And yes it is.
There’s many indicators. Don’t you know.
Like, well for instance, the kinds of books that are being published these days inside of America.
How and why do you think the United States is spending trillions of dollars it does not have, on trivialities such as social re-engineering, and wars in foreign lands? It’s because the USA has forced the world to conduct international trade using American and European banks. This system of banks is known as SWIFT and is the root behind all the trouble and problems plaguing the world today.
The system takes a million tiny bites out of every financial transaction in the world, and that money is used to finance the enormous American economy, and mindless, and uncontrolled spending.
Well, guess what?
Yep. This dominance of SWIFT is coming to an end. And the rest of the world is eagerly looking forward to it happening. And with it, will be the harsh slap of reality when the ACTUAL value, and the actual worth of American money settles in place.
Some predict a catastrophic collapse.
I don’t.
Instead, I see a swift contraction of all things financial, and the economy will follow suit. If it is managed by a talented and alert bureaucracy, then it will be managed well. Otherwise, it will be a frightening time, and a time where the most unreasonable notions will enter the minds of the American leadership.
But first, let’s review…
[1] America has no REAL democracy
It is instead an oligarchy of selfish and evil corporations that use the American people as cattle to serve them. video 9MB
[2] America Believes that it owns 1/3 of the world
The facts speak for you cannot deny this truth, and the rest of the world is mighty pissed off about it. video 8MB
[3] America is a Military Empire where war is an every-day event
And that might be just fine for blowing up mud huts, and strafing goats and sheep, but it’s really dangerous when the USA tries to bully the BIG players. And that is exactly what is going on. Not only with military threat but hybrid-war at all levels. This is pissing them off to no end. video 8MB
[4] Everyone is suffering because of these facts.
Maybe the ultra-rich are happy, and their enablers are, but the rest of the world is hurting, and it is manifesting in horrible scenes throughout the United States. video 6MB
[5] The wealthy has sucked America bone dry.
How can a nation that is willing to spend trillions of dollars destroying other nations cannot provide food, shelter and health care for it’s own citizens? What is wrong with the system? Because it is broken very, very badly. It is NOT worthy of saving. video 4.7MB
Let’s talk about changing the system…
Well, the wealthy oligarchy in America doesn’t want to change. So “outsiders” will need to force the changes themselves. Thus this…
Washington hawks float expelling Russia from SWIFT but Moscow’s budding geo-economic alliance with Beijing will keep the money flowing
Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin spent an hour and 14 minutes in a video conversation on Wednesday. Geopolitically, paving the way for 2022, this is the one that really matters – much more than Putin-Biden a week ago.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov, who generally carefully measures his words, had previously hinted that this exchange would be “extremely important.”
It was obvious the two leaders would not only exchange information about the natural gas pipeline Power of Siberia 2. But Peskov was referring to prime time geopolitics: how Russia-China would be coordinating their countercoups against the hybrid war/Cold War 2.0 combo deployed by the US and its allies.
While no substantial leaks were expected from the 37th meeting between Xi and Putin since 2013 (they will meet again in person in February 2022, at the start of the Beijing Winter Olympics), Assistant to the President for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov did manage to succinctly deliver at least two serious bits of information.
These are the highlights of the call:
- Moscow will inform Beijing about the progress, or lack thereof, in negotiations with the US/NATO on security guarantees for Russia.
- Beijing supports Moscow’s demands on US/NATO for these security guarantees.
- Putin and Xi agreed to create an “independent financial structure for trade operations that could not be influenced by other countries.” Diplomatic sources, off the record, say the structure may be announced by a joint summit in late 2022.
- They discussed the Biden-hosted “Summit for Democracy,” concluding it was counterproductive and imposed new dividing lines.
Of all of the above, the third point is the real game-changer – already in the works for a few years now, and gaining definitive momentum after Washington hawks of the Victoria “F**k the EU” Nuland kind recently floated the idea of expelling Russia from SWIFT – the vast messaging network used by banks and other financial institutions to make money transfer instructions – as the ultimate sanctions package for the non-invasion of Ukraine.
Putin and Xi once again discussed one of their key themes in bilaterals and BRICS meetings: the need to keep increasing the share of the yuan and ruble in mutual settlements – bypassing the US dollar – and opening new stock market avenues for Russian and Chinese investors.
Bypassing a SWIFT mechanism “influenced by third counties” then becomes a must. Ushakov diplomatically put it as “the need to intensify efforts to form an independent financial infrastructure to service trade operations between Russia and China.”
Russian energy businesses, from Gazprom to Rosneft, know all there is to know not only about US threats but also about the negative effects of the tsunami of US dollars flooding the global economy via the Fed’s quantitative easing.
