4 ms·

Is there anything that China/Russia and friends can do to tip this whole thing over?

by mym1990 4y ago

IAmGraydon 4y ago
Sure - invade Taiwan.
- H8crilA 4y ago
  I would argue this could tip it the other way around, if peacetime allows for such loose monetary policy imagine what the wartime would allow for.
- mym1990 4y ago
  How does that impact the banking system? I mean I know it would in some ways, but whats are the actual dots being connected?
myth_drannon 4y ago
I bet a lot of Russian oligarch's/China's money is parked at Credit Suisse. They will be quiet as a mouse.
- mym1990 4y ago
  It's clear that Russia is getting more and more adversarial, the question is where is the line where money matters less than ensuing pure global chaos. New oligarchs and billionaires will be made in a new world.
krona 4y ago
Rapid dedollarization and announcing a new currency (e.g. BRICS currency?) Gold purchases suggest some countries are preparing for the post-dollar world.
- myth_drannon 4y ago
  That's being going on at least since 2008... Zerohedge's favorite topic.
jerf 4y ago
Many things. Many, many things. I have a pet theory that the primary thing that has been preventing the Ukraine conflict from expanding is precisely that all sides understand the economic gun pointed at all the participants, much moreso than the military situation. (I can't prove it and I won't even argue for it much; I'm calling it a "pet theory" after all. I don't even put a huge amount of stock in it myself.) The economic damage that could be done by each side is theoretically less than an all-out military assault, but in terms of cost/benefit, you get a somewhat similar result with a much smaller effort in the economic sphere right now. It's a rather bizarre game theory situation. China in particular can easily trigger a huge crisis from what I can see. Selling off their treasuries more aggressively would do damage. They could also simply stop trading entirely unilaterally. Or both. And that's not even my complete list of things they could do to tip over the West as a whole. However, it will hurt them as well. It becomes a super complicated analysis of the relative damage of the collapse, the probability that the current ruling classes can weather the damage, the assessment of the other side going nuclear, the true beliefs of the parties about relative military strength... I can tell you how the participants are publicly posturing and a certain amount of visible public jockeying on the issue (pay attention to the BRICS and their posturing and actions around non-dollar international currencies), but your guesses about the true internal beliefs of all the parties or the objectively real situation are as good as mine. Note this is not unilateral. I think China's economy is dangerously precarious too, and the West could probably tip it over... but again, that would hurt the West as well, and all the previous paragraph applies in both directions. (And note how I distinguish "posturing" vs. "actions" on the non-dollar currencies, because there are both things. And I also distinguish "internal beliefs" from "reality" because history shows that the two are often detached in decision maker's minds. One of the most dangerous situations for war historically is when at least one side's opinion is highly divergent from reality.)
- paganel 4y ago
  The thing is that both China (during Mao's years) and Russia (during the shock therapy of the 1990s) have had to endure severe economic hardship, and even so, they didn't break. They won't break if the West decides to up the ante even more and if it decides to set up a total naval blockade against China, let's say. On the other hand the most that the West had to endure when it comes to economic hardship since WW2 were a couple of really grim years in the late '40s, followed immediately after that by about three decades of sustained economic growth. Ideologically they're not set up for economic penury, neither their leaders, nor the Western populations themselves. As such, this insistence that the West has on "let's hurt them (Russia and China) economically!" is in a fact a manifestation of its own insecurities.
steve76 4y ago
[dead]

Is there anything that China/Russia and friends can do to tip this whole thing over?

IAmGraydon 4y ago

Sure - invade Taiwan.

H8crilA 4y ago
I would argue this could tip it the other way around, if peacetime allows for such loose monetary policy imagine what the wartime would allow for.
mym1990 4y ago
How does that impact the banking system? I mean I know it would in some ways, but whats are the actual dots being connected?

myth_drannon 4y ago

I bet a lot of Russian oligarch's/China's money is parked at Credit Suisse. They will be quiet as a mouse.

mym1990 4y ago
It's clear that Russia is getting more and more adversarial, the question is where is the line where money matters less than ensuing pure global chaos. New oligarchs and billionaires will be made in a new world.

krona 4y ago

Rapid dedollarization and announcing a new currency (e.g. BRICS currency?) Gold purchases suggest some countries are preparing for the post-dollar world.

myth_drannon 4y ago
That's being going on at least since 2008... Zerohedge's favorite topic.

jerf 4y ago

Many things. Many, many things. I have a pet theory that the primary thing that has been preventing the Ukraine conflict from expanding is precisely that all sides understand the economic gun pointed at all the participants, much moreso than the military situation. (I can't prove it and I won't even argue for it much; I'm calling it a "pet theory" after all. I don't even put a huge amount of stock in it myself.) The economic damage that could be done by each side is theoretically less than an all-out military assault, but in terms of cost/benefit, you get a somewhat similar result with a much smaller effort in the economic sphere right now. It's a rather bizarre game theory situation. China in particular can easily trigger a huge crisis from what I can see. Selling off their treasuries more aggressively would do damage. They could also simply stop trading entirely unilaterally. Or both. And that's not even my complete list of things they could do to tip over the West as a whole. However, it will hurt them as well. It becomes a super complicated analysis of the relative damage of the collapse, the probability that the current ruling classes can weather the damage, the assessment of the other side going nuclear, the true beliefs of the parties about relative military strength... I can tell you how the participants are publicly posturing and a certain amount of visible public jockeying on the issue (pay attention to the BRICS and their posturing and actions around non-dollar international currencies), but your guesses about the true internal beliefs of all the parties or the objectively real situation are as good as mine. Note this is not unilateral. I think China's economy is dangerously precarious too, and the West could probably tip it over... but again, that would hurt the West as well, and all the previous paragraph applies in both directions. (And note how I distinguish "posturing" vs. "actions" on the non-dollar currencies, because there are both things. And I also distinguish "internal beliefs" from "reality" because history shows that the two are often detached in decision maker's minds. One of the most dangerous situations for war historically is when at least one side's opinion is highly divergent from reality.)

paganel 4y ago
The thing is that both China (during Mao's years) and Russia (during the shock therapy of the 1990s) have had to endure severe economic hardship, and even so, they didn't break. They won't break if the West decides to up the ante even more and if it decides to set up a total naval blockade against China, let's say. On the other hand the most that the West had to endure when it comes to economic hardship since WW2 were a couple of really grim years in the late '40s, followed immediately after that by about three decades of sustained economic growth. Ideologically they're not set up for economic penury, neither their leaders, nor the Western populations themselves. As such, this insistence that the West has on "let's hurt them (Russia and China) economically!" is in a fact a manifestation of its own insecurities.

steve76 4y ago

[dead]