitless and there will always be a demand for human labor. The Luddites in early 19th century England went around destroying machinery because they thought the machines would put them all out of jobs. It never happened. They ended up getting jobs in other areas. People predicting it is going to happen now are just the modern-day version of the Luddites.

You can’t really predict what people will want. The free market will decide that. For example, people may decide they want hand crafted luxury items. I know someone who makes stained glass windows for the homes of rich people. People may want more leisure. We went from 12-hour workdays to 8-hour workdays. Personal services may increase: yoga teachers, musicians to entertain us, personal tutors in various subjects, a thousand other things. Life expectancy is still only in the seventies. We may have more scientific researchers using advanced technology to unlock the secrets of aging.

If people are eating bugs in the future, it will be because of the Great Reset and radical environmentalists who want to force everyone into giving up their standard of living in order to supposedly save the environment. We don’t have to go down that road. These are just would be totalitarians. The future doesn’t have to be bad. It will only be bad if we keep making bad choices as we have been in recent years. We need to move away from expecting to be taken care of by big government.

Agreed. There is no need for defense spending…over the years, there is no evidence of any foreign power contemplating to invade this continent. The money is needed for US aggression/occupation of every corner of this planet, hence it is “aggression” spending. Until public/voters will not weed out from the Washington the filth that is constantly asking to spend ($8000 for military hammer) more on occupying other countries, nothing will change the course towards the approaching cliff.

Trump, in 2016 winning platform of running this country as a business, has failed. His intend, to pull the military from every corner of this planet, has failed because the warmongering filth was not eliminated from the Washington “society”.

The Military, budget, combined with the budget of 16 secret agencies (ALL UNCONSTITUTIONAL), and all ARMED/conjuncts/allies of the Military, adds up to 50% of our total budget.

You’ve hit upon an important point here Durruti.

People just focus on the raw number of dollars spent on the military, when they should be focusing on all the money being spent on the Military-Industrial-Security-Surveillance-State (MISSS) as a whole.
Once those three letter agencies that spy on Americans are factored in (ie: like Dept of Homeland Security, FBI, CIA, NSA etc), those agencies that work against and restrict the freedoms of the citizenry, the actual budget is pretty expansive.

Importantly also, one would have thought that anything related to the military, should be covered by the military budget. For example, hospital and medical treatment/therapy for those injured by the genocidal U.S foreign misadventures and those left PTSD’ed.
But they’re not. The Dept of Veterans Affairs is saddled with those expenses.

What about the funding for upkeep and maintenance of the nuclear arsenal ? Surely that must be included in the military budget ?
In fact it is not. I recall reading that the Dept of Energy provides the funding for that.

Simply put, there is sleight-of-hand in abundance to ensure that many military expenditures are funded by other government departments.

Military spending is not half of that.

You are forgetting the multiplier effect of the military industry. For instance, a button producing company is consider non-military despite predominantly selling buttons to military. With multipliers, the military account close to 65% of taxpayers money. We want it that way by voting easily identifiable politicians who crave for big military – fake macho individuals.

Here we go with let’s blame social security. No mention of the bloated defense budget, which accounts for 1 trillion per year. No mention also that the F-35 costs 1.6 trillion, can’t fly in the rain, and has killed pilots with hypoxia. Regarding the Chinese spy balloons, it took 2 missiles costing 400K each to shoot one down. Ukraine will need much more of our over-priced weapons. The Russians are using drones that cost 20K, which we shoot down with missiles costing between 120-400K each. This is unsustainable. Russia, with 100 billion, has better tanks and hypersonic missiles–which the US can’t develop. We sent our manufacturing base overseas, so depend on others to outfit our army. Russia manufactures 60K artillery rounds PER DAY, whereas we and our allies only 6K per day.

[The only reason Social Security is part of the budget is because the funds were diverted for other uses, probably illegally]

Right to the point.

We were told back in the eighties, through establishment legacy media like Business Week, that the social security system is heading for assured bankruptcy as gradually less social security payers will be contributing to support more social security beneficiaries, as more people retire while less people enter the workforce. That proves that the system was one giant Ponzi scheme, for the money taken from workers s should have been kept out of reach for the governmental expenditures which are bound to increase, no matter what, since the modus operandi of corrupt republics is for politicians to keep bribing their constituency for the sake of remaining in power. So much for FDR’s cigar box that is meant to protect the retirement of the working class.

Chile, a country that is considered second or third world by the American Establishment, managed to keep the social security scheme solvent by putting all contributions out of governmental reach while earning a modest return in fairly conservative investment vehicles.

