Recently researcher Koos Jansen interviewed Willem Middelkoop who is the author of The Big Reset. We have talked quite a bit about a reset here over the past two years. In this interview Mr. Middelkoop explains how the reset is taking place, but at a much slower pace than many had anticipated. This is in line with what we have noted here on the blog. Below is a sample Q&A from this interview.
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"Jansen: Through the dollar the US has unlimited powers?
Middelkoop: Any country, like the US, that issues the dominant world reserve currency has almost limitless power to finance other countries. It gives the monetary hegemony ‘exorbitant privilege,’ as the French remarked in the 1960s. Because it can print the world currency the US can buy anything it wishes without having to worry about its liabilities. While the Soviet Union collapsed because they had to import food with hard-earned dollars from their oil exports, in the 70s and 80s, the US could start the Korean War and the Vietnam War with freshly printed greenbacks. By ‘obliging’ foreign central banks to keep their monetary reserves in Treasury bonds, the US in fact forced them to finance US military spending abroad, as Michael Hudson explains in his book ‘Super Imperialism’. In this new form of imperialism, the US is able to rule not through its position as world creditor, but as world debtor. America’s weakness as a debtor country has indeed become the foundation of the world’s monetary and financial system. A Chinese market commentator once remarked: ‘World trade is now a game in which the US produces dollars and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy … a dollar hegemony that forces the world to export not only goods but also dollar earnings from trade to the US … Everyone accepts dollars because dollars can buy oil.’ Only when dollar-holding nations decide to buy natural resources instead of US treasuries, is the dollar’s reserve currency status in danger. This is exactly the exit strategy China and Russia seems to be playing right now. In recent years, the Russians have sold most of their dollar holdings, while they tripled their gold position. The Chinese have stopped buying extra US Treasuries since 2010 while they have imported and invested in huge amounts of gold. These developments signal the first stages of the US dollar’s decay."
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