This is very well-written and plausible global financial history that explains a lot. However, I don’t know enough to say whether it’s true, and I wonder what real experts would think?
This is very well-written and plausible global financial history that explains a lot. However, I don’t know enough to say whether it’s true, and I wonder what real experts would think?
For the USD to fall out of use another currency must become both large/stable enough to replace it, and be funded by a government others are willing to trust to not manipulate their currency. Barring a radical change in China in opening up and becoming a more rules based and predictable system, there is no replacement at hand for the USD.
USD is not the reserve currency due to its use for oil. USD is in use because it's the only suitable currency for the use.
USD is the de facto reserve currency due to it's strategic importance set by the US for the purchases of oil. Oil was once priced by gold. When the US negotiated a deal with oil producing...
Exemplary
USD is not the reserve currency due to its use for oil. USD is in use because it's the only suitable currency for the use.
USD is the de facto reserve currency due to it's strategic importance set by the US for the purchases of oil.
Oil was once priced by gold. When the US negotiated a deal with oil producing entities; by selling oil only for US dollars, they would receive US military protection. Which resulted in a massive advantage for the US. Everyone needs oil, and so does the US, but it doesn't need to do anything but "print" more dollars.
Now, if you're an other country that needs oil, you cannot print US dollars. This means to get oil, you would need to buy dollars from the US. This results in you exporting goods to the US, in order to receive US dollars.
The result? US purchasing oil with an intangible asset (money in this case being printed is not literal money printers going off), and the rest of the world that need dollars for their own oil exchanging goods and services for this tangible asset that, they themselves, cannot create.
What happens to nations that decide to sell oil for other form of currency? This becomes a direct threat to the US. In 2003, Iraq decided to no longer be a petrodollar nation and to sell oil for Euros. This threatens the integrity of the system as soon as one country breaks ranks, then another, eventually the petrodollar system cease to exists. As you probably know, Iraq was then invaded 6 months later by the US, with the very first provincial government act was to revert this change back from Euros to US dollars.
I think you're being too dogmatic here, in the opposite direction as the post you're replying to. Oil doesn't seem to be the only factor behind the US dollar continuing to be a reserve currency....
I think you're being too dogmatic here, in the opposite direction as the post you're replying to. Oil doesn't seem to be the only factor behind the US dollar continuing to be a reserve currency. It also seems to be a declining factor? Oil isn't as important as it used to be, before countries invested in efficiency and alternative forms of energy.
I'm not even sure that oil exporters universally don't accept other forms of payment. It seems unlikely that they would refuse Euros if offered? How do we know this is true? The history of Iraq doesn't tell us what other countries do.
Oil is used for more than what people think is just motor gasoline. The byproducts of oil is used for manufacturing; distillate fuel, hydrocarbon gas liquids, kerosene jet fuel, asphalt,...
It also seems to be a declining factor? Oil isn't as important as it used to be, before countries invested in efficiency and alternative forms of energy.
Oil is used for more than what people think is just motor gasoline. The byproducts of oil is used for manufacturing; distillate fuel, hydrocarbon gas liquids, kerosene jet fuel, asphalt, petrochemical feedstocks, lubricants, etc. These do not have more "green" alternatives that are cost-effective in comparison.
It seems unlikely that they would refuse Euros if offered? How do we know this is true? The history of Iraq doesn't tell us what other countries do.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran made an effort to create its own stock exchange exclusively for selling oil in gold, euros, and yen. In 2006, Venezuela supported Iran's decision to trade in euro. In 2011, Libya's Gaddafi tried to introduce a similar oil for gold plan, with the introduction of the Libyan gold dinar.
Since most countries rely on oil imports, countries are forced to maintain USD in their treasuries. This creates a consistent demand for the USD and supports it's value. With the world's reserve currency being the USD, this allows the United States to issue bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. Which allows for further cemented support as the US government can run higher deficit spending at a sustainable level than what any other country could attempt.
You're making a lot of assertions and I'm just wondering how we can know all this to be true. We are talking about history and global finance, not things most people have personal experience with....
You're making a lot of assertions and I'm just wondering how we can know all this to be true.
We are talking about history and global finance, not things most people have personal experience with. Anything we know has come from something we've read, right?
Your very own article submitted goes into great detail regarding this. Specifically, the "Petrodollar System (1974-Present)" header and "Multi-Currency International Trade," as well as "China is...
