This is a mistake. China and Russia know that if they are to succeed in removing the dollar from their sphere of influence, they have to come up with a better alternative. They also know they have to consolidate their trade partners into a formidable bloc, so plans are afoot to consolidate BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Eurasian Economic Union along with those nations who wish to join in. It will be a super-group embracing most of Asia (including the Middle East), Africa, and Latin America.

The groundwork for the new currency has been laid by Sergei Glazyev and is considerably more advanced than generally realised.

This article explains why Russia and China are now prepared to fully back Glazyev’s expanded project. For Russia, it is also now imperative to destabilise the dollar as a deliberate escalation of the financial war against America and NATO. China’s priority is no longer to protect her export trade, but to ensure that her African and Latin American suppliers are not destabilised by higher dollar interest rates.

Introduction

“The BRICS’s introduction of a gold-backed currency, which is supported by 41 countries with large and influential economies, will weaken the dollar and the euro and will benefit countries such as Iran, while Iranians in possession of gold will experience a wealth increase,” Mousavi added [the head of the South Asia Department at Iran’s Foreign Ministry]. The Russian government confirmed a day earlier that Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa would introduce a new trading currency backed by gold. — Iran’s MEHR News Agency[i]

The quote above encapsulates why a new gold-backed currency is desired: it will undermine fiat currencies which have been no friends to oil producers and benefit individuals who own gold making it popular on the streets. RT, the Russian government-financed English broadcasting service had confirmed on last Friday the intention to introduce a new gold-backed currency for BRICS members. The announcement was completely missed by mainstream media, partly because RT and other Russian news sources are censored in many countries in Europe including the UK, and any news out of Russia is disbelieved anyway. 

Reactions from those who saw it, even among gold bugs, vary from the opinion that neither China nor Russia could make a gold backed currency stick, to it taking years in the planning and implementation so is irrelevant to today’s markets. But there are good reasons to believe that this complacency will turn out to be wrong, and that events are likely to evolve considerably more rapidly than expected. 

The problem for capital markets is that they are dominated by Keynesians, automatically programmed to believe gold is bad and fiat is good. As a stockbroker in London, when President Nixon suspended the Bretton Woods Agreement, I recall there was a similar level of confusion over those implications. And now, 52 years after putting the world on a fiat dollar standard, the majority of the world has had enough of dollar hegemony, has found safety in numbers, and is going back onto a gold standard. Like all life, the pure fiat era is ephemeral after all, defined by its birth and death. Macroeconomics will have to be rewritten.

The move away from fiat has been evolving for a considerable time, with de-dollarisation the ultimate objective of the Asian hegemons. Those tracking developments in gold bullion markets in recent decades have noted the drift of bullion from west to east, and the rise in gold mine output in China and more recently in Russia. Central banks, predominantly in Asia, have been accumulating bullion reserves and adding to declared and undeclared state funds in record quantities. Ultimately, this activity can only be to use gold to secure currency values as the dollar dies or is done away with. 

A sudden turn of events occurred when the western alliance imposed sanctions against Russia following her attack on Ukraine. They set off a train of actions that has unified Asia and many of its supplier nations into a rebellion against American hegemony, stoked up by Putin and led by Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Cooperation Council. And since the western alliance turned its back on fossil fuels, the low-cost producers throughout Asia have banded together representing nearly half global oil output, and a third of natural gas. As a cartel, OPEC is now just an appendix to the Asian mega-energy producers. 

The new cartel is dominated by President Putin, whose degree from Leningrad University was in energy economics and well qualified to be energy ringmaster. Not only has he demonstrated an understanding of the importance of controlling global energy supplies, but he also has a clear understanding of the importance of monetary gold. 

Since the western alliance’s sanctions, the signals coming out of Moscow have been clear: Sergei Glazyev, who is Putin’s point-man for macroeconomic policy has been waving the gold flag since then in plain sight. As a board member of the Eurasian Economic Union Commission (EAEU) since 2019, he was tasked by Putin to design a trade settlement currency for the EAEU. The initial statement through a news agency in Bishkek in early March 2022 reported that it was to be based on the currencies of the member states and a basket of undefined commodities. According to Glazyev, his brief was to create a Eurasian monetary and financial system to the exclusion of foreign currencies, particularly the dollar and euro. 

The intention was also to remove exchange controls for cross- border settlements within the Eurasian membership, replacing the dollar as the commonly used settlement medium between them. A week later, in an article for Goldmoney[ii] I concluded that as stated the new currency would not work, and the only logical solution was to do away with the currency basket proposal and use gold backing solely to represent commodities. That way, it would be easy for other nations in the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) to join in, which was the ultimate objective from the outset.

In July 2022, Glazyev was behind a move to beef up the Moscow gold exchange, the official line being that having been sanctioned from the London market Russian miners needed a more effective local market. But working in conjunction with the Shanghai Gold Exchange this was an important signal about the way Galzyev’s monetary thinking was developing. Confirmation came on 27 December last year, when he wrote an article for Vedomosti, a Moscow business paper, describing why the rouble needed to return to a gold standard. That article was co-written by his deputy on the EAEU committee designing the new trade currency and was a thinly veiled indication of the committee’s view. 

Therefore, you did not have to be particularly astute to discern the trail of clues presented to us. We could assume with justification that gold was intended to be the sheet-anchor for this new currency probably from the outset, but some political hoops had to be jumped through to convince the EAEU member states that it was the solution. 

The impracticality of basing a new trade currency on anything else other than gold had been established. It now turns out that this project is almost certainly a Trojan horse for something far larger. It was obvious that other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation should be able to join in, and now it turns out that the invitation is being extended to members of the BRICS club as well. But that’s not all. The entire membership of the SCO, its dialog partners, and associate members will be attending the BRICS conference in Johannesburg on 22—24 August. I am assuming that the original list of 36 nations, which according to most recent reports has expanded to 41, includes the members of the EAEU who were not on the original list — at the time of writing this is yet to be confirmed.

That being the case, the BRICS currency project is not a cold start and not something to be planned for a distant future. The groundwork has already been prepared by Glazyev and the structure can be rapidly assembled once the necessary resolution is adopted. It is even possible that the necessary institution(s) exist waiting to be deployed.

It is also beginning to look like there will be another proposal on the Johannesburg agenda, to merge the SCO, the EAEU and BRICS into a supersized trading block. In terms of both combined population and GDP on a purchasing power parity basis, it is already in excess of half the world, dwarfing the western alliance which kowtows to America.

The US Treasury would almost certainly have known about the BRIC proposals when the agenda was first circulated, which probably explains why at short notice Janet Yellen, US Treasury Secretary flew to Beijing. From her department’s point of view, if the new currency proposal was to be adopted its financing of the budget deficit would be adversely affected, not to mention the threat to the dollar’s hegemony. The principal card up her sleeve was to threaten greater sanctions against China’s exports, not just to America, but to her allies as well, but we don’t know if it was actually discussed in these terms.

The Chinese view

For too long and too often China has been threatened over access to markets by the Americans. We can be sure that ahead of the BRICS currency proposal the Chinese have gamed this possible threat being acted upon and come up with their own conclusions about its economic consequences. Russia’s experience, which harmed the sanctioning countries considerably more than the sanctioned, will have been fed into these calculations. One suspects that other than signalling to the Chinese and Russians that there is an increasing level of alarm in Washington, Yellen’s mission will have achieved little. And an important factor for the Chinese attitude is their experience of the US’s attempts to destabilise Hong Kong, which led to it being taken directly under Beijing’s control. It is therefore important to understand China’s analysis of America’s objectives and methods in order to define her own position.

In April 2015, Qiao Liang, the People’s Liberation Army Major-General in charge of intelligence strategy gave a speech at a book study forum of the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee.[iii] Qiao commenced by stating the obvious, that the U.S. enforces the dollar as the global currency to preserve its hegemony over the world. And he concluded that the U.S. would try everything, including war, to maintain the dollar’s dominance in global trading. But what he then went on to say is extremely relevant to the current situation. He described US’s actions with respect to foreign national debts. 

Qiao made the case that both the Latin American crisis in 1978—1982, and the Asian crisis in 1996—1998 were engineered by America. By reducing dollar interest rates to below their natural level they would weaken the dollar and encourage an investment boom in the targeted jurisdictions, funded by dollar credit. They then increased interest rates and strengthened the dollar to create a financial crisis. These events did, indeed, happen, but perhaps driven by the cycle of bank credit, as much as by foreign policy.

The relevance of Qiao’s analysis is that today, the same conditions appear to be targeted not against China, which does not borrow dollars, but at the dollar indebted nations around the world with which China trades — the BRICS nations. Informed by Qiao’s analysis, it must appear to China that America’s persistent strategy is to continue to raise interest rates even after the inflation dragon is slain, and by bankrupting them the US will attempt to bring the nations seeking to join BRICS back under her control.

That being the case, China will have weighed up the consequences for her export trade against the likely sanctions America and her allies could threaten and decided that the real threat is against the emerging economies in Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere which have received substantial Chinese investment. In financial terms, it is therefore imperative that this threat be addressed in a pre-emptive attack on the dollar, which can only be achieved by exposing the dollar’s weakness as a fiat currency. At least since the Lehman crisis, China and more recently Russia have had the power to do this.

