Again brilliant Alasdair - totally agree. A BRICS currency is a great headline, but essentially it's not required in the medium term. They are an alliance because of the US dollar. That's key - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. US hegemonic policy has been so destructive, they have built and own the entire global supply chain; they will no longer put up with any country dictating what they can or cannot do.
As you say CIPS and SPFS are now fully interoperable - it's a piece of cake to replicate SWIFT - it's an ISO standard for heavens sake - and the mBridge work with cryptocurrencies really just clouds the main issue.
There's an almost universal school of thought that American trade is utterly critical for the world. It isn't. Payment is in constantly debased dollars anyway. That's the reason why we see the long end of the yield curve starting to spike despite the Fed's 50bps easing with plenty more to come. Foreign central banks and treasuries are selling down their reserve holdings. Really, the big danger is the Eurodollar market waking up - that's a massive danger for American bonds.
There is no way the US can rebuild its manufacturing base from scratch; the cost of credit will be too high because the risk is too great in that scenario. Same with America's allies. It'd be way too expensive to retool everything and the Western general public isn't keen on actually physically working either - better to just sit and trade services.
As it is the lower rungs of American society rely on those BRICS nations to make just about everything they consume. That'll send prices soaring and destabilise the lower classes, leading to price controls as Harris has already articulated.
What if China and friends decide to call Trump's bluff and simply not sell to America unless trade is denominated in yuan or gold or silver or anything except dollars? The impact on American civil society will be much worse than on Chinese manufacturers - they have half of the world to target.
Again brilliant Alasdair - totally agree. A BRICS currency is a great headline, but essentially it's not required in the medium term. They are an alliance because of the US dollar. That's key - the enemy of my enemy is my friend. US hegemonic policy has been so destructive, they have built and own the entire global supply chain; they will no longer put up with any country dictating what they can or cannot do.
As you say CIPS and SPFS are now fully interoperable - it's a piece of cake to replicate SWIFT - it's an ISO standard for heavens sake - and the mBridge work with cryptocurrencies really just clouds the main issue.
There's an almost universal school of thought that American trade is utterly critical for the world. It isn't. Payment is in constantly debased dollars anyway. That's the reason why we see the long end of the yield curve starting to spike despite the Fed's 50bps easing with plenty more to come. Foreign central banks and treasuries are selling down their reserve holdings. Really, the big danger is the Eurodollar market waking up - that's a massive danger for American bonds.
There is no way the US can rebuild its manufacturing base from scratch; the cost of credit will be too high because the risk is too great in that scenario. Same with America's allies. It'd be way too expensive to retool everything and the Western general public isn't keen on actually physically working either - better to just sit and trade services.
As it is the lower rungs of American society rely on those BRICS nations to make just about everything they consume. That'll send prices soaring and destabilise the lower classes, leading to price controls as Harris has already articulated.
What if China and friends decide to call Trump's bluff and simply not sell to America unless trade is denominated in yuan or gold or silver or anything except dollars? The impact on American civil society will be much worse than on Chinese manufacturers - they have half of the world to target.