This Russia-China drive is yet another dimension of geoeconomic, geostrategic and demographic power rapidly shifting towards Eurasia and possibly foreshadowing the advent of a new world system related to other matters Putin-Xi certainly discussed: the interconnection of Belt and Road with the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), the expanded reach of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and the coming Chinese presidency of BRICS in 2022.
The US – with US$30 trillion in debt, 236% of its militarized GDP – is virtually bankrupt. Russia-China have already experimented with their alternative payment systems, which will inevitably integrate.
The most important banks in both countries will adopt the system – as well as banks across Eurasia doing business with them, and then vast swaths of the Global South. SWIFT, in the long run, will be used only in exceptional cases if China and Russia have their way.
Maidan redux
Now to the heart of the geopolitical puzzle.
Ushakov confirmed that the Russian Federation has submitted proposals on security guarantees to the US. As Putin himself had confirmed even before talking to Xi, it’s all about “indivisible security”: a mechanism that has been enshrined all across the territory of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe since a 1975 summit in Helsinki.
Predictably, under orders of the powers that be, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg already rejected it.
Both Xi and Putin clearly identify how Team Biden is deploying a strategic polarization gambit under good old divide-and-rule. The wishful thinking at play is to build a pro-American bloc – with participants ranging from the UK and Australia to Israel and Saudi Arabia – to “isolate” Russia-China.
That’s what’s behind the narrative thunderously splashed non-stop all across the West – to which Biden’s Summit for Democracy was also tied. Taiwan is being manipulated against Beijing while Ukraine is being literally weaponized against Russia. “China aggression” meets “Russian aggression.”
Beijing has not fallen into the trap but has asserted at different levels that Taiwan will eventually be integrated into the mainland motherland, without any ludicrous “invasion.” And the wishful thinking that massive American pressure will lead to cracks inside the Chinese Communist Party is also likely generating zero traction.
Ukraine is a much more volatile proposition: a dysfunctional nightmare of systemic instability, widespread corruption, shady oligarchic entanglements and poverty.
Washington still follows the Zbigniew Brzezinski-concocted Maidan plan laid out for cookie distributor Nuland in 2014. Yet seven years later, no American “strategist” managed to understand why Russia would fail to invade Ukraine, which has been part of Russia for centuries.
For these “strategists”, it’s imperative that Russia faces a second Vietnam, after Afghanistan in the 1980s. Well, it’s not going to happen because Moscow has no interest whatsoever in “invading” Ukraine.
It does get more complicated. The ultimate fear dictating all US foreign policy since the early 20th century is the possibility of Germany clinching a new version of Bismarck’s 1887 Reinsurance Treaty with Russia.
Add China to the combination and these three actors are able to control just about the entire Eurasian landmass. Updating Mackinder, the US would then be turned into a geopolitically irrelevant island.
Putin-Xi may have examined not only how the imperial hybrid war tactics against them are floundering against them, as well as how the tactics are dragging Europe further into the abyss of irrelevance.
For the EU, as former British diplomat Alastair Crooke points out, the strategic balance is a disaster:
“The EU has virtually ruptured its relations with both Russia and China – at the same time. Washington’s hawks wanted it. A ‘European Brzezinski’ certainly would have advised the EU differently: never lose both in tandem – you are never that powerful.”
No wonder the leadership in Moscow-Beijing can’t take anyone in Brussels seriously – be it assorted NATO chihuahuas or the spectacularly incompetent Ursula von der Leyen at the European Commission.
A faint ray of light is that Paris and Berlin, unlike the Russophobic Poland and the Baltic fringe, at least prefer having some sort of negotiation with Moscow over Ukraine as opposed to slapping on extra sanctions.
Now imagine Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov explaining the ABCs of foreign policy to a clueless Annalena “Grune” Baerbock, now posing as German foreign minister while displaying a fresh mix of incompetence and aggressiveness. She actually placed the phone call.
Lavrov had to meticulously explain the consequences of NATO expansion; the Minsk agreement; and how Berlin should exercise its right to pressure Kiev to respect Minsk.
No leaks about it should be expected from Ushakov. But it’s fair to imagine that with “partners” like the US, NATO and the EU, Xi and Putin should conclude that China and Russia don’t even need enemies.
Big Big News
Next up is a second (!) excellent piece by Pepe Escobar giving details on the close collaboration between the Russian SPFSand the Chinese CIPS. It spells the doom for SWIFT.
- SPFS = System for Transfert of Financial Messaging
- CIPS = Cross-border Interbank Payment System
Not to mention the global geopolitical and geo-economical consequences examined in Escobar’s article.