Furthermore, the New Development Bank, which is headquartered in Shanghai, will be able to provide credit either in yuan or the new BRICS currency at lower interest rates to offset the undoubted strains imposed on BRICS members as a result of rising US interest rates. Therefore, China is fully prepared to counter what General Qiao Liang described as the American strategy of “harvesting” assets in foreign countries.

It is important to understand what China believes and motivates her, not whether Qiao is right or wrong. But given that his view is inculcated in the Chinese government, China is ready with Russia to mount an attack on America’s fiat currency by returning to a gold standard for trade, and ultimately for their own currencies.

The Russian view

It should be clear that the current plans for a trade currency originated in Russia, and not China. Indeed, until now China will have been reluctant to destabilise the currencies of the western alliance, because of her export interests. But not only has the relationship with America deteriorated over Taiwan, not only is it clear (in China’s view) that America plans to bankrupt the BRICS members and all those seeking to migrate away from the dollar’s hegemony by raising interest rates, but it is now also clear that neither Russia nor America can back down over Ukraine. Consequently, unless China and Russia together take the initiative, shortly Russia will be directly at war with America and her NATO allies and China will almost certainly be dragged into the conflict over Taiwan. World War 3 must be forestalled.

It is clear that NATO, under the thumb of America, is determined to defeat Russia, remove Putin, and gain control of its massive natural resources. The proxy war being fought in the Ukraine appears to be failing with Zelensky’s summer offensive having ground to a halt. And following the Wagner debacle, Russia is now in a strong position to counterattack. This has led to President Biden being prepared to send the Ukrainians cluster bombs, increasing the urgency for a Russian counter-offensive.

Furthermore, with Ukraine’s summer offensive failing, NATO’s theatre of operational strategy is moving to Poland and the Baltics (Biden was in Vilnius this week for a NATO summit), with Poland particularly becoming a client state of America through NATO. The build-up of military personnel and missiles in Poland will become increasingly obvious in the coming weeks and is already anticipated by Moscow. We await Putin’s reaction, but he is unlikely to just sit on his hands and let NATO build its forces in Poland and the Baltics.

Compromise is out of the question, because it is plain to Putin that America cannot back down. Imagine the consequences for Biden, who started his presidency with the withdrawal from Afghanistan if he ends it with a withdrawal from Eastern Europe. Furthermore, the neo-cons are firmly in charge of policy, determined to defeat Putin, add Russian territory to their sphere of influence, and leave China isolated. 

Putin’s terms for peace would be unacceptable to America because he insists on protecting Russia’s borders, which means that all missiles and American bases be removed from Eastern and Central Europe. For Moscow, this raises the question as to whether Russia should simply secure its current position or take Ukraine, which can then be set up as a buffer state. A Russian attack is bound to drive up energy, cereal, and fertiliser prices, worsening price inflation in western alliance countries and causing division with America and Britain, but to the benefit of Russia’s finances which are coming under pressure. Additionally, a successful attack on their currencies’ credibility would undermine the alliance’s military capability, so the dollar should be attacked financially as well.

No one can be sure whether destroying the dollar would avert a nuclear war, but there is little doubt that so long as America can finance its aggression that events are drifting in that direction. From Putin’s viewpoint, undermining the dollar must now be a priority, perhaps combining it with taking Kiev now that Zelensky’s summer thrust has failed.

An advantage of a financial war is that it need not be declared, therefore there is no official victor, and no need for a post-war reconciliation.

Designing a gold-backed trade currency

A new trade currency has the advantage that it will not ever be used as a means of funding government deficits. And given that its role is limited to cross-border trade settlement and and dealing in physical commodities it has to be institutionally acceptable and does not have to appeal to public confidence. Much of the credit will be self-extinguishing. It is additional to national currencies, leaving individual nations to manage their own currency policies, which is why such a currency can enjoy widespread support. It is not to be used as a medium for capital investment.

As the groundwork appears to have been already established by Sergei Glazyev, it could be ready to use as soon as it is approved in August. Besides a strict and simple set of rules, all it needs are two things: the establishment of an issuing entity, and physical gold. The first can be done in a flash, if it is not already established, and the gold will be allocated from the reserves of participating central banks. This is almost certainly why central banks of many of the putative membership of BRICS have been adding bullion to their reserves. They must be extremely thankful for actors in the western financial establishment who trade paper gold in ignorance of this outcome.

The bulleted list that follows is a brief outline of how a new trade settlement currency based on gold can be quickly established to replace the fiat dollar in all transactions between member nations, updated from an earlier Goldmoney article on this topic.[iv] It will be interesting to see how its elements compare with Glazyev’s proposition.

It is designed to be politically acceptable to all involved, as well as a long-term practical solution to facilitate the Russian Chinese axis’s ambitions for an Asian industrial revolution, encompassing Africa and Latin America, free from interference by America and her allies. The essential elements are as follows:

• The announcement of the creation of a new issuing central bank (NICB, not to be confused with the existing New Central Bank in Shanghai, whole purpose is to fund investment in the BRICS members) and a new gold-based currency on the lines below is the first step. 
• The NICB is established with the sole function of issuing a new digital currency backed by physical gold. It will be designed to be a fully trusted gold substitute, independent of existing fiat currency values.
• The new currency will only be redeemable for gold between the NICB and participating central banks. They will be free also to add to their NICB currency reserves by submitting additional gold to the NICB at any time.
• The NICB’s eligible participants will be the central banks of participating nations, broadly limited to member nations, associates, and dialog partners of the EAEU, SCO, and BRICS, and additionally nations applying for membership of any of these organisations on an approved list. 
• The NICB’s currency is issued to approved national central banks against their provision of a minimum 40% gold backing for it. For example, currency representing one million gold grammes secures an allocation of 2,500,000 currency units denominated in gold grammes. The gold does not have to be delivered to a central storage point but can be earmarked[v] from within a central bank’s gold reserves, on condition that it is securely stored in vaults on a list approved by the NICB. This list is likely to exclude gold stored at central banks of the western alliance and must not be leased or swapped. 
• A participating central bank records the new currency units allocated to it as an asset on its balance sheet, balanced by an increase in its liabilities as equity. A participating central bank’s balance sheet is thereby strengthened.
• A participating central bank can offer credit and take in deposits tied to the new currency’s value, to and from the commercial banks in in its national network. Note that the new currency is available exclusively to participating central banks, upon which they can base their own credit dealings with commercial banks.
• Commercial banks trading in member nations and elsewhere will be free to create and deal in credit denominated in the NICB’s new currency. They will have no credit relationship with the NICB, but their regulating central bank will. 
• Commercial banks whose central bank does not have access to the NICB currency can clear through wholesale credit markets and will be always free to acquire physical gold in the markets, should they wish to back credit created in the new currency with gold itself. 
• All taxes and restrictions on gold ownership must be fully rescinded by participating nations, recognising its historic and legal status as money.
• An efficient central clearing system for commercial banks dealing in credit based on the new currency will be established.
• Asian commodity exchanges in the expanded BRICS will price all products in the new NICB currency as well as in dollars. Intra-BRIC imports and exports will similarly be priced. This will ensure that physical markets and their derivatives are insulated from a fiat currency collapse, a likely consequence of gold’s return to its true monetary status.

The purpose of the new currency is to provide the basis for trade finance and other cross border financial settlements on a sound money basis. The expansion of credit based upon it will grow strictly in line with economic activity and therefore will not be inflationary, undermining its purchasing power. Last week, in an article for Goldmoney I explained why when tied convincingly to gold, commercial bank credit grows on a non-inflationary basis when distortions from the lending cycle are removed. This is the key to understanding why a new trade currency constructed on these lines will endure.[vi]

It is also likely to lead to participating nations placing a greater emphasis on their own currencies’ stability while providing a safe haven from the consequences for the dollar following its introduction. Once the new currency is established, it will be in Russia’s interests to put the rouble back on its own gold standard, and China may follow with the renminbi.

All empirical evidence informs us that when gold becomes the means by which credit is valued, credit’s own value becomes tied to that of gold and is not dependent on stability in the quantity of credit. Operating as a gold substitute imparts pricing certainty to trade and investment and leads to stable, low interest rates giving the necessary conditions for maximising economic development in emerging economies.

Constructed on the lines above, it should be simple and quick to establish. It must be free from attack by members of the western alliance trying to preserve their own fiat currency systems. And the 40% gold backing rhymes with the basic requirement for a metallic monetary standard set by Sir Isaac Newton, when he was Master of the Royal Mint. 

For participating central banks, the replacement of gold in their reserves for allocations of the new currency would represent a significant increase in their balance sheet equity. As confidence in the scheme builds, it could be argued that only minimal gold reserves need to be retained by participating central banks, with the balance swapped for the new currency. For example, the Reserve Bank of India officially possesses 787.4 tonnes of gold. Converted into the new gold currency, its value in reserves is uplifted to 1,968.5 tonnes equivalent, added to its equity capital. 