The most successful social security plan would be the one where people are left to fend for their retirement without government interference. The welfare state that was initiated by Bismarck has grown into a monstrous bureaucracy that is bound to fail. Nothing illustrates the reality of governmental management than the European rules that forced pension funds to invest between seventy to eighty percent in government bonds when these bonds started paying negative to zero interest rates since 2014, while those pension funds required a minimum return of eight percent to break even. Now Macron is trying hard to chisel the French people by requiring them to work two more years before being eligible for retirement.

Although there is no way to save the US economy from the inevitable implosion, an honest attempt to balance a budget should start with a 90% reduction in offense spending.

I agree big cuts need to be made to the defense budget. What I don’t agree with is that so many people have their own sacred cows that can’t be touched. The government programs they benefit from, why those are important and how can you be so heartless as to touch them?

The federal government has been running 1.5 trillion-dollar yearly deficits the last decade. This is going to increase as the rest of the Boomers retire, interest costs on the national debt increase, and tax receipts drop as the economy worsens. Even if you make big cuts in defense spending, it’s not going to balance the budget.

The government is parasitical on the productive parts of the economy. The fastest economic growth in U.S. history was 1865-1915 when total overall government spending was 10% of GDP as compared to 40% now. The introduction of the Federal Reserve, the federal income tax and our intervention in World War I was the beginning of a move in the wrong direction by the federal government. We never had Social Security before the nineteen thirties and old people didn’t all starve to death. People need to be responsible for saving for their own retirements. The earlier recipients of SS who benefitted from the Ponzi nature of the scheme are almost all dead now and we can’t collect the money back. The best we can do in the future is make sure no old people are homeless or starve to death. Everyone is going to be having a hard time in the future because of past bad government policies.

I appreciate your optimism but I’m afraid the Brave New World is already upon us. A life built on psychotropics (soma) and sex is already a reality for a growing number of people. Jonathon Haidt has been documenting what the machine is doing to young peoples brains and it isn’t good. The Plandemic as trial run for totalitarianism was pretty effective I would say as the majority of people were easily manipulated into groupthink and mob violence against dissenters. Fixing the US budget? AI can do that. People with meaningful lives? Well, the machines can make soma…

The idea of protecting people is noble. The idea of protecting people by stealing their money is ignoble. The entire concept of a gov’t enforced social safety net was always just a con job to gain access to more of the public’s money.

I signed up for Social Security when I turned 70. I never thought it would last as long as it has. I waited to sign up hoping it would implode so I could claim I was cheated once again by gov’t. Now the dollar itself is failing so all forms of Dollar payments are going to slowly implode over time.

I keep wondering what Joe average is going to do when all his debts become more and more unpayable. People with mortgages sitting on real estate that is sure to decrease in market value will be ruined since, for most, that house represents their life savings. What is going to happen as the hard working people realize that the American dream has become their American nightmare? How many will connect the dots to understand everything that is and will happen is part of a long term plan to reduce them to paupers dependent on gov’t largess?

Lots of the homeless living in tents on the streets are the society’s refuse that put themselves there by making bad choices. What’s coming is the hard working guy and gal ending up destitute by following all the rules and not realizing how conditions have changed and failed to protect themselves. People with significant savings in paper assets or the banking system are just asking to be taken to the cleaners. The entire US financial system is being converted to make seizing assets push button simple and most people can’t see it coming.

Chile, a country that is considered second or third world by the American Establishment, managed to keep the social security scheme solvent by putting all contributions out of governmental reach while earning a modest return in fairly conservative investment vehicles.

The Chilean system is better indeed in the sense that pension funds are out of reach of govts BUT it is a forced individual saving system, it violates the right to use your private property for legal purposes, and pays too little to poor and low middle-class workers that retire at 65. All these deficiencies can be corrected though.

The most successful social security plan would be the one where people are left to fend for their retirement without government interference.

Agree with the sentiment. Nevertheless, in the case of poor people, this would lead to them having more babies because that increases the chances to be taken care of when old. Also, many average people have a high chance to be defrauded if they manage their own savings. Nobody wants to live in a community with poor people having too many babies and many old destitute persons that were cheated out of their savings.

Probably a forced savings system with individually-owned accounts like the Chilean one with less restrictions on use and access to savings would be the best pension system.

Note that Chileans introduced the system following the central tenet of neoliberalism: the State must help the rich. In this case, a percentage of the monthly salary rightfully belonging to the worker is passed temporarily (well, for decades) to finantial corporations to manage and exploit. So even a stupid theory (and neoliberalism is one of the stupidest ever, beeing the main cause of the decline of the economic standing of the USA) may stumble upon a good idea, lol!

