Economy
“Monetary System, World Order We’ve Had Since 1940s Is Collapsing” Warns Richard Maybury
by Harry Bonner, via Zero Hedge.com:
Richard Maybury has been predicting ‘black swan’ events in his newsletter Early Warning Report for the last two decades.
In a recent conversation, he put his finger on something happening around the world. He sees a growing anxiety about global events – “everybody knows there’s something seriously wrong but they don’t know what is really happening,” he said.
A reckoning with policies that have been in place since the 1940’s is taking place, according to Richard. The fallout, he says, has implications for currencies, the military hegemony of the US, and political stability around the world.
US Hegemony Since the 1940’s
“The United Nations, NATO, the Bretton Woods monetary system, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund were all created in the 1940s according to blueprints that were approved in Washington,” Richard explains.
And this ‘world order’ may be coming to an end, he believes: “It’s the collapse of that structure that was built in the 1940s that is behind all of these problems that are popping up in financial markets and economies around the world” (we published a report recently on why many indicators undermine the ‘recovery’ thesis. Download here).
Geopolitical Fallout
Everyone knows that tensions between the US and the Middle East are at all-time highs but Richard also believes the US is facing an untenable situation in its attitude to China. The US has the same approach of policing East Asia, in particular the Sea of China, as it did during the 1940’s, but things have changed, and the US is no longer the overwhelming power that it used to be, when most of Asia was under-developed relative to the West.
The Sea of China could be one area where the global order, with the US on top, begins to break down, says Richard:
“The fact of the matter is that China already owns the South China Sea and the East China Sea and Washington doesn’t like that.
“Washington is planning to do something about that? Come on, that’s ridiculous. And yet that’s the direction we’re moving in.”
Not Much to Show for Strong Dollar
Why hasn’t the US Dollar, the lynchpin of the global monetary system, lost its appeal? Richard says the US remains the most powerful country, and that’s why people have stuck with the Dollar for now:
“People are scared out of their minds and they’re looking for safety and the position that Federal officials created for themselves in the 1940’s still largely exists.
“So when you’re scared, you want to go with the guy who’s strongest and that’s what they’re doing.”
Even with a strong Dollar, Richard remarks that the goods and services you can buy in the US aren’t getting much better or cheaper:
“I look around at goods and services that I used to buy and they’re not available anymore. The quality of the stuff I do buy is going downhill. You know the old saying, ‘They don’t make it like they used to.’ Well, that has become literally true in a lot of cases.”