The impact on gold

Throughout history, money has been gold, and the rest credit. When you detach credit from gold, there are consequences. Pricing goods and services in credit diverges from pricing them in gold. It is really that simple.

It is widely assumed that fluctuations in prices have nothing to do with the medium of exchange, and for individual transactions it is certainly true that both buyer and seller will share this view. But over time, with official policies aiming for a 2% fall in purchasing power for the dollar and other major currencies it is not true that price fluctuations are entirely due to changes in the demand/supply balance for commodities and other manufacturing inputs. In fact, since the end of Bretton Woods, measured in real money which is gold, the loss of purchasing power has been considerably in excess of the 2% annual target. The chart below puts it directly in a gold versus fiat context.

Since the suspension of Bretton Woods, the dollar has lost 98% of its value relative to gold. The other major fiat currencies have been similarly impoverishing for their users and savers, and only now is the final act in their destruction looming due to the introduction of a new BRICS gold-backed currency. 

Through the medium of gold, participating central banks will exchange their reserve dollars for the new NICB currency. Immediately, this rejection of the dollar by a large number of central banks will devalue it further, followed by foreign non-government entities seeking to reduce their exposure. Initially, this will be seen as a run on the dollar into gold, similar to that which followed the suspension of Bretton Woods on 15 August 1971. The market was similarly nonplussed then as it appears to be today, with the London morning fix on Monday 17 August at $43, slightly down on the previous week. It wasn’t until 19 November that the morning fix exceeded $43 again for the first time. It took two whole months for the implications to sink in. But when they did, the price rose to $197.50 on 27 December 1974.

The lesson for us in this Keynesian world is that two months of static prices following the suspension of Bretton Woods is proof that gold was poorly understood in financial markets, and still is today. Derivative markets, particularly the London forward market and Comex futures for the last forty years have lost sight of gold being money and assumed it is a trading counter which plays on irrational fears of instability of the modern currency system. But with the return of gold as the anchor for credit values for the Asian hegemons and their sphere of influence, those fears will suddenly become rational.

The wider consequences of a BRICS currency gold standard

We can assume that the consequences of Asian trade settlements backed with gold will have been carefully considered by the Asian superpowers, particularly by the Russians who have faced weaponised dollars.

Besides bringing stability to export values there are other advantages to reintroducing gold into currency systems. Interest rate stability at lower rates is an obvious benefit. Currently, the Bank of Russia’s key interest rate is 7.5% and price inflation has collapsed to 2.3% (April). The yield on Russia’s 10-year OFZ bond is still 11.3%. If the rouble becomes a credible gold substitute, price inflation, interest rates, and bond yields can be expected to decline and maintain levels that reflect gold’s long-term stability, particularly in more normal times when the Russian government runs decent budget surpluses. And assuming that credit expansion by Russia’s commercial banks is not cyclically excessive, there is no reason to expect otherwise than that financial stability for the currency and the Russian economy would continue in the long-term. Coupled with low taxes (Russia’s income tax is a flat 13%) this stability can be expected foster genuine economic progress and the accumulation of personal wealth for the Russian people. It would be a far better outcome than the current situation and it would secure Putin’s legacy.

However, a move towards gold backing for their currencies by the Asian hegemons can be expected to undermine the purchasing power of western fiat currencies. International capital will abandon ephemeral fiat currencies for real values in commodities, with nations rebuilding stockpiles of energy, metals, and other raw materials instead of accumulating fiat paper. Precious metals, specifically gold, will be sought and its price can be expected to reflect the demise of fiat currencies.

The consequences for wholesale and consumer prices in the western nations would rapidly become obvious, with central banks forced to revise their expectations for price inflation sharply higher. Bond yields can be expected to rise further, undermining all financial and property values. As this negative outlook clarifies, measured against gold fiat currencies will likely enter a substantial relative decline.

The consequences of the emergence of gold backing for currencies in Asia on the currencies and economies of the western alliance are bound to differ in their detail for the currencies in the western alliance.

The reliance on inward foreign investment has protected the dollar from continual trade deficits and played a key role in funding US Government debt since the end of Bretton Woods. It has allowed the US Government to run budget deficits more or less continually. The ending of the fifty-two years of a fiat regime changes all that. The US Government will face significant funding hurdles against foreign liquidation of Treasuries. Bond yields and funding costs for the government are bound to rise significantly.

The consequences for the EU and the eurozone would be both politically and economically divisive. If it were not for political constraints, Germany would naturally drift towards cooperation with the sound money regimes emerging to her east, particularly as the finances of the Mediterranean club deteriorate. With rising bond yields, the entire euro system comprised of the ECB and its national central banks would need to be recapitalised, being already deeply in negative equity. The eurozone’s global systemically important banks (G-SIBs) are extremely highly leveraged and unlikely to survive the combination of falling asset values and bad debts that would be the certain consequences of the euro’s declining purchasing power. Having been assembled at the behest of a political committee and now managed by a political cabal, the euro is at risk of losing all market credibility.

The consequences for the UK pound will also be significant. In a similar debt trap to that of the US Government, the British have the further disadvantage of an economy suffering under increasing taxes. Furthermore, with London being the international financial centre, the UK will be at the epicentre of a fiat currency crisis. For the size of her economy, the UK has little in the way of gold reserves, hampering any future escape from the fiat currency trap.

The major governments aligned both economically and intellectually with the fiat dollar will be left at a comparative disadvantage by a BRICS gold-backed currency, possibly followed by Russia and China adopting gold standards. Interest rates, which are escaping from central bank control, will rise due to two factors: there is the credit crunch from the turn of the bank credit cycle, and the deteriorating outlook for fiat currency purchasing powers. It is the worst of both worlds. Furthermore, economists in governments and central banks would be reluctant to abandon their embedded economic and monetary policies. And will be slow to react.

The only salvation will be for western governments to jettison Keynesian macroeconomics entirely and revert to classical economic theories. The false assumptions that have built up over the fiat currency era will have to be overturned. Crises of this sort nearly always emanate in the foreign exchanges because it is foreign holders of currencies who are the first to recognise a currency’s weakness. Usually, it involves a specific currency. But this time, it will affect all the major currencies in the western alliance.

• [i] Official Iranian news release. See https://en.mehrnews.com/news/203015/BRICS-currency-to-benefit-Iran-undermine-US-dollar-euro
• [ii] See https://www.goldmoney.com/research/designing-a-new-currency-is-impractical
• [iii] See http://chinascope.org/archives/6458
• [iv] See https://www.goldmoney.com/research/cbd-cs-the-good-the-bad-the-ugly under the sub-heading, The Good.
• [v] Earmarking is the technical term whereby one central bank acts as custodian for another central bank’s bullion.
• [vi] See https://www.goldmoney.com/research/the-real-determinants-of-currency-value

Article cross-posted from Goldmoney.

Plans for a new trade currency backed by gold appear to be on the agenda for the BRICS meeting in Johannesburg in August. In this article, the geopolitical aspects of its introduction are considered, and the indications that how it will involve gold are discussed. The mechanics of this project are then suggested.

But first, we look at the situation in Ukraine, attempting to put the recent Wagner rebellion into context. Furthermore, Russia’s deteriorating trade surplus, weakness of the rouble and rising bond yields suggest that it is time for President Putin to put an end to Ukraine’s misery. He is likely to do this by attacking Kiev, which is only 60 miles from Belarus, while the bulk of Ukraine’s army is distracted by operations over 400 miles to the south and east.

Introduction

Given the hysteria in the Western press over the Wagner group’s alleged coup attempt, it is time for an update on the battle between the hegemons. But I shall commence with an attempt to put the leader of the Wagner mercenary group’s supposed coup attempt to bed.

It emerges that Western intelligence knew something was up, as much as ten days before the dispute between Wagner and the Russian defence ministry became evident. This was The Daily Telegraph yesterday:

“Before Wagner troops began their advance on Rostov and then on to Moscow last weekend, British officials had ‘an extremely detailed and accurate picture of the mutiny plans’, it was revealed yesterday. The details were shared by US intelligence ahead of the mutiny and contained information of where and how Wagner mercenaries planned to move.”

This immediately puts up a red flag. Did Britain’s MI6 or the CIA have a part in it? If not, how is it that they knew so much about it? Is it likely that the Wagner leadership or elements in it had been bribed by western intelligence into staging an attempted coup of the Russian government? But we must leave this speculation hanging, in the certainty that black ops are being widely deployed by western intelligence in Ukraine, Russia, and Belarus and that anything is possible.

Western commentary, always informed by government briefing and censorship, seems to take Putin for a fool. We are routinely told in op-eds that his regime hangs by a thread, the Russian economy is in a state of collapse, and similar episodes to the Wagner farce have always been the straw about to break Putin’s back. It has been going on like this since the launch of his special military operation in February 2022. If he smoked, like Castro doubtless the CIA would offer him a box of exploding cigars.

But clearly, Putin is no fool. He will realise the limitations of mercenary troops. He has used Wagner specifically to spread fear in Eastern Ukraine. Like the French Foreign Legion of Beau Geste yore, Wagner’s recruiting ground appears to have been among jailbirds, criminals on the run, social misfits, and is a haven for psychopaths.