Just to remind some relevant key moments :
1996
The Shanghai 5 created to solve some border problems & working together against terrorism. President Jiang Zemin & President Boris Yeltsine decided for cooperation in the post-Soviet space. Sergey Primakov played a key role.
The five are : China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan.
2000
President Vladimir Vladimirovitch Putin began to rule Russia.
2001
Uzbekistan joined and the group got a new name : Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) I also called “Sovereigns’ Coalition Organization.” Then, September 11, 2001 : 9-11 (NYC) occurred.
December 11, 2001
China is accepted into the World Trade Organization (WTO).
2007
Putin’s historic speech in Munich on American and NATO’s meddlings.
2010-2015
The CIA network in China decapitated. The endeavor started during the last 2 years of President Hu Jintao (2002-2012) and completed under President Xi Jinping.
2012
Iran excluded from using SWIFT (Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications).
November 2012
President Xi Jinping began to rule China
2013
Xi & Putin began their friendship and fruitful collaboration. Between 2013 and the last virtual Summit on December 15, 2021, they met 37 times (an average of ~ 4 times a year). They will meet again in February 2022 at the beginning of the Beijing Winter Olympics.
End of 2013
The Belt & Road Initiative (BRI) announced by President Xi Jinping first in Astana (for the Eurasian Landbridge) and in Jakarta (for the Maritime Silk Roads)
Feb 2014
The Maidan color revolution in Ukraine. Return of Crimea to Russia just after the Sochi Olympic Games.
2014
Leviathanesque gas deal between China & Russia.
February 2015
Minsk Accords between Kiev & the autonomous Republics of Donetz & Luhansk
Russia signed too as a witness.
July 2015
JCPOA (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action) signed by Iran, the US, Russia, China, the UK, France. and Germany. Iran can then use again the SWIFT system.
June 2017
India & Pakistan welcomed together at the historic Astana Summit into the Shanghai Cooperation Organization aka the Sovereigns’ Coalition Organization (SCO).
2018
Iran excluded a second time from the SWIFT system.
March 1st, 2018
Vladimir Putin announced to the world the new Russian weapons, including hypersonic missiles. (Avangard, Kinzhal, Poseidon, Burevestnik, Sarmat, etc.). Nuclear parity is restored.
Putin: "They did not listen to us then. Listen up now !"
March 26, 2018
The Petro-yuan was created at the Shanghai Stock Exchange. It was a Monday.
October 1st, 2019
Celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the People’s Republic of China.
January 7, 2020
Iranian General Qasem Soleimani murdered on January 7 by the US government.
2020
The Common Prosperity Initiative started in China. It is a concept created by His Excellency State Councillor Mr. Wang Huning, advisor to Presidents Jiang Zemin (1989-2002), Hu Jintao & Xi Jinping.
November 2020
The Chinese government announced the end of extreme poverty in China.
July 2021
Celebrations of the 100th anniversary of the Communist Party of China (CPC).
August 2021
China tested a hypersonic gliding vehicle.
August 15, 2021
Fall of Kabul. The invasion & occupation of Afghanistan by the US lasted practically 20 years. Named “Operation Enduring Freedom” started on October 7, 2001.
September 2021
Safe return to Earth of the 3 taikonauts after 3 months living in the Chinese Space Station Tian Gong (Heavenly Palace)
September 2021
Iran accepted as full member of the SCO at the historic Dushanbe Summit (Tajikistan).
October 2021
A second crew of 3 taikonauts reached the Chinese Space Station including the first Chinese female taikonauts Miss Wang. They should be back to Earth in April 2022.
December 2021 (second week)
Immensely fruitful Putin’s visit to India, concluding many deals with Modi,
contributing to Eurasian Integration.
December 15, 2021
During a virtual Summit (lasting one hour & fourteen minutes),, President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping agreed to establish a financial platform independent of SWIFT. They confirmed closer collaboration within the framework of the already solid Sino-Russian Comprehensive Strategic Partnership of Coordination for a New Era.
THE SCO (WITH AT ITS CORE RUSSIA & CHINA) IS THE ONLY GROUP ON EARTH HAVING THE UNWAVERING INTENTION, THE DETERMINATION, THE RESOURCES, THE BRAINS, THE STAMINA, THE ORGANIZATIONAL SKILLS, THE PATIENCE, THE DIPLOMATIC NETWORK, THE WEAPONS AND THE QUALITY LEADERSHIP ENABLING THEM TO DEAL WITH THE EVIL & MADLY HUBRISTIC KFC-AZAEL (Kakistocratic Feudal Conglomerate of the Anglo-Zio-American EstabLishment) aka the PBGC (Psychopathic Barbarian Genocidal Crusaders) OR SIMPLY THE CRUSADERS.
