The real economy - manufacturing and sales are off ... way off

On the Breton Woods 3 topic…

My guess is that foreign banks will try to come up with a neutral currency (country independent) for international trade - Initially having it’s value arbitrarily based on a basket of currencies. That would better shield the international community from any given country’s economic follies. This would be in the best interest of the international community who, at this point are unwillling partners with the US economy.

I believe currently the only thing holding the US dollar together is literally that the country owes so much money that there is a lot of vested interest in keeping it together - China won’t simply give up on it’s 1/2 trillion of US debt they own. The old saying holds true, "If you owe the bank a little money, the bank owns you. If you owe the bank a lot, you own the bank".

The problem here is that at some point certain countries WILL be willing to count their losses and cash in their dollars. Probably starting with the ones holding smaller amounts of dollars (US debt). Then we will see the dominoes coming down.

All the rumblings about a new Bretton Woods is, in my opinion a sign of the above coming true. Nobody is too happy about the possibility of the US simply printing money, instead of selling dollars, but (as Chris has demonstrated) that’s inevitable since there is only so much debt other countries can or want to buy. Also, I’m sure that the international community remembers that the US can change the rules at any moment.

I wonder if it will be French that will cash in and check out first - They did it during Vietnam, remember? Gimme my gold!

My vote is to call the new international currency the "Bob", so 1 bob will be equal to about 99 dollars pretty soon… :wink:

T