It seems that Prigozhin’s complaint (who leads the Wagner force) was not with Putin but his senior military advisers. There is a long history of commanders in the field being frustrated with ministerial ineptitude. To Prigozhin, it is likely that Wagner’s role in Eastern Ukraine had evolved from clear military objectives to a feeling of being hung out to dry, while Russian divisions led by inept generals dithered. Putin would have understood why Prigozhin threw his toys out of the pram and sought to calm him down. Furthermore, Putin’s special military operation is probably entering a new phase where mercenary forces might complicate battlefield planning, as I shall explore further in this article.

Undoubtedly, Wagner’s role will continue to be countering American and British undercover activities in foreign theatres such as Kurdistan, Chad, and Sudan. And the majority of his forces in the Ukraine theatre will probably be absorbed into the Russian army as Putin’s special military operation enters a new phase. And if Prigozhin managed to get a backhander out of the Americans to “stage a coup d’état” as conspiracy theorists suggest, I suspect that this comic opera will end up with both Prigozhin and Putin enjoying the joke at the western alliance’s expense.

Russia’s situation

We were originally told that sanctions would rapidly bring Russia to her knees and force the Russian people to overthrow Putin. Neither have materialised, and the evidence is that the Russian economy is stronger today than it was a year ago and Putin’s public backing remains high. Since early-2022, Russia’s economy had officially been in a mild recession, but in April economic activity was recorded as rising sharply due to buoyant industrial production and retail sales.

Sanctions never work, and a sanctioned nation rapidly adapts. Furthermore, while sanctions have focused on hitting Russian oligarchs, a low flat 13% income tax and corporation tax of 20% on company profits means that Russian SMEs, artisans, and shopkeepers are doing well. It also explains Putin’s continually high approval ratings, but Russia’s economy has far greater potential under sound money and lower interest rates. Furthermore, with consumer price inflation running at about 2.5%, domestic economic conditions are remarkably stable.

Russia’s balance of payments has been declining sharply. According to the central bank, the current account surplus between January and May was $22.8bn equivalent, compared with $123.8bn for the same period last year. This decline was due to lower oil and commodity prices, as well as marginally lower export and higher import volumes. The rouble has declined, and interest rates have recently risen as the charts below illustrate.

To have such volatility in the exchange rate and interest rates is the greatest weakness in Russia’s economic condition. The way to fix it is for the rouble to adopt a proper gold standard. And between the Bank of Russia’s official gold reserves, Russia’s National Wealth Fund, and the Gokhran precious metals fund there are ample bullion resources to establish it. The merits of such a move for the domestic economy would be interest rate stability at far lower rates. Bank credit could then respond to economic demand for credit, which would undoubtedly expand, without undermining the rouble’s domestic purchasing power.

Putin and his economic adviser, Sergey Glazyev, have shown that they understand these benefits, and that a gold standard for the rouble is likely to be Russia’s end game in the financial war against the western alliance. Furthermore, unless energy and commodity prices begin to increase, the fiat rouble and Russian interest rates could come under renewed pressure. The other way to look at rising energy and commodity prices is to attribute them to a decline in the dollar’s purchasing power for them, artificially suppressing their values.

This brings us to the reasons for Russia to step up the attack on Ukraine, which can be expected to give a new impetus to higher energy and commodity prices. 

Besides the need to drive commodity prices higher for the benefit of the rouble and the balance of payments, the timing appears propitious. The redeployment of battle-hardened Wagner troops in Belorussia across the border from Kiev could form part of Putin’s plan for a new attack, now that Ukraine’s summer campaign to recover territory in the East and South is absorbing most of Ukraine’s military forces. 

Before we were distracted by the Wagner episode, there were putative signs that the US deep state was changing its view from the conflict being easily winnable with covert support and Putin vulnerable to being toppled. And therefore, the true objective, the dismemberment of Russia, is no more than a dream and the proxy war is becoming a long drawn out operation. There is now little doubt that as a front man Zelensky is unable to deliver the goods, and his supporters in the western alliance are faced with being committed to the long haul.

The stakes for America are extremely high. Increasingly, neutral countries around the world are shifting their foreign policies on the evidence that America and her dollar are losing their hegemonic power. If America and NATO fail in Ukraine, it won’t just be thirty nations lining up to join BRICS: it will be the moment America’s political grip on the world is certainly lost. And then President Biden can kiss goodbye to his re-election chances next year.

Equally, Putin will strive to make sure his counteroffensive succeeds, and that must be the short-term priority. The financial benefits for Russia, principally the consequences for energy and oil prices will flow from it.

Russia is unlikely to immediately adopt a gold standard for the rouble when Ukraine falls because of the geopolitical consequences, not least for its partnership with China. It would undoubtedly hasten the fiat dollar’s destruction as a reserve currency, making financing of the US trade and budget deficits virtually impossible at current interest rates. While these outcomes would undoubtedly be helpful to Putin, it would amount to a major escalation of the financial war between Russia and the western alliance with unpredictable consequences. And it would be a change from Putin’s proven strategy of letting the western alliance make all the strategic errors without his intervention.

Furthermore, Russia is in partnership with China in a joint grand strategic plan for Asia and allied nations. And there is no doubt that the economic consequences of a collapsed dollar would rebound badly on China’s manufacturing base. 

Far better to commence the move towards gold backing by other means, and this train of events has already been put in place under the command of Sergey Glazyev, a close confident of Putin, a moving light in the expansion of the Moscow Gold Exchange, and Minister in charge of Integration and Macroeconomics for the Eurasian Economic Commission. Glazyev was given the brief to come up with a new trade settlement currency for the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU), which appears to be a Trojan horse for a wider BRICS and Shanghai Cooperation Organisation deployment. 

If that plan is successful, then both the rouble and China’s renminbi could also adopt gold standards in due course, having the underlying financial conditions to sustain them.

The BRICS summit in Jo’burg

There is evidence that plans for a new trade settlement currency will be announced at the upcoming BRICS meeting in Johannesburg on 22—24 August[i]. If so, it will be a major development for global markets and a threat to the dollar’s future. And a new supranational trade currency for BRICS, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and the Eurasian Economic Union has the merit of not having to address the vested trade and domestic currency interests of each member state. It would be designed to ensure its reserve status does not give overriding power to one nation, unlike the dollar.

It is probable that an announcement concerning the new currency will come out of the summit, but it is likely to be preliminary in nature, and gold might not even be mentioned at this stage. And it would make more sense for Glazev’s brief designing such a currency to be officially expanded from that of the EAEU committee, involving China more directly. That being the case, the only practical means of tying the new trade currency to multiple commodities and national interests is to use gold.

It increasingly suits Russia to see this move announced, and the timing could well coincide with or shortly follow Putin’s next push in Ukraine. But we should not expect this new currency to arrive shortly, only that it is being planned.

Another aspect of the Johannesburg summit is the increasing queue for BRICS membership. It will need the agreement of existing BRICS members. But given that the existing five members have diverse political interests, if is not easily forthcoming either China and Russia will have to strong-arm them into acceptance, or form a different membership category, such as associates. Either way, formal applications have been submitted from Algeria, Argentina, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Egypt, Indonesia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. In addition, Afghanistan, Belarus, Comoros, Cuba, Congo, France, Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Honduras, Kazakhstan, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Senegal, Sudan, Syria, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela, and Zimbabwe have expressed an interest. Including the existing five members, that is 36 nations in total

The most interesting expression of interest comes from France, with President Macron reported to have applied to attend the Johannesburg summit. Only yesterday, it was reported that he was denied the opportunity to attend. But it is visible evidence of an EU member not toeing the American line. And recently, TotalEnergies the French conglomerate sold LNG to China for yuan, not dollars, signalling France’s independence from petrodollars. 

Discounting France from actually applying for membership because Macron has his hands firmly tied by the EU, if membership was granted to all other applicants and those interested in joining an expanded BRICS, it would encompass 64% of the world population, and 33% of world GDP in 2017 (the latest year for which all individual national GDPs is available). For reference, the US’s population is 4.25% of global population and 24% of 2017 global GDP.

It seems to have escaped wider notice, but the only full members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation not members of BRICS, applying for membership, or expressing an interest are the four central Asian states — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyz, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan, already in the EAEU. Furthermore, nine of the SCO’s Observer States and Dialog Partners are among the BRICS applicants. This is almost certainly centrally organised, with the possible objective for BRICS to be merged with the SCO, or to become indistinguishable from it.

For China and Russia, the advantages of integrating the SCO with BRICS are obvious. They are assembling an organisation based on free trade which dwarfs the US and EU and extends beyond Asia. Macron appears to be aware of the implications, and so are Germany’s industrial leaders, opening the way for an EU schism and an extension of Asian hegemony. It builds a trade bloc which makes the western alliance’s sanctions meaningless and will have complete independence from the dollar and its allied fiat currencies. Alternatives to the SWIFT international payments system now exist and can be easily extended.

It will allow for military and intelligence cooperation against terrorism (for which read Five Eyes’ black ops). In this, the experience of the Middle East has been instructive. Since Saudi Arabia sided with China and gave the US its marching orders, peace has been restored to the region.

