The dollar is a fiat currency. It is created out of thin air through debt. A person goes to the bank and wants to borrow 10,000 dollars and if the borrower meets the criteria of paying back the sum plus interest agreed on, the bank issues a cheque of 10,000 dollars or direct deposits the amount to his account. Money has been created out of nothing to enslave that person for 10,000 dollars which he must now pay back at a certain interest rate for a specific period of time. In other words, he sells his labour, his life force, to pay the debt. He is exploited, he is a slave. This is the essence of capitalism, and the fiat currency is an instrument of enslavement.

Initially, the dollar was a gold backed currency as were other world currencies. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, early in his presidency devalued gold from 20.67 dollars an ounce to 35 dollars an ounce. Also, he made it illegal for Americans to own gold, unless it was in a jewelry form of 18 karats or less. The Bretton-Woods Convention made the dollar the Reserve Currency of the World. The US would keep the gold and the rest of the world would keep the dollars. Other central banks could exchange dollars for gold at 35 dollars an ounce. Gold, however, would be stored in the US and some would be stored in London. This arrangement was propped up by fear that “the Communists” would take over if the gold was not stored in the US. Publicity  made Fort Knox, Kentucky, infamous as the storage place  for the world’s non-communist gold. General Charles de Gaulle, President of France, was not fooled. He realized it was the perfect scam. He had never trusted the Anglo-Americans. He knew how perfidious they were during the Second World War II. The Anglo-Americans hated him, and of course, he reciprocated. He withdrew France from N.A.T.O. and sent French warships to retrieve French gold from the US. Other European countries followed. A run on gold followed…

The gold drain from the US followed. President Nixon closed the Gold window. This closure was permanent, contrary to the President’s statement that  it was temporary. The US was running trade deficits and the Vietnam War was draining the country of its real wealth, gold. The dollar paper drainage was no big deal, because it was only paper. The Arab oil embargo saved the dollar and the US. The US told the oil producers to increase the price of oil but just have it denominated in dollars. The excess dollars of the world poured into US treasuries and helped finance government operation. The decade of 1970’s showcased growth throughout the world but with inflation. Gold was allowed to reach its equilibrium value of 850 dollars an ounce. Silver, taken out of circulation in 1965, went to 50 dollars an ounce in 1979-80. Interest rates were high because demand for money was high. Demand for real money, gold and silver, was high. But the dollar was losing value. In 1969, one could get four Swiss Francs for one dollar, but in 1979-80 period, the Swiss Franc was on parity with the dollar.

President Carter appointed Paul Volcker Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank. The Prime Rate went to almost twenty percent. The price of precious metals collapsed and value of the dollar rose. Money from all over the world poured into the US. By 1992, the USSR and communism had disappeared in Europe. The end of history was proclaimed. The plunder of the ex-USSR and Eastern Europe, along with the rest of the world began with increasing tempo. A unipolar world of ten years duration was achieved. In Nature, when one extreme is reached, opposite forces start building momentum, and new forces started brewing on the horizon…

Vladimir Putin was appointed Prime Minister of Russia in 2000, and the economic decay started in the first decade of the New Millennium in the West. It is now worsening and encompassing the entire world. The central player in all this has been the dollar. It has no intrinsic value like gold, land or water, but is the instrument of US power. The US wants to maintain that power come hell or high water, and in order to maintain it, debt in dollar terms has to grow. The IMF and World Bank, along with other private organizations, are working overtime to trap more and more countries into unsustainable debt and milk them for all they are worth. This is the MODUS OPERANDI of capitalism…

But opposing forces are rising, and the de-dollarization of the world has began. The World is trying to dis-infect itself from the dollar. Very interesting and dangerous times are approaching. But the US will not willingly give up its instrument of power. It is negotiating trade deals with Europe, South America, and South East Asia to insure the dollar to be the supreme currency. It is confronting China in the South China Sea, but at the same time, it is enticing  it to join the IMF arrangement of Special Drawing Right Currency. The US wants the China to row the dollar-SDR boat, and the US would steer it. Whether China falls for it or not remains to be seen. China, Russia, Brazil, Iran, and other countries that have backbone are trading amongst themselves in their own currencies. The river of history is flowing and it cannot be reversed.

How much is the dollar really worth? Nothing. It is merely an instrument of power, intimidation, and war, like aircraft carriers. And history will be unkind to both. Only time will tell.