Price inflation is the hidden tax that will reduce everyone’s life style without an abrupt decrease in nominal income from gov’t sources. SS payments and all payments will simply purchase less and less over time and most people won’t understand the overall underlying mechanism at play. That’s the trick gov’t is counting on to keep sending out the checks with the same numbers printed on them but cheating the population nevertheless. And make no mistake, it is cheating. The gov’t policy wonks know damned well that their education system has stupefied the masses enough to pull off all the scams now unraveling.

SS is an exception to other gov’t payments to individuals since it was income stolen by edict that the average person wants returned to him. I’d gladly accept a lump sum payout from the SS system for every dollar that was stolen from me along with the actual interest it could have accumulated over time. That’s what I’m owed, and no more, but that option isn’t available to me so I’ll try to collapse the system in my small way by living as long as I can.

The way the US economy exists at present, with the bulk of the world now switching to help destroy it, means there is no ‘out’. No one knows how things will spin out of control, but one can safely bet on out of control as a sure thing.

I’m watching from where a nuclear strike and cold temperatures aren’t a concern. I don’t wish any harm to the average working person, but do want the pensions for the killers in costume and other gov’t workers to disappear with attendant negative consequences since it was them that produced the now failing shit show.

A perfect description of a failed state courtesy of pseudo-Keynesian economics.

“And when all fails, they take you to war“
Gerald Celente

We should buckle up for the coming confrontation that will end up with a mixture of Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World.

The NWO was just heralded by the IMF on April 10th with the announcement of their digital currency. Will it be the CBDC of the One World Bank?

These are surely interesting times.

no Ron….but as the dollar weakens

the Zionist Empire will attempt to sustain itself

thru increasing intra- and international violence.

Video Link
Notice who headlines the Veteran’s proclamation, (Statesman Ron Paul). Ron Paul, also, is a Military Veteran.

Video Link

the decline of the dollar will not be as sudden or as imminent as many alternative pundits claim. there is no doubt about a decline in the dollar, but it will take years to play out. as one analyst noted, there is no significant bond market in china or russia. there is no chance in the near term that either nation’s currency could replace the dollar as a reserve currency, and that is precisely the point of interest. it is one thing to accept heterogeneous currencies for trade, but quite another to serve as a reserve. the financial infrastructure is simply lacking in any other nation with a pretense to the throne.

gold could be a plausible alternative but it would take a sea change in systems and processes to return to gold worldwide, and it would probably never be accepted for the very reasons that nations are trying to throw off the dollar – he who owns the gold makes the rules.

we are presently at ground zero in de-dollarization. it will be interesting to watch it unfold.

Low IQ economic libertarians (but I repeat myself) rarely illuminate the way in which they choose their death-cult of insatiable greed over continued human existence as nakedly as this creature. The delirium of ignorance is rarely so nakedly expressed as here. We ought to thank if for its candour.

Low IQ economic libertarians (but I repeat myself) rarely illuminate the way in which they choose their death-cult of insatiable greed over continued human existence as nakedly as this creature.

Mulga Mumblebrain intends to ‘illuminate’ the way by suggesting we revert to an Authoritarian Marxist regime, seeing as everywhere this has been implemented in the world, said societies had untold abundance and prosperity.

In such a system, the All Powerful State shall own the means of production.
Indeed, they’ll own everything – which implies that you’ll ‘Own Nothing and [allegedly] be happy’.

That’s why Mulga identifies with Klaus Schwab and the WEF.

Mulga claims he’s for ‘continued human existence’, yet he advocates for those meteoric rises in the cost of energy that result from subsidising these Green /Renewable boondoggles that are impoverishing those who can least afford them, and thus greatly exacerbating human NON-existence.

Watch the few minutes of the video below from 1:04:45 – 1:12:00 to see for yourself what deprivation of electrification in the third world (ie: Low cost energy that is derived from coal fired power plants) is doing for ‘human existence’:

Video Link

Bottom Line: As the commentator says in the video, climate loons like Mulga and his ilk are MORALLY REPUGNANT for campaigning for a movement that KILLS MILLIONS in the third world – and is increasingly doing so in the first world as the poorer subset of that community is bankrupted by the astronomical energy bills.

As Greenpeace co-founder Patrick Moore says, people like Mulga are ANTI-HUMAN.

I’d go further than that. I call them out as RACISTS, since their movement is responsible for a disproportionate cull in the dark skinned peoples of the world.

Quit with the pretence Mulga. There’s NO WAY you can claim you don’t know that these cock-eyed brainless Green Energy initiatives aren’t killing countless millions in the third world.
Just be honest for once and admit that the term you use ( ‘Clean Energy’) is just window dressing, used to disguise your real agenda. ie: the mass genocide of the ‘darkies’, in Stage 1 of your (and Klaus Schwab’s) plan.

Once they’re out of the way, it’s the working poor in the western countries that will be next on the chopping block.