The thinking behind a new trade currency

While any announcement about a new trade settlement medium at the BRICS summit in Johannesburg is likely to be preliminary, we can be sure that the legwork has already been done by Sergei Glazyev. Furthermore, various statements by nations prepared to accept settlement in national currencies other than the dollar must be seeing this as a temporary solution, pending more satisfactory payment arrangements. The Saudis accepting Kenyan shillings, or Russia accepting Iranian reals makes no sense on any other basis. Because the current position is temporary, it is time limited. 

In an article entitled “Golden rouble 3.0: How Russia can change foreign trade infrastructure”[ii] written for Vedomosti, a Moscow-based Russian business newspaper published on 27 December2022, Glazyev laid out his latest thoughts. Furthermore, it was co-authored by Dmitry Mityaev, who is Assistant Member of the Board for Integration and Macroeconomics of the Eurasian Economic Commission — so this article was not just Glazyev’s musings, and we can assume that it carried official weight in Russia, at least. The article focused on the potential for a gold-backed rouble rather than the new trade settlement medium, but the same logic applies.

From this article, the EAEU currency commission now appears to have dropped the original indicated proposal for a new currency based on a weighted index of participating currencies and commodities entirely, using gold and credit based upon it instead as the principal means of settling trade imbalances. Presumably, the requirement to make payments in the new trade currency could be circumvented if one or more national currencies such as the rouble or renminbi went onto credible gold standards. The implication is that the rouble will readopt a gold standard sometime after a gold-backed trade currency is announced, reviving the gold backing (though not the relationship) that the Soviets operated between 1944 and 1961.

To reinforce the importance of a return to a gold standard, both Russia and the Saudis heading up OPEC+ will be aware of the consequences of the fiat petrodollar regime for their primary export product — crude oil.

In August 1971, when the Bretton Woods agreement was abandoned, crude oil was priced at $3.56 a barrel and the market price for gold was $42.85. Converting this into ounces of gold per barrel gives us a value of 0.0831 ounces. Today, the gold price of oil is 0.036 ounces per barrel, down 57%. In other words, using gold Glazyev can demonstrate that the true cost to OPEC+ of dollarisation has been to more than halve the value of their export revenues since the Bretton Woods agreement was suspended. By accepting a new trade settlement medium tied to gold, this US enforced erosion of oil values will cease. And to compensate for the loss of oil’s value from the ending of Bretton Woods, the gold price in dollars would have to be more than double that of today at over $4,400. 

The evidence mounts therefore, that gold provides a framework within which Glazyev intends to operate. That he must be thinking this way has become fundamental to his approach, confirmed by his many references to gold in his article for Vedomosti, to the rouble’s history tied to gold, and to the US’s debasement of petrodollars. In the UK at least, Russia’s media appears to be censored, so Glazyev’s Vedomosti article (referenced in endnote ii) may not be available to many readers in the west. Therefore, for ease of reference the salient points in the English translation of his detailed article are summarised as follows [with additional commentary in square brackets]:

• In the nine months to September 2022, Russia’s trade surplus with members of the EAEU, plus China, India, Iran, Turkey, The United Arab Emirates etc. was $198.4bn equivalent, against $123.1bn for the same period last year. In other words, the western alliance’s sanctions failed to suppress Russia’s oil revenues, merely redirecting their sources. [Since then, this surplus has declined materially due lower oil and other commodity prices. Time for another special military operation?]
• The trade surplus with SCO members has allowed Russian companies to pay off external debts, replacing them with borrowing in roubles. [Glazyev doesn’t make this point, but a return to the gold standard would reduce borrowing costs in roubles substantially]
• Russia became the third largest country using renminbi for international settlements, accounting for up to 26% of foreign exchange transactions in the Russian Federation. The share of settlements in soft currencies is growing for SCO members, dialog partners and associates, replacing dollars, and is expected to increase further. [This is almost certainly a temporary fix, ahead of a new trade settlement currency being established]
• Since these currencies are subject to exchange rate risks and possible sanctions, the best way to offset them is to take payment in non-sanctioned gold from China, the UAE, Turkey, possibly Iran, and other countries instead of their local currencies. [A BRICS/SCO trade settlement currency tied to gold would eliminate this problem]
• Gold purchased by the Russian Central Bank can be stored in central banks of friendly countries for liquidity purposes and the rest repatriated to Russia.
• Gold can be a unique tool to combat western sanctions if used to price all major international goods (oil, gas, food, fertilisers, metals, and solid minerals). This would be “an adequate response to the west’s price ceilings”. And “India and China can take the place of global commodity traders instead of Glencore or Trafigura”.
• Gold (along with silver) for millennia was the core of the global financial system, an honest measure of the value of paper money and assets… It was cancelled half a century ago, tying oil to the dollar. But the era of the petrodollar is ending. Russia, together with its eastern and southern partners has a unique chance to jump ship from a dollar-centred debt economy.
• By signing the Bretton Woods agreement but not ratifying it, for the USSR “Golden Rouble 2.0” played an important role in post-war Soviet industrialisation. Now the conditions for “Golden Rouble 3.0” have objectively developed.
• Sanctions against Russia have boomeranged against the west. It now faces geopolitical instability and rising prices for energy and other resources [i.e., yet more price inflation].
• In 2023, [there will be a shift from] risky investments in complex financial instruments to invest in traditional assets, primarily gold. Gold’s increasing prices towards Saxo Bank’s forecast of $3,000 per ounce will lead to a substantial increase in the values and quantities of gold reserves. Large gold reserves will allow Russia “to pursue a sovereign financial policy and minimise dependency on external lenders”. [Note that in addition to official reserves it is believed that Russia has at least a further 10,000 tonnes — more than the officially declared total for the US Treasury.]
• Central banks are adding to their gold reserves. China has an export ban on all mined gold. According to the Shanghai Gold Exchange, customers have withdrawn 23,000 tonnes of gold. India is considered the world champion in gold accumulation…. Gold has been flowing from West to East… Is the West’s central bank gold safely earmarked, or is it all “de-done” through swaps and leasing? The West will never say, and Fort Knox’s audit will not either.
• Over the last 20 years, gold mining in Russia has almost doubled. Gold production may well grow from 1% of GDP to two or three per cent… Already, Russia’s annual gold production is set to rise from 300 tonnes to 500 tonnes… giving Russia a strong rouble, strong budget, and a strong economy. [Note that in this statement Glazyev reveals that he expects most of the increase of mine output is to be in its value measured in dollars.]

Glazyev is all but saying for definite that Russia plans to enact Golden Rouble 3.0. And we should be in no doubt that Russia is backing away from the west’s fiat monetary system and sees far higher gold prices expressed in falling dollars. The only question is the speed with which it is moving in this direction. 

What Glazyev did not mention in his Vedomosti article, other than his reference to western central banks not necessarily having possession of their gold reserves, would be the consequences for the dollar and other western fiat currencies of gold becoming the trade settlement medium throughout Asia, or of the rouble returning to a gold standard. Inevitably, holders of dollars and financial assets, totalling some $30 trillion, would make comparative value judgements not just for the dollar but also for their exposure to other fiat currencies. Not only would this cause private sector actors engaged in cross-border trade to re-evaluate their exposure to fiat currencies as well, but the whole system of fiat currency reserves held by central banks could become threatened.

The strong indications are that Putin supports Glazyev’s thesis. But he has a wider remit, including military strategy over Ukraine. NATO is now committed to the Ukrainian proxy war for as long as it takes. It will require a swift victory by Putin to end this misery, and increasingly the rest of the world knows it. But almost certainly, the forthcoming military escalation by Putin will destabilise financial markets in the western alliance. 

A renewed panic in energy and commodity markets seems certain, which will lead to fears in the western alliance’s financial markets of higher price inflation for longer, driving bond yields up and equities lower. Neo-Keynesian investors might initially expect the uncertainty arising from renewed military action to drive global liquidity into the dollar, which is their traditional safe haven, rather than gold. But US-centric markets fail to appreciate that at $30 trillion the currency and financial assets are already over-owned by foreigners, while physical gold is not. And they fail to appreciate that Putin can exploit this weakness.

It would be a good time for Putin to encourage financial conditions to deliver a major blow to the dollar’s hegemony. Under cover of the battlefield, Russia could let markets drive up prices of nearly all her exported commodities. It would then be seen by neutral nations as a market response to the western alliances’ political imperatives. But soaring energy and commodity prices will reflect a sharp decline in the purchasing power of the dollar and its fiat currency cohort of euros, yen, and sterling.

Yet again, by pursuing its military and political objectives in Ukraine, the western alliance would be seen by the wider world to be entirely responsible for collateral financial damage. And that surely, must suit Putin.

Constructing a trade medium of exchange

We now turn to the mechanics of constructing a new trans-national gold-backed currency. One condition which will need to be in place is for a value for gold measured in goods to back inter-Asian trade. Despite the accumulation of gold by the central banks of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation membership, some of them may not have sufficient official gold reserves to cover their balance of payments deficits except for limited times, requiring a higher gold value in order to do so. And other members, such as Russia, could see continual accumulation of physical gold because of her balance of payments surplus. Ideally therefore, instead of trade settlements being entirely in physical gold, they should be facilitated by a banking system whose credit values are securely based on gold to ensure flexibility.

