The Final War is Near

China opened up the week with a bang that is sure to send the Forex markets in every unfavorable direction. On Sunday, Li Yong, the Vice Finance Minister said “We should attach great importance to reform of the international monetary system…a flawed international monetary system is the root cause of the crisis and a major defect in the current international economic governance structure.” Basically, Mr. Li was openly calling for the removal of the dollar as the primary reserve currency, a call that had been alluded to several times in the past but not directly said. As Dylan once put it, “oh, the times they are changing.”

This was bound to happen. China and Russia have been on a mission – until now a subliminal mission – to overthrow the dollar as the main reserve currency. While they will not admit it, the reason is clear, and I touched upon this last week. Fact: The US Dollar is the most widely held currency by foreign government banks. Fact: The US Dollar is used to set prices for most commodities including oil, gold, silver, wheat and even other currencies. Fact: The US of A has committed them to spending 12 Trillion Dollars even though there is only 820 Billion US Dollars in circulation as of 2007. This means that the debt role the US is planning on will take it close to 90% of the US GDP. And one final fact: a country who has much of its resources invested in one thing, is forced to continue supporting that investment or risk having that investment devalued beyond acceptable levels.

Did you get that? China and Russia and all the countries that hold tons of US money, in hard cash form or debt form, have been increasing their investments through the purchase of debt so as not to allow the Dollar to fall, because, if the dollar bottoms out, the world as a whole will lose Trillions of dollars. The situation will spiral into the worst global economic situation EVER seen. Heard about the Depression? Think ten times that and then square the number – this is the result of a worthless dollar. Remember how the world came out of the depression? They called World War I the “war to end all war’s” - they called World War II “The great war” – they will call this one “The final war.”

This is real, I am not an alarmist – but I am certainly alarmed and so should everyone be, because there is power to destroy out there that can wipe out cities with one blow – and there are thousands of them. All it takes is enough desperation and despair. History is there for us to learn from it and we have not. There is a solution and it is to remove the Dollar as the reserve, but do so in an organized and equitable manner – that requires compliance – can our leaders be man enough to provide it? Let us hope.