We are talking about history and global finance, not things most people have personal experience with
Your very own article submitted goes into great detail regarding this.
Specifically, the "Petrodollar System (1974-Present)" header and "Multi-Currency International Trade," as well as "China is Subverting the Petrodollar System".
Yes, I agree that it's a good article. But it's centered on the US dollar and doesn't really get into the weakness of alternatives. (It's also not a primary source.) Iraq, Iran, Libya, and...
Yes, I agree that it's a good article. But it's centered on the US dollar and doesn't really get into the weakness of alternatives. (It's also not a primary source.)
Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Venezuela are examples of countries forced to look for alternatives to US treasuries due to sanctions. I'm wondering to what extent other oil-exporting countries could just decide they want to build up Euro reserves instead of US reserves. Surely European countries would be just as happy to pay for oil in Euros? Why not just do that?
I guess, to some extent, they do? Here's a chart showing that official Euro-denominated reserves are about 1/3 US-denominated reserves.
But there is a note saying that the database is confidential and they're not publishing a more detailed breakdown. Also the US-Saudi agreement was apparently kept secret for 41 years. Maybe there are other secret deals?
Did you read the whole article? They don't claim that the US reserve currency status is only supported by oil. They also argue quite convincingly that no one other currency can replace the dollar....
Did you read the whole article?
They don't claim that the US reserve currency status is only supported by oil.
They also argue quite convincingly that no one other currency can replace the dollar. However, then they go into several multi-polar alternatives.
I agree that the US probably didn't invade Iraq due to Saddam Hussein deciding to trade oil for Euros. Alden doesn't quite claim this; she says it's disputed and cites a 2006 speech by Ron Paul....
I agree that the US probably didn't invade Iraq due to Saddam Hussein deciding to trade oil for Euros. Alden doesn't quite claim this; she says it's disputed and cites a 2006 speech by Ron Paul. But I don't think Ron Paul speaks for anyone other than himself, and there's a lot of evidence for other justifications.
On the other hand, that Forbes article explains some of the history in a way that broadly agrees with Alden's article?
The U.S. was worried about the resultant trade deficit caused by suddenly having to pay vast amounts for necessary imports, and so secured the agreement of Saudi Arabia to only trade oil in U.S. dollars, meaning the U.S. could pay for oil in their own currency. Saudi Arabia, for their part, accumulated huge reserves of U.S. dollars, investing some of them back into the U.S. economy.
The enormous lake of U.S. dollars this created augmented the role of the dollar as the global reserve currency, being a highly liquid, easily-exchanged claim on the products, services and investment potential generated by the U.S. economy. But this was merely one step in the rise of the greenback as the global reserve. The next step came when other economies–East Asia in particular–followed the lead of the oil producers and also built up huge reserves of U.S. dollars, all of which was made possible by the abandonment of the Bretton Woods fixed exchange rate system in the early 1970s. This practice helped to keep exchange rates for exporters low, and kept a lid on inflation in the U.S., which suited everyone up to a point.
It sounds like Saudi Arabia was an early example of a country that sells a lot of exports to the US and invests in US Treasuries. Other countries followed suit. I don't think it matters much that they were exporting oil in particular, or that oil is priced in dollars, but it is still something that the US buys a lot of. And it seems like other countries that sell a lot of exports to the US could use some of their reserves to buy oil, too? This works so long as countries in OPEC are happy building up foreign reserves consisting of US Treasuries.
In more recent history, apparently China was willing to build up foreign reserves for a while, and then they stopped. I thought it was interesting that China's Belt and Road initiative can be explained as basically what China decided to do after they decided not to buy more US Treasuries.
Technical sidebar: us treasuries are not the same as us dollars. Treasuries are more like a loan to the us (of us dollars). It’s more complicated than that, because it’s not really a loan due to...
Technical sidebar: us treasuries are not the same as us dollars. Treasuries are more like a loan to the us (of us dollars). It’s more complicated than that, because it’s not really a loan due to the relationship of the us government to the us dollar. The important thing though is that a treausury [note] is not cash.
Yes, but safe fixed investments denominated in dollars are sometimes talked of as "invested in US dollars" when speaking informally. On the scale of a nation's foreign reserves, it's not like they...
Yes, but safe fixed investments denominated in dollars are sometimes talked of as "invested in US dollars" when speaking informally.