The task therefore is to design an entirely new non-national currency backed by gold, specifically created for cross-border trade and commodity transactions. Presumably, this is what Glazyev is trying to achieve instead of the more cumbersome EAEU project originally announced. It is a relatively simple task and does not require blockchains and the paraphernalia of a CBDC. The mantra should be to keep it simple, and therefore have no mystery.

The bulleted list that follows is a brief outline of how a new trade settlement currency based on gold can be established to replace the fiat dollar in all transactions between SCO/BRICS member nations. By being completely independent of national currencies, it should be politically acceptable to all involved, as well as a long-term practical solution to facilitate the Russian-Chinese axis’s ambitions for an Asian industrial revolution, free from interference by America and her allies. 

The essential elements are as follows:

• The announcement of the creation of a new central bank (NCB) and a new gold-based currency on the lines below will be made in advance of implementation to allow bullion markets to adjust to the new regime before it comes into existence. 
• A new central bank is then established, whose function is to issue a new book-entry currency backed by physical gold, issued and available only to participating central banks. It will be designed to be a fully trusted gold substitute, independent from fiat currency values.
• The new currency will only be redeemable for physical gold by participating central banks. They will also be free to add to their NCB currency reserves by submitting additional gold to the NCB at any time.
• The NCB’s eligible participants will only be the central banks of participating nations, limited to member nations of the SCO, EAEU, and BRICS. The NCB’s currency is issued to the national central banks against their assigning a minimum 40% gold backing for it. For example, currency representing one million gold grammes secures an allocation of 2,500,000 currency units denominated in gold grammes. The gold does not have to be delivered to a central storage point but can be earmarked[iii] from within a participating central bank’s gold reserves, on condition that they are securely stored in vaults on a list approved by the NCB.
• Commercial banks trading in member nations and elsewhere will be free to create and deal in credit denominated in the NCB’s new currency. Issuers and users of this credit are always free to acquire physical gold in the markets, should they wish to back credit created in the new currency with gold itself. 
• All taxes and restrictions on gold ownership must be fully removed by participating nations. Gold’s legal status as money must be reaffirmed, if necessary.
• An efficient central clearing system for commercial banks dealing in credit based on the new currency will need to be established.
• Accompanied by the major energy producers setting price benchmarks, commodity exchanges in member nations will be required to price all products in the new NCB currency, replacing pricing in US dollars completely for trade between participating member nations. They can still quote prices in dollars for others should they so wish.

The purpose of the new currency is to provide the basis for trade finance and other cross border financial settlements on a sound money basis. It is also likely to lead to participating nations placing a greater emphasis on their own currencies’ stability while providing a safe haven from a fiat currency systemic collapse.

All empirical evidence informs us that when gold becomes the means by which credit is valued, credit’s own value is not dependent on stability in the quantity of credit, taking its value from gold. This stability imparts pricing certainty to trade and investment, necessary conditions for maximising economic progress particularly in the context of wider industrial development throughout Asia.

Constructed on the lines above, remarkably little physical gold would be required to underwrite cross-border payment values for trade in Asia and beyond. This trade settlement currency should be simple and quick to establish. It must be free from interference from members of the western alliance trying to preserve their own fiat currency systems. And the 40% gold backing rhymes with the basic requirement for a metallic monetary standard set by Sir Isaac Newton, when he was Master of the Royal Mint.

For participating central banks, the replacement of gold in their reserves for allocations of the new currency would represent a significant increase in their reserves. As confidence in the scheme builds, it could be argued that only minimal gold reserves need to be retained by participating central banks, with the balance swapped for the new currency. For example, the Reserve Bank of India officially possesses 795 tonnes of gold. Converted into the new gold currency, its value in reserves is uplifted to 1,988 tonnes equivalent. 

• [i] https://www.cnbctv18.com/market/currency/brics-to-discuss-common-currency-plan-south-african-foreign-minister-china-india-russia-16621991.htm
• [ii] See https://www.vedomosti.ru/opinion/columns/2022/12/27/957178-zolotoi-rubl?utm_campaign=vedomosti_public&utm_content=957178-zolotoi-rubl&utm_medium=social&utm_source=telegram_ved (Western censorship permitting)
• [iii] Earmarking is the technical term whereby one central bank acts as custodian for another central bank’s bullion.

Article cross-posted from Goldmoney.

ZeroHedge News reported today that U.S. banks are experiencing more runs on deposits.

US Bank Deposits Resume Outflows, Led By Large Institutions; Small Bank Loan Growth Slumped

It’s late on a Friday afternoon, but there’s still more things to worry about as The Fed’s H.8 (commercial bank deposit data) just dropped.

After yesterday’s report showed the Fed balance sheet shrinking but bank bailout facility usage higher, US commercial bank deposits (ex-large time deposits) unexpectedly resumed their freefall (during the week-ending 4/12), tumbling $68.66 billion to the lowest since April 2021…

Pam Martens of Wall Street on Parade addressed the current “credit crunch” that was revealed this week with the release of the Federal Reserve’s “Beige Book” report.

Fed’s Beige Book: The Credit Crunch Has Arrived in New York, California and Texas

On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve released its Beige Book, a compilation of current economic conditions in each of its 12 Federal Reserve districts. The information that was collected in each of the regional reports was gathered on or before April 10 – so it is relatively current.

It is not a good sign that three of the Fed districts that pump out a significant chunk of U.S. GDP reported that bank credit had tightened noticeably, ostensibly as fallout from the banking collapses in March and depositor runs.

The New York Fed reported that credit conditions in the Second Fed District, which includes New York state, the 12 northern counties of New Jersey, Connecticut’s Fairfield County, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, “deteriorated sharply.” It summarized the situation as follows:

“Conditions in the broad finance sector deteriorated sharply coinciding with recent stress in the banking sector. Small to medium-sized banks in the District reported widespread declines in loan demand across all loan segments. Credit standards tightened noticeably for all loan types, and loan spreads continued to narrow. Deposit [interest] rates moved higher. Finally, delinquency rates edged up on residential and commercial mortgages.”

Almost everyone now in the corporate news media financial sector is admitting that the U.S. Dollar’s decline is a foregone conclusion in the future.

The only question left is, how quickly will it collapse?

Alasdair Macleod of Goldmoney has written the best analysis of the current U.S. Dollar situation that I have read so far, and it was republished on ZeroHedge News as well.

This is a bit of a long read, but it is well worth it to understand what is probably in store for the U.S. Dollar in the future, as he tackles the question: “How quickly will the dollar collapse?”

If you want a spoiler statement from this article, it would be this:

Assuming that foreign holders reduce their dollar exposure and at the margin buy renminbi (Chinese currency), the fall in the dollar relative to the renminbi could be unexpectedly sudden and substantial.

How Quickly Will the Dollar Collapse?

This article looks at the factors behind the growing rejection of the dollar for trade settlement purposes by non-aligned nations around the world. They no longer fear political or economic reprisals from America.

The dollar’s monopoly was notably challenged by Saudi Arabia, which removed itself from the US’s sphere of influence to that of China and Russia. Consequently, peace has broken out throughout the Arab lands.

But rising interest rates have destabilised western banking systems, which have added to the attractions of payment in China’s renminbi relative to maintaining bank deposits and investments in the currencies of the western alliance — particularly of the dollar. Foreigners hold $7 trillion of deposits and short-term bills and $24.5 trillion in bonds and equities. These balances are becoming surplus to their needs.

The outlook is for US bank credit to contract further, which will drive interest rates even higher. More banks can be expected to fail. Foreigners are bound to become increasingly reluctant to hold dollars, which they will sell. Therefore, the question now is not how much will the dollar decline, but how rapidly. 

Introduction

We know that the Russia and China’s desire to do away with the dollar is coming true, due to factors beyond their immediate control. Increasing numbers of nations are now committing to accepting payment for cross border trade in currencies other than the dollar, despite US insistence that the only currency for pricing commodities, settling international trade, and therefore the reserve currency must be its own.

We also know that since the Second World War, the US Government has acted robustly against dissenters to enforce its currency monopoly. Libya’s Ghaddafi and Iraq’s Saddam Hussein both proposed new currencies to free themselves from the dollar and came to a sticky end. But all monopolies eventually fail. Encouraged by signs that the dollar’s has now run its course, increasing numbers of nations are abandoning it.

When the US was the world’s policeman, very few countries would have dared to challenge the mighty dollar. American foreign policy was driven by its battle against communism, protecting economic freedom for nations in its sphere of influence. But for the ruling elites around the world, America created distrust and resentment. These are the world policeman’s legacy.

A seminal event, which westerners have mostly forgotten about, was the Asian crisis of 1998. China believes it was planned by the Americans for their own benefit. Here is an extract from an important speech by Major General Qiao Liang, strategist for the Peoples’ Liberation Army, to the Chinese Communist Party’s Central Committee in April 2016, when he laid down what has become China’s version of events:

“What was the hottest investment concept in 1980s? It was the “Asian Tigers.” Many people thought it was due to Asians’ hard work and how smart they were. Actually, the big reason was the ample investment of U.S. dollars.

