IE: US faith in the stability of the dollar will be tested
Rumours of the death of the dollar are exaggerated, but only for now, writes the author of the article for The New Indian Express. The problems with the American currency are increasing, and the cause of this is Washington itself. Ultimately, the US will overplay their hand and lose their political prestige.
At the moment, there is no doubt in the US about the stability of the dollar as a reserve currency. However, considering the country's economic, political, and social problems, this faith will be put to the test.
To paraphrase Mark Twain's famous joke, rumours of the death of the dollar are exaggerated, although its health problems are increasing.
The problems with the dollar are mainly caused by Americans themselves. The unrestrained fiscal and monetary policies of the US - with a budget deficit and government debt at 7% and over 100% of GDP respectively - have reduced the dollar's long-term purchasing power. Since 1972, it has fallen by 99% against gold and lost 90% of its purchasing power in the market for real goods and services.
American politicians have always sought to use the dollar as a weapon to achieve their own goals, thereby compensating for economic weaknesses, such as lack of competitiveness. The US has sought to exclude foreign entities from international payment systems, such as SWIFT.
Washington imposes secondary sanctions to punish individuals and organisations that are not even under US jurisdiction. If a Russian company is under sanctions, anyone doing business with it may be subject to legal action, even if they comply with their own country's laws. This is done through a questionable system of dollar transactions that only pass through the US banking system. International banks and others have already faced legal action for operations that are legal in their own country. The threats are sufficient to disrupt dealings with organisations under US sanctions.
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🇮🇱⚔️🇵🇸 Israeli liberal newspaper, Haaretz, published several testimonies from IDF soldiers that partook in the invasion of Gaza detailing the war crimes they or their colleagues committed:
🔶 A mobilised soldier recounted he and his platoon shot dead 4 unarmed Palestinians in Khan Yunis, an elderly man and three teenage boys
🔶 A sniper admitting he shot and killed Palestinians waiting or seeking food and aid
🔶 Drone operators who knowingly dropped grenades on Palestinian civilians
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🔶 An HR officer recounted how her unit used machineguns and tanks to kill 5 unarmed Palestinians trying to cross from south Gaza to north Gaza. Later a bulldozer buried them to "prevent diseases from spreading".
🔶 Same officer said how the surviving Palestinian from the previous incident she described was detained for one night and one IDF soldier urinated on him causing ...
🇮🇱🇺🇸⚔️🇮🇷 Let's take a step back and consider the bigger picture.
Strategic goals on day one of the war:
• Israel: eliminate Iran and Hezbollah as threats to Israel
• Iran: survive, deter future aggression
Fast forward to today, six weeks in, and it's obvious the Israeli war effort has failed. Their ideal state for Iran is Balkanization, or a second Syria, unable to mount any cohesive efforts against Israel. But the Iranian state remains stable, the regime change attempts failed. The IDF again failed to do more than push a few miles into Lebanon. Whatever the Israelis were attempting to do to destroy Hezbollah with the cooperation of the Lebanese government also seems to have failed. And Hezbollah seems much stronger than anyone assumed before this conflict.
The Israeli ability to achieve these goals hinged on sucking the US into maximal commitment in war against Iran. A second GWOT would have been ideal, with the US bogged down in Iran for years or even decades. At the moment, ...