On the scale of a nation's foreign reserves, it's not like they can just keep their billions in a bank account.
Similarly when someone talks loosely of a company having a lot of cash, it is typically invested in safe, fixed-income investments like treasuries.
I'm in no way a real expert in this. But... well doesn't seem like anyone else is either! To me this seems a very good potted history of how global currencies work & can stop working. I found the...
I'm in no way a real expert in this. But... well doesn't seem like anyone else is either!
To me this seems a very good potted history of how global currencies work & can stop working. I found the explanation of how China's Belt and Road initiative is upsetting the current order quite eye opening. They're definitely broadly right on their history of Bretton Woods, Keynes & the gold standard.
For the rest well: "It's hard to make predictions especially about the future."
I guess the key question is will the US Government jump, or will they wait to be pushed? Given how well the status quo works for the elected officials and billionaires who fund them I would expect them to wait. In some ways this is a good test for the existence of a US "deep state".
I disagree with the article where Alden writes that nobody benefits from this arrangement. It seems like US is benefiting from importing a lot of stuff while giving out intangible promises in...
I disagree with the article where Alden writes that nobody benefits from this arrangement. It seems like US is benefiting from importing a lot of stuff while giving out intangible promises in return, and being able to run up the government debt with little inflation.
When the dollar weakens, this corresponds to a lot of foreign governments and investors losing money on their US investments, and their export industries having a harder time selling to the US. You can expect everyone to cooperate to try to avoid this. Maybe they shouldn't be selling so much to the US but it seems it's a hard habit to break, and nobody likes losing money. It would be better to somehow trade what they have for something else without causing prices to go down, and this is difficult to do at scale.
It seems like it's hard enough for them to stop increasing the amount of US Treasuries they own, as China did? This means making large investments elsewhere.
Yeah, this is a crux of the validity of the argument. She just states that China Belt & Road means US Elites Don't benefit from being the global reserve. But the mechanism isn't really explained....
Yeah, this is a crux of the validity of the argument. She just states that China Belt & Road means US Elites Don't benefit from being the global reserve. But the mechanism isn't really explained.
I think the explanation is that exporting nations are not increasing their US Treasury holdings enough. So the Fed had to step in and now holds too much US Govt debt. But doing this is causing inflation. Albeit mainly in assets, only slowly in CPI.
There's the whole section about productivity vs average incomes, wealth concentration etc. And it's arguable that this is the driver for US political dysfunction (Trump).
I'm really enjoying this back and forth. It's helping me get to grips with the information. Thank you!
To start I don't believe in Truth in economics/fiance. But is this article a good lens to view the world? Yes. It is well researched, and impressive in its depth and scope. While reductive and...
To start I don't believe in Truth in economics/fiance.
But is this article a good lens to view the world? Yes. It is well researched, and impressive in its depth and scope. While reductive and lacking nuance at parts it is a great start to understanding where we are today.
But it seems you are trying to get something out of this article that you are not saying in your post?
I think the article is good too, but I really would like to know what other experts think. If I'm reading some popular history by an academic historian who is being careful, they will tell you up...
I think the article is good too, but I really would like to know what other experts think.
If I'm reading some popular history by an academic historian who is being careful, they will tell you up front where they are simplifying, and also what's consensus history and where they are giving you their own speculative theory that isn't generally accepted. But in this case it's not that explicit, so I don't know where the conventional wisdom ends and the author's own theories begin.
To be glib, starting with The Fraying of the Petrodollar System[1] is speculative and all that follows. We are still to close to know if that is actually what is happening. That is where the...
To be glib, starting with The Fraying of the Petrodollar System[1] is speculative and all that follows. We are still to close to know if that is actually what is happening. That is where the Analysis of the future begins. That is where we start to see speculation, talking their own book, and prognostication happens.
But Lyn Alden is an expect analyst so there view is not pulled out of thin air and a lot of intellectual capital is wound up in these outlooks.
Also I would not be making any finical decision solely off this report
This is very well-written and plausible global financial history that explains a lot. However, I don’t know enough to say whether it’s true, and I wonder what real experts would think?
Article says
"fraying of the existing petrodollar system"
Which in my mind is an immidiate invalidation. The US dollar isn't used due to oil.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/douglasbulloch/2018/04/26/the-petro-dollar-is-a-myth-the-petro-yuan-mere-fantasy/?sh=f2c827c6a14b
https://medium.com/@JSlate__/debunking-the-petrodollar-myth-1a4bc596472e
For the USD to fall out of use another currency must become both large/stable enough to replace it, and be funded by a government others are willing to trust to not manipulate their currency. Barring a radical change in China in opening up and becoming a more rules based and predictable system, there is no replacement at hand for the USD.