“When the Asian economy started to prosper, the Americans felt it was time to harvest. Thus, in 1997, after ten years of a weak dollar, the Americans reduced the money supply to Asia and created a strong dollar. Many Asian companies and industries faced an insufficient money supply. The area showed signs of being on the verge of a recession and a financial crisis.

“A last straw was needed to break the camel’s back. What was that straw? It was a regional crisis. Should there be a war like the Argentines had? Not necessarily. War is not the only way to create a regional crisis.

“Thus, we saw that a financial investor called “Soros” took his Quantum Fund, as well as over one hundred other hedge funds in the world, and started a wolf attack on Asia’s weakest economy, Thailand. They attacked Thailand’s currency Thai Baht for a week. This created the Baht crisis. Then it spread south to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, and the Philippines. Then it moved north to Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and even Russia. Thus, the East Asia financial crisis fully exploded.

“The camel fell to the ground. The world’s investors concluded that the Asian investment environment had gone south and withdrew their money. The U.S. Federal Reserve promptly blew the horn and increased the dollar’s interest rate. The capital coming out of Asia flew to the U.S.’s three big markets, creating the second big bull market in the U.S.

“When the Americans made ample money, they followed the same approach they did in Latin America: they took the money that they made from the Asian financial crisis back to Asia to buy Asia’s good assets which, by then, were at their bottom price. The Asian economy had no capacity to fight back.

“The only lucky survivor in this crisis was China.”

Whether Qiao was right in his assessment is not the point: this is what the Chinese leadership believes. And in early 2014, they became aware of US plans to stoke up dissent in Hong Kong, which led to student riots later that year. While America has tried several times to provoke China since then (trade tariffs, technology bans, the Huawei saga, Taiwan…), the only action China has taken is to defensively impose greater control over Hong Kong which was demonstrated by American action to be her weak point.

Finally, China’s patience over the dollar appears to be paying off. It has not interfered with America’s global plans, beyond ensuring with Russia that the Asian continent is their joint fiefdom.

But China’s economic tentacles are not confined to Asia. It trades everywhere, and its business and investment plans offer better prospects for all Africa, South America, and even Mexico. If it wasn’t for fear of American reprisals, their support for China and willingness to take its currency in payment would have already happened. But then America took a step too far in sanctioning Russia and leaning on Brussels-based SWIFT to cut Russia out of the dollar-based global payments system.

NATO and the EU fell in line with the Americans, while Asia, numerically far larger in population, backed Russia. The Americans had miscalculated, and for Russia it was business almost as normal while the western alliance suffered soaring energy, commodity, and food prices. This triggered rising interest rates and now credit contraction, leading to an initial banking crisis six weeks ago with the failure of Silicon Valley Bank and Credit Suisse in Europe. In the last six months, the dollar’s trade weighted index has fallen 11%.

Not only has America now demonstrated to every non-aligned nation that its dollar’s power is overrated, but by imposing sanctions on Russia it ended up destabilising its own financial system. And now, non-aligned nations have a free choice: stick with America, its dollar, and its discredited financial system, or deepen ties with China with her credible economic plan and whose economy is now growing.

While there is an element of short-termism in this choice, for the longer-term China offers something which America, its World Bank, and regional network cannot. The World Bank dishes out some charity, which allows it to fill its glossy handouts with tales of doing good. But any emerging nation seeking credit gets it in dollars (which it has to repay, thereby maintaining demand for it) and has to satisfy a business-cum-political case for the loan.

Dealing with China is different. Because her commercial interests align with those of her trading partners, China invests in infrastructure directly on its own or in partnership, building railways, highways, and communications. China can afford to do this because she has a savings driven economy. Furthermore, there are two currencies, onshore and offshore keeping offshore credit from migrating onshore. Therefore, the consequences for consumer price inflation of credit expansion are minimised.

Arguably, a shaky banking system is proving to be the dollar’s final undoing. Nations who hesitated before settling trade in renminbi are no longer doing so, understanding that their dollar reserves and balances are now at risk. There is additional safety in their numbers, because there are too many of them to be picked off by America individually. And if the US banking system continues to crumble, the interconnectedness with the other western alliance currencies is also at risk.

Other than those in the American camp, central banks are also re-evaluating their reserve policies. We have seen them add to their gold reserves, which is the same thing as selling dollars. According to the IMF, total foreign reserves fell by the equivalent of one trillion dollars in 2022, with the dollar content alone falling by $600bn. Renminbi in reserves at the year-end were only $298bn equivalent, so presumably they will be added to.

But is there really a need for currency reserves? The only case that can be made is for exchange rate and crisis management. Extending swap lines is inflationary, and a tool deployed only between the six major central banks — the Fed, Bank of Canada, Bank of England, the ECB, Bank of Japan, and the Swiss National Bank. It’s an elite arrangement that excludes the other 149 central banks.

They only need credit liquidity to settle their trade in other currencies. Therefore, a large proportion of dollar reserves held by central banks, which the IMF puts at $6.471 trillion, is becoming available for sale. To this must be added dollars held by private sector actors in the nostro/vostro correspondent banking system.

The end of the petrodollar’s monopoly

In so far as the public is aware, the dollar’s hiatus kicked off last December, when President Biden visited Saudi Arabia, followed by President Xi. The difference in their reception said it all, with Biden accorded a low-key welcome while Xi was honoured with all the Arab pomp and ceremony Muhammad bin Salman could muster. It was at Xi’s meeting that the Saudis agreed to accept payment for oil in renminbi.

These were merely the latest in a long line of developments. In 2014, a director of one of the major Swiss gold refiners told me that they were working round the clock recasting LBMA 400-ounce bars into the new 99.99 Chinese kilo standard. Bars from the Middle East, many of which appeared to have come out of long-term storage, were being returned to their owners recast to the new kilo standard. The only conclusion is that nine years ago the Arab world saw the future for their wealth being bound up more with China and Asia than with the Europeans and Americans. Coincidently, that was when America was believed by China to be stoking up trouble in Hong Kong, and provoking Russia into taking Crimea.

Further confirmation of how the geopolitical plates were shifting came in 2018 when President Putin and MBS high-fived at the G20 conference in Buenos Aires. From their body language it was clear that there was a confidential understanding between the two leaders and that they were working together. And in the five years since, the determination of Europe and North America to ban fossil fuels entirely has confirmed the foresight of the Arabs who nine years ago were recasting their gold bars into the Chinese standard.

By promising to do away with oil and gas on a rapidly shortening timescale, the West has offered the two Asian hegemons an open goal. Russia, Iran, and Saudi Arabia between them have nearly all the cheap cost oil and have a high degree of price control over global energy markets.

You can tell that America has now lost its influence over the Middle East because peace has returned to the region. Saudi Arabia is mending fences with Iran, Assad of Syria is expected to visit Riyadh shortly, Qatar and Bahrain are resuming diplomatic relations, and the first round of Yemeni peace talks have been successfully concluded. But America is not happy. William Burns from the CIA recently flew to Riyadh seeking a meeting with MBS, presumably to see where the CIA stood in the light of developments and to reconnoitre the situation. The nuclear attack submarine USS Florida transited Suez, in support of the Fifth Fleet and is presumed to be on its way into the Gulf.

Clearly, America’s intention is to escalate tensions, with a threat to attack Iran, whose nuclear programme is well advanced as the excuse. But realistically, the Americans are powerless. And if they do decide to attack Iran, they would also make enemies of the entire region — as MBS surely made clear to William Burns.

Other than security matters, the big issue is over currencies. Of course, the Gulf Cooperation Council members will still accept dollars. But America now has a banking crisis, the Fed itself is deeply in negative equity along with the other major central banks, and foreign holders of dollars have too many for future trade conditions.

The alternative is China and renminbi

It was reported this week that China’s GDP grew by 4.5% in the first quarter of this year, headlined by a recovery in consumer spending with retail sales growing by 10.6% in March alone. And while the west’s financial analysts’ attention is usually directed towards consumer activity first and foremost, everyone else knows that China has a savings driven economy, which allows credit to drive industrial investment without consumer prices inflating. 

There is an understandable fear that China’s demand for commodities will keep prices high at a time when America and Europe will enter recession on the back of contracting bank credit. Furthermore, there has been a lack of new mine discoveries and capital investment in commodity extraction, suggesting that commodity and energy supplies will remain tight. But as yet, in China statistical evidence that credit is driving capital formation is yet to emerge. 

Indeed, the pause in overall capital investment is consistent with China switching its strategic emphasis from its export trade to America and Europe to developing Asian markets. Furthermore, American manufacturers are reassessing their supply chain arrangements in the current geopolitical atmosphere.

But when it comes to choosing currencies, all the non-aligned nations supplying China know that her plans go far beyond domestic manufacturing with an ambition to bring about an industrial revolution throughout Asia. That is in their minds when they contrast receiving payment for exports in dollars to be lodged in the unsafe US banking system, compared with renminbi lodged in a state-guaranteed Chinese bank. And it is also in their minds when they compare the economic prospects for China compared with those of America and its close allies.