In French, the KFC-AZAEL is called le CaCA. ("Kakistocratique" in French can also be written "Cacocratique"), hence le CaCA is for "le Caco-Conglomérat Anglo-Siono-Américain")
Putin and Xi plot their SWIFT escape
By Pepe Escobar
December 17 2021
Vladimir Putin got straight to the point. At the opening of his one hour and fourteen minute video conversation with Xi Jinping on 15 December, he described Russia-China relations as “an example of genuine inter-state cooperation in the 21st century.”
Their myriad levels of cooperation have been known for years now – from trade, oil and gas, finance, aerospace and the fight against Covid-19, to the progressive interconnection of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU).
But now the stage was set for the announcement of a serious counter-move in their carefully coordinated ballet opposing the relentless Hybrid War/Cold War 2.0 combo deployed by Empire.
As Assistant to the President for Foreign Policy Yuri Ushakov succinctly explained, Putin and Xi agreed to create an “independent financial structure for trade operations that could not be influenced by other countries.”
Diplomatic sources, off the record, confirmed the structure may be announced by a joint summit before the end of 2022.
This is a stunning game-changer in more ways than one. It had been extensively discussed in previous bilaterals and in preparations for BRICS summits – mostly centered on increasing the share of yuan and rubles in Russia-China settlements, bypassing the US dollar, and opening new stock market options for Russian and Chinese investors.
Now we’ve come to the crunch. And the catalyzing event was none other than US hawks floating the – financially nuclear – idea of expelling Russia from SWIFT, the messaging network used by 11,000+ banks in over 200 countries, as well as financial institutions, for rapid money transfers worldwide.
Cutting off Russia from SWIFT would be part of a harsh new sanctions package developed in response to an ‘invasion’ of Ukraine that will never happen – mainly because the only ones praying for it are professional NATO warmongers.
Profiting from a strategic blunder
Once again, an American strategic blunder offers the Russia-China self-described “comprehensive strategic partnership” the chance to advance their coordination.
Ushakov put it very diplomatically: it’s time to bypass a SWIFT mechanism “influenced by third countries” to form “an independent financial structure.”
That amounts to a serious game-changer for the entire Global South – as scores of nations yearn to be released from a de facto US dollar dictatorship, complete with recurring Fed quantitative easing circus packages.
Russia and China have been experimenting with their alternative payment systems for quite a while now: the Russian SPFS (System for Transfer of Financial Messages) and the Chinese CIPS (Cross Border Interbank Payment System).
It won’t be easy, as the most powerful Chinese banks are deep into SWIFT and have expressed their reservations about SPFS. Yet, they will have to inevitably integrate prior to the launch of the new mechanism, possibly in late 2022.
Once the most important Russian and Chinese banks – from Sberbank to the Bank of China – adopt the system, the path opens for other banks across Eurasia and the Global South to join in.
In the long run, SWIFT, prone to non-stop American political interference, will be increasingly marginalized, or restricted to Atlanticist latitudes.
Bypassing the US dollar, on trade and all sorts of financial settlements, is an absolutely central plank of the ever-evolving Russia-China notion of a multipolar world.
The road will be long, of course, especially when it comes to offering a solid counterpoint to the US-controlled global financial system, a maze that includes the humongous investment houses of the BlackRock, Vanguard and State Street variety, with their interlocking shareholding of virtually every major multinational company.
Yet a SWIFT escape will rapidly gain momentum, because it is inextricably linked to a series of developments that Putin-Xi touched upon in their conversation, the most important of which are:
1. The progressive interconnection of BRI and EAEU, offering expanding roles to the BRICS-run New Development Bank (NDB) as well as the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).
2. The increasing geopolitical and geo-economic reach of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), especially after the admission of Iran in October.
3. And crucially, the upcoming Chinese presidency of the BRICS in 2022.
China in 2022 will invest deeply in BRICS+. This expanded BRICS club will be linked to a development process that includes:
1. The consolidation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) – a massive East Asia trade deal uniting China, the ASEAN 10 and Japan, and South Korea, as well as Australia and New Zealand.
2. The African Continental Free Trade Area (ACFTA).
3. And the memoranda of understanding signed between the EAEU and MERCOSUR and between the EAEU and ASEAN.
Anchoring West Asia
Yaroslav Lissovolik, one of the world’s leading experts on BRICS+, argues that it’s now time for BRICS+ 2.0, operating in a system that opens “the possibility for bilateral and plurilateral agreements to complement the core network of regional alliances formed by BRICS countries and their respective regional neighbors.”