USD is not the reserve currency due to its use for oil. USD is in use because it's the only suitable currency for the use.
USD is the de facto reserve currency due to it's strategic importance set by the US for the purchases of oil.
Oil was once priced by gold. When the US negotiated a deal with oil producing entities; by selling oil only for US dollars, they would receive US military protection. Which resulted in a massive advantage for the US. Everyone needs oil, and so does the US, but it doesn't need to do anything but "print" more dollars.
Now, if you're an other country that needs oil, you cannot print US dollars. This means to get oil, you would need to buy dollars from the US. This results in you exporting goods to the US, in order to receive US dollars.
The result? US purchasing oil with an intangible asset (money in this case being printed is not literal money printers going off), and the rest of the world that need dollars for their own oil exchanging goods and services for this tangible asset that, they themselves, cannot create.
What happens to nations that decide to sell oil for other form of currency? This becomes a direct threat to the US. In 2003, Iraq decided to no longer be a petrodollar nation and to sell oil for Euros. This threatens the integrity of the system as soon as one country breaks ranks, then another, eventually the petrodollar system cease to exists. As you probably know, Iraq was then invaded 6 months later by the US, with the very first provincial government act was to revert this change back from Euros to US dollars.
I think you're being too dogmatic here, in the opposite direction as the post you're replying to. Oil doesn't seem to be the only factor behind the US dollar continuing to be a reserve currency. It also seems to be a declining factor? Oil isn't as important as it used to be, before countries invested in efficiency and alternative forms of energy.
I'm not even sure that oil exporters universally don't accept other forms of payment. It seems unlikely that they would refuse Euros if offered? How do we know this is true? The history of Iraq doesn't tell us what other countries do.
Oil is used for more than what people think is just motor gasoline. The byproducts of oil is used for manufacturing; distillate fuel, hydrocarbon gas liquids, kerosene jet fuel, asphalt, petrochemical feedstocks, lubricants, etc. These do not have more "green" alternatives that are cost-effective in comparison.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, Iran made an effort to create its own stock exchange exclusively for selling oil in gold, euros, and yen. In 2006, Venezuela supported Iran's decision to trade in euro. In 2011, Libya's Gaddafi tried to introduce a similar oil for gold plan, with the introduction of the Libyan gold dinar.
Since most countries rely on oil imports, countries are forced to maintain USD in their treasuries. This creates a consistent demand for the USD and supports it's value. With the world's reserve currency being the USD, this allows the United States to issue bonds at lower interest rates than they otherwise would be able to. Which allows for further cemented support as the US government can run higher deficit spending at a sustainable level than what any other country could attempt.
You're making a lot of assertions and I'm just wondering how we can know all this to be true.
We are talking about history and global finance, not things most people have personal experience with. Anything we know has come from something we've read, right?
Your very own article submitted goes into great detail regarding this.
Specifically, the "Petrodollar System (1974-Present)" header and "Multi-Currency International Trade," as well as "China is Subverting the Petrodollar System".
It's a good lengthy article, but a great read.
Yes, I agree that it's a good article. But it's centered on the US dollar and doesn't really get into the weakness of alternatives. (It's also not a primary source.)
Iraq, Iran, Libya, and Venezuela are examples of countries forced to look for alternatives to US treasuries due to sanctions. I'm wondering to what extent other oil-exporting countries could just decide they want to build up Euro reserves instead of US reserves. Surely European countries would be just as happy to pay for oil in Euros? Why not just do that?
I guess, to some extent, they do? Here's a chart showing that official Euro-denominated reserves are about 1/3 US-denominated reserves.
But there is a note saying that the database is confidential and they're not publishing a more detailed breakdown. Also the US-Saudi agreement was apparently kept secret for 41 years. Maybe there are other secret deals?
Did you read the whole article?
They don't claim that the US reserve currency status is only supported by oil.
They also argue quite convincingly that no one other currency can replace the dollar. However, then they go into several multi-polar alternatives.