Even America’s allies are becoming unsure of their commitment to dollars. France recently accepted payment in renminbi for liquid natural gas. Other members of the European Union are plainly sitting on the fence, aware that to cut themselves off from the largest economy in the world which is growing while America’s is not, is ill-advised.

Furthermore, Europe has direct rail links across the Eurasian continent not just to China, but also to the entire continent. Shortly, they will connect directly to the Indian sub-continent as well, which is now officially the world’s most populous nation. Even the British cannot afford to follow Washington’s lead and restrain trade relations with China.

Trade imbalances are set to increase for America and much of Europe anyway. National accounting identities tell us that in the absence of changes in savings behaviour, a budget deficit leads to a matching trade deficit — the twin deficits syndrome. As contracting bank credit undermines the US economy, the US Government will face declining tax revenues, increasing welfare costs, and soaring borrowing costs.

The deficit on trade will increase in lockstep with the budget deficit— only this time, the balance of payments will almost certainly increase with the trade deficit because foreign exporters are unlikely to retain their dollar payments.

For the US Government and us all, it is likely to become a two-pronged headache. The first is that foreign demand for US Treasuries will not only disappear, but they will turn sellers when the funding requirement is rising.

Secondly, with global trade payments migrating to renminbi and China’s export trade continuing to thrive on filling America’s increasing trade gap, she will be cast as the villain of the peace. And any attempt by the US Government to introduce yet higher trade tariffs and bans on Chinese technology will not remedy the situation.

It must be acknowledged that a consequence of China’s economy expanding while America’s slumps could turn America’s current sabre-rattling over Taiwan into outright conflict.

Assessing the impact of dollar liquidation

There are two elements of dollar liquidation to consider, commencing with liquid bank deposits, certificates of deposit, Treasury, and commercial bills etc. with maturities of less than one year. According to the US’s Treasury International Capital statistics, at end-December these amounted to $7,074bn in credit liabilities due to all foreigners. This is the immediate amount that potentially hangs over foreign exchange markets.

At the same time, US residents have liabilities to them in foreign currencies of the equivalent of only $384bn. The ratio of foreign owned dollars to US owned foreign currency is 18.4 times. Put another way, this is the approximate imbalance between potential dollar selling by all foreigners and the ability of US buyers to absorb it by selling their foreign currency in return for dollars. On the face of it, this differential could fuel a rapid fall in the dollar’s exchange rate against foreign currencies.

It is also possible that a bank will buy in dollars for its own book and creates credit in a foreign currency in favour of the dollar seller. But that activity is likely to be limited to branches of foreign banks in New York with access to the relevant foreign wholesale credit markets and assumes they would wish to buy dollars.

But the most likely method to stop a sliding dollar would be either for the exchange stabilisation fund to intervene, which would reduce broad money supply when the Fed would be struggling to stop it contracting further; or for the Fed to seek cooperation from its swap line partners to buy dollars and sell their own currencies in return, which is highly inflationary.

This leads us to consider the outlook for interest rates and how foreign perceptions of financial risks might change, particularly with regard to systemic risk in the US banking system. We know that a weakening currency tends to lead to higher interest rates. And that rising interest rates might be expected to support the dollar’s exchange rate.

But there is the danger of a negative feed-back loop, whereby risks to the dollar’s exchange rate increases along with interest rates. This is because rising interest rates will destabilise the US economy and government finances, leading to higher budget and trade deficits. And portfolio assets, defined as being of more than one year’s maturity will fall in value.

The chart above shows how foreign holdings of long-term securities have been inflating in recent years on a quarter-to-quarter basis, mainly due to an increase in foreign private holdings. In January, private and public sector holdings totalled $24,548bn. And though choppy, there now appears to be a declining trend. These figures are in addition to foreign owned non-financial assets, such as real estate, farmland, factories, and offices.

US ownership of foreign long-term securities totals $14.263 trillion, of which $10,875bn is in corporate stocks. It should be noted that in the majority of cases, foreign securities are held in dollar-priced American Depository Receipts (ADRs), so that their disposal does not result in foreign exchange transactions, unlike a foreign disposal of a dollar-based asset which does.

But commercial bank credit in major jurisdictions has stopped growing or is even contracting while demand for credit continues to increase. The consequence is that interest rates will continue to rise, due to this imbalance of supply over demand. There is little that central banks can do about it without debasing their currencies.

And because they are under pressure to ensure the funding of their governments’ increasing deficits, they will be forced to accept the market’s pricing of credit. That was the experience of the 1970s.

While everyone’s attention is being misdirected to forecasts of CPI inflation, they appear to be unaware that inflation is not the immediate issue. It is the shortage of bank credit, which is now driving interest rates, not inflation expectations. Accordingly, the outlook is for yet higher bond yields which means that all financial asset values will fall further.

And as they fall, the highly financialised US banking system will be undermined by both investments held on their balance sheet and by collateral held against loans. But this outlook is not confined to dollar markets and is shared by all other western financial centres. As these dynamics become obvious to investors, a global liquidation of financial assets is bound to accelerate, with the exception perhaps of China’s financial markets which are set on a completely different course, and Russia’s which have been completely cut off from global investment flows.

In a general portfolio liquidation, the imbalance between foreign investment in long-term assets and the US ownership of foreign investments will drive relative currency outcomes. In dollars, it is a ratio of $24,548bn to $14,263bn, or approximately 1.72 times. But for foreign exchange purposes, probably less than a trillion dollars are being held denominated in foreign currencies, with the balance in ADRs.

When an ADR is sold, there is no foreign exchange transaction involved, unlike selling of foreign owned US securities. Therefore, a general portfolio liquidation would see an overwhelming excess of dollar selling by foreigners compared with foreign currency liquidation by Americans.

Assuming that foreign holders reduce their dollar exposure and at the margin buy renminbi, the fall in the dollar relative to the renminbi could be unexpectedly sudden and substantial. At least some of the dollar liquidation is likely to fuel energy and commodity prices, whose supply is in many cases too limited to support stockpiling on any scale.

Gold which is likely to be bought because it is still legal money in nearly all foreign jurisdictions. It would mark a foreigner-driven flight out of unanchored credit into physical commodities due to increasing counterparty risk.

The only offset to these negative implications for the dollar’s future is likely to come from other members of the western alliance. As major foreign holders of US Government debt, they can be relied upon to attempt mutual currency support. Doubtless, the Fed and its five partner central banks will increase their swaps to that end as well as to shore up the dollar itself.

But these actors are in the minority measured by the quantities of dollars held, and their attempts to rig foreign exchange markets will only make things worse.

We must therefore conclude that with the evidence pointing to foreign selling of the dollar, that this selling could quickly escalate. Consequently, dollar liquidation by foreigners will lead to significantly higher interest rates which can only be lessened by the expansion of central bank credit.

And that expansion can only come from the Fed because commercial banks are tapped out, seeking to contain their losses and reduce their balance sheet leverage. And if the Fed resorts to the printing press through currency swaps or by other means, the dollar will have had it anyway.

Russia’s position

The Russian economy appears to be doing remarkably well during the current conflict with Ukraine. Taxation and government debt are lower than in any other major economy, and with a few workarounds, the export trade continues in surplus. The conflict in Ukraine has been a financial burden, but not enough to destabilise Russia’s economy.

Payment flows have been diverted from dollars into Chinese yuan, permitting Russian ex-pats around the world to continue to use their credit cards. And Bangladesh has been paying Russia for its Rooppur nuclear power plant construction in yuan via a Chinese bank with access to China’s cross-border interbank payment system. As we have seen so many times in previous cases, sanctions against Russia are proving to be utterly pointless.

While the yuan payments route deals with the current situation, we can be sure that Russia will want to have a payment medium under its own control. It is to that end that on Putin’s behalf Sergey Glazyev is working on a proposal for a new trade settlement currency for the Eurasian Economic Union. The indications are that it will be based on gold, and it is likely from what Glazyev has publicly written that the rouble will move onto a gold standard of sorts as well.

The immediate benefit to Russia’s business community is that current interest rates of over 10% will fall substantially. It compares with a consumer price inflation rate of 3.5%, but that is heavily distorted by previously high CPI inflation rates. Nevertheless, anything that reduces interest rates in this lower inflation environment will encourage the growth in credit to maximise economic potential.

The key to it is for the value of credit to be anchored to gold to introduce permanent price stability. Only then can rouble interest rates decline to a few per cent permanently. 

The rouble would then be in a position to challenge a fiat yuan as a payment medium. And with Russia’s new relationship with the Gulf Cooperation Council members, no doubt a gold-backed rouble would be readily accepted by the Saudis and others for energy payments, even in preference to yuan.

The negotiations between Russia and China on this point are likely to be tricky. But given that we know China has massive undeclared gold stocks anyway, talks can be resolved in the interests of a stable monetary relationship between the two hegemons. Of more importance perhaps, is the question of at what gold value the rouble will be exchangeable for notionally or actually, given that Putin’s unfriendlies face a financial, banking, and fiat currency crisis likely to drive fiat values for gold considerably higher as they rapidly lose purchasing power.

Read the full article at Goldmoney.com, cross-posted from Medical Kidnap.