So if we’re talking about a major qualitative jump in terms of economic development across the Global South, the question is inevitable. What about West Asia?
All these interconnections, plus an escape from SWIFT, will certainly profit the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), arguably the flagship BRI project, to which Beijing plans to annex Afghanistan.
CPEC will be progressively connected to the future Iran-China corridor via Afghanistan, part of the 20 year Iran-China strategic deal in which BRI projects will be prominently featured. Iran and China already trade in yuan and rials, so settlements between Iran and China in a non-SWIFT mechanism will be a given.
What happened to Iran is a classic example of SWIFT becoming hostage of imperial political manipulation. Iranian banks were expelled from SWIFT in 2012, because of pressure from the usual suspects. In 2016, access was restored as part of the JCPOA, clinched in 2015. Yet in 2018, under the Trump administration, Iran was once again cut off from SWIFT.
None of that will ever happen with Iran joining the new Russia-China mechanism.
And that leads us to the interconnection of China’s BRI expansion in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Yemen. The reconstruction of Syria may be largely financed via the non-SWIFT mechanism. Same for China buying Iraqi energy. Same for the reconstruction of a Yemen possibly hosting a Chinese-owned port, part of the “string of pearls.”
Saudi Arabia, the Emirates and Israel may remain in the US financial sphere of influence, or lack thereof. And even if there is no BRICS nation anchoring West Asia, and no regional integration economic agreement on the horizon, the role of the economic integrator is bound to be eventually played by China.
China will play a similar role to Brazil anchoring MERCOSUR, Russia anchoring the EAEU and South Africa anchoring the SADC/SACU.
Both BRI and the EAEU will get a tremendous boost by bypassing SWIFT. You simply can’t go multipolar if you trade using (devalued) imperial legal tender.
BRI, EAEU and those interlocking economic development agreements, combined with digital technology, will be integrating billions of people in the Global South.
Think of a possible, auspicious future spelling out cheap telecom delivering financial services and world market access, in a non-dollar environment, to all those who have been so far cut off from a truly globalized economy.
…
With that in mind, consider that the rest of the world is already moving away from the USD.
Iran to pay Chinese, Turkish builders in crude, minerals
Iran will pay builders from China and Turkey in crude or minerals rather than cash if they become involved in housing projects in the country, says a member of the country’s Supreme Housing Council.
Ahmad Donyamali said on Saturday that Iran is in talks with Chinese and Turkish construction companies to get them involved in a tiny segment of its massive project to build four million affordable houses in the country in the next four years.
However, Donyamali said that a main condition for working with those companies will be to avoid paying them in cash because of restrictions facing Iran in banking and crude export issues.
“In talks with foreign companies we are seriously discussing the oil barter mechanism and we have declared that the condition for partnership … is that we will not pay any cash,” the official was quoted as saying by semi-official ILNA news agency.
The comments are the latest to come from Iranian government officials about the need to use crude shipments to fund key projects or to pay for imports of basic goods into the country.
The oil barter mechanism has been highlighted as a major instrument to offset the impacts of American sanctions on Iran’s economy, especially since an administration came into office in August on promises that it will seek to neutralize the sanctions.
Donyamali said that Chinese or Turkish builders will have a small share of Iran’s affordable housing project, saying government’s policy will be to award around 90% of the contracts to Iranian companies despite their more expensive bids.
He said paying foreign builders in crude or minerals shipments was not yet final, saying main government departments have to reach a decision on the issue.
Conclusion
2022.
China and Russia will start performing monetary transactions using their SEO based systems. As more and more transactions use the Asian systems, the use of the USD dollar will decrease. That will radically change the transactional value of the US Dollar.
It will start to deflate towards it’s true and actual value.
Within a year or two, 2023 to 2024, the actual and real value of the US dollar will be exposed. The entire world will witness this. This will result in inflation domestically (perhaps hyper-inflation, depending on the financial adroitness of those in Washington DC), and financial consternation in all nations that are fundamentally tied to the US Dollar. There WILL be shock waves in any nation that is not being serious about taking care of their domestic needs.
It will be a “bumpy” time, but not a catastrophic one. Well, at least the measure of discomfort should be well controlled by skilled and talented leadership in the various nations so affected.
How the USA leadership will react to this is anyone’s guess.
Do you want more?
You can find more articles related to this in my latest index; A New Beginning. And in it are elements of the old, some elements regarding the transition, and some elements that look towards the future.
New Beginnings 2.
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