I agree that the US probably didn't invade Iraq due to Saddam Hussein deciding to trade oil for Euros. Alden doesn't quite claim this; she says it's disputed and cites a 2006 speech by Ron Paul. But I don't think Ron Paul speaks for anyone other than himself, and there's a lot of evidence for other justifications.
On the other hand, that Forbes article explains some of the history in a way that broadly agrees with Alden's article?
It sounds like Saudi Arabia was an early example of a country that sells a lot of exports to the US and invests in US Treasuries. Other countries followed suit. I don't think it matters much that they were exporting oil in particular, or that oil is priced in dollars, but it is still something that the US buys a lot of. And it seems like other countries that sell a lot of exports to the US could use some of their reserves to buy oil, too? This works so long as countries in OPEC are happy building up foreign reserves consisting of US Treasuries.
In more recent history, apparently China was willing to build up foreign reserves for a while, and then they stopped. I thought it was interesting that China's Belt and Road initiative can be explained as basically what China decided to do after they decided not to buy more US Treasuries.
Technical sidebar: us treasuries are not the same as us dollars. Treasuries are more like a loan to the us (of us dollars). It’s more complicated than that, because it’s not really a loan due to the relationship of the us government to the us dollar. The important thing though is that a treausury [note] is not cash.
Yes, but safe fixed investments denominated in dollars are sometimes talked of as "invested in US dollars" when speaking informally.
On the scale of a nation's foreign reserves, it's not like they can just keep their billions in a bank account.
Similarly when someone talks loosely of a company having a lot of cash, it is typically invested in safe, fixed-income investments like treasuries.
You’re totally right. Til.
I'm in no way a real expert in this. But... well doesn't seem like anyone else is either!
To me this seems a very good potted history of how global currencies work & can stop working. I found the explanation of how China's Belt and Road initiative is upsetting the current order quite eye opening. They're definitely broadly right on their history of Bretton Woods, Keynes & the gold standard.
For the rest well: "It's hard to make predictions especially about the future."
I guess the key question is will the US Government jump, or will they wait to be pushed? Given how well the status quo works for the elected officials and billionaires who fund them I would expect them to wait. In some ways this is a good test for the existence of a US "deep state".
I disagree with the article where Alden writes that nobody benefits from this arrangement. It seems like US is benefiting from importing a lot of stuff while giving out intangible promises in return, and being able to run up the government debt with little inflation.
When the dollar weakens, this corresponds to a lot of foreign governments and investors losing money on their US investments, and their export industries having a harder time selling to the US. You can expect everyone to cooperate to try to avoid this. Maybe they shouldn't be selling so much to the US but it seems it's a hard habit to break, and nobody likes losing money. It would be better to somehow trade what they have for something else without causing prices to go down, and this is difficult to do at scale.
It seems like it's hard enough for them to stop increasing the amount of US Treasuries they own, as China did? This means making large investments elsewhere.
Yeah, this is a crux of the validity of the argument. She just states that China Belt & Road means US Elites Don't benefit from being the global reserve. But the mechanism isn't really explained.
I think the explanation is that exporting nations are not increasing their US Treasury holdings enough. So the Fed had to step in and now holds too much US Govt debt. But doing this is causing inflation. Albeit mainly in assets, only slowly in CPI.
There's the whole section about productivity vs average incomes, wealth concentration etc. And it's arguable that this is the driver for US political dysfunction (Trump).
I'm really enjoying this back and forth. It's helping me get to grips with the information. Thank you!
To start I don't believe in Truth in economics/fiance.
But is this article a good lens to view the world?
Yes. It is well researched, and impressive in its depth and scope. While reductive and lacking nuance at parts it is a great start to understanding where we are today.
But it seems you are trying to get something out of this article that you are not saying in your post?
I think the article is good too, but I really would like to know what other experts think.
If I'm reading some popular history by an academic historian who is being careful, they will tell you up front where they are simplifying, and also what's consensus history and where they are giving you their own speculative theory that isn't generally accepted. But in this case it's not that explicit, so I don't know where the conventional wisdom ends and the author's own theories begin.
To be glib, starting with The Fraying of the Petrodollar System[1] is speculative and all that follows. We are still to close to know if that is actually what is happening. That is where the Analysis of the future begins. That is where we start to see speculation, talking their own book, and prognostication happens.
But Lyn Alden is an expect analyst so there view is not pulled out of thin air and a lot of intellectual capital is wound up in these outlooks.
Also I would not be making any finical decision solely off this report