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Complete Text Special Relationship New Kids On The Block Energy Chemistry Small Is Visible Energy Morphology Since 1971 when President Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard there has been a global exchange rate (price fixing) cartel operating in such a way that world trade has been a game in which the US produced dollars and dollar-denominated debt over and above its own needs and the rest of the world produced goods that the dollar could buy.
The principal US strategies in this game have been (1) to do political deals to ensure that the oil business is denominated in dollars...and here the manipulation of the gold price would be necessary to preempt any moves by OPEC (and others) away from dollar payments towards gold; and (2) to keep the Japanese and others buying up US dollar-denominated debt...and here the Nixon agreeents with China may well have been crucial to cutting a deal.
If I am correct, then this understanding should be a key premise for any thinking about currency (and traded commodity) exchange rates and mutual credit systems. The urgent need might turn out to be helping 'America' figure out how to get the dollar off the hook without petrodollar wars or stock exchange meltdowns (derivatives etc.)...with an agreed bunch of face-saving narratives for the top global players as a secondary objective.
This might be something that all the players in the game could agree about...and would suggest broadening the invitation list to Boudewijn's proposed Bretton Woods II to include 'them' as well as 'us'.
William Shepherd to Thomas H. Greco - January 2003
You have summed up the situation well, and I am glad you included the possibility of a Nixon-China deal - some say the transfer of a lot of looted unofficial gold was involved. Any information on this would be appreciated.
The Bretton Woods Revisited proposal needs to be taken up by someone with the energy and enthusiasm for it. There is a complication in that the maverick politician Lyndon Le Roche is advocating something similar.
Boudewijn Wegerif to William Shepherd - January 2003
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