May. 5, 2022

Follow The Golden Ruble

Canada's state-run media published a story yesterday that reads,

“The surprising resiliency of Russia's economy (and why it won't last)”

In the article they describe a Russian Federation economy that is currently propped up by 'oil and gas exports' and some mysterious government actions, a bouyancy in contradiction to what 'western' powers had predicted two months ago.

Mr. Peter Armstrong writing for the CBC expresses his amazement at the Russian Federations ability to overcome western sanctions on almost everything Russian (except oil and gas of course) when he says that;

“Russia's economy has been isolated, its billionaires have been sanctioned and hundreds of foreign companies have either left the country or cut back on operations there.

And yet the Russian economy has emerged surprisingly resilient; its currency has bounced back and this week found a way to avoid defaulting on its foreign debt.”

As Mr. Armstrong correctly pointed out, in March of this year the Russian Federation made an interest payment to JPMorgan-Chase of $115 Million US, 'against all odds' according to Blaise Antin at the Los Angeles-based investment firm of TCW. Indeed, before the payment most western financial pundits were expecting a collapse of the Russian economy, a default on their foreign debt payments and a substantially weakened Russia.

Just days before the payment, Mr. Antin seemed almost giddy at the prospect that western alienation of Russia had dealt a fatal blow when he said,

“The sanctions, broadly speaking, have been an attempt to isolate Russia from the global economy and financial system in an unprecedented way – and they have succeeded,”

Also with a note of surprise at Russia's economic resiliency, Art Woo, Sr. Economist at the Bank of Montreal remarked that.

"All things considered, it's holding up better than initially expected,"

Woo continues in the CBC article to predict that the sanctions WILL work but the enemies of Russia need to give it a bit of time.

“The Russian economy is still projected to fall into a recession later this year, but so far it has managed to blunt the harshest economic consequences of the Western sanctions, brought in amid the country's invasion of Ukraine.”

I am surprised that they are surprised by the Rubles' performance, only because Mr. Armstrong, Mr. Antin, Mr. Woo and their ilk hold high-paying positions in the financial world and events of this magnitude are not supposed to slip past them. Not to worry though because if they lose credibility in the financial world they can always transition over to predicting climate at the IPCC.

Perhaps I should cut them some slack though because as the CBC article goes on to say, even Joe Biden was crowing at the success of the sanctions only a few weeks ago;

“The Russian ruble collapsed by 30 per cent in late February when Western sanctions were first introduced. A month later, U.S. President Joe Biden said the sanctions were working and that the Russian economy was on track to be cut in half.

"As a result of our unprecedented sanctions, the ruble was almost immediately reduced to rubble," said President Biden confidently at the end of February

Sadly for the west, the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray and so to compensate, the CBC suggests that the primary reason for the rising Ruble is Putin's dictatorial powers;

“The Central Bank of the Russian Federation severely restricted the ability of Russian citizens to sell rubles and buy foreign currencies. It has demanded that foreign countries pay for Russian energy products in rubles. And it's forcing Russian companies still exporting to sell 80 per cent of their foreign-currency revenues and buy rubles instead “

What the CBC, the WSJ and most other media/financial outlets will NOT tell you is that on March 04, in order to counter western financial machinations, the dictator Putin removed the 20% tax on gold transactions in his country. The evil Putin effectively placed the Russian Ruble back onto the 'gold standard' making his currency the most powerful and his people some of the richest in the world.

More incriminating yet is the silence of western media on the stock piling of gold by Russia and China for almost two decades. According to the Financial Times in an article from 2015 both Russia and China were on track to have the largest gold reserves in the world after China had made a rare statement on their gold reserves.

“China ended years of speculation about its official gold holdings by revealing an almost 60 percent jump in its reserves since 2009.

The country’s central bank said its gold reserves were 1,658 tonnes (53.31 million fine troy ounces) as of the end of June. In April 2009, reserves were 1,054 tonnes.

The purchases show how China is seeking to diversify its reserves away from the US dollar at a time when the price of gold has fallen to near its lowest price since 2010.”

Many people could see the writing on the wall by 2015 and the common impression among researchers was that, “Russia and China are now creating a new paradigm for the world economy and paving the way for a global de-dollarization.”

Financial analyst F. William Engdahl stated in 2015 that, “A Russian-Chinese alternative to the dollar in the form of a gold-backed ruble and gold-backed Renminbi or yuan, could start a snowball exit from the US dollar, and with it, a severe decline in America’s ability to use the reserve dollar role to finance her wars with other peoples’ money,”

Yet you did not hear about that in legacy media, did you? Two years of endless COVID gave media and government something other than an impending financial melt-down to focus on. Trader James Anderson in his article of January 24, 2019 warned that, “ Westerners might be surprised to learn that the Russian Ruble has the largest pile of Official gold to fiat currency cash in their financial system. “

That was four years ago yet still the western governments and media will NOT disclose to comatose North Americans the full and disastrous implications of this move, which will effectively destroy U.S. Dollar hegemony. Unless Russia is militarily defeated...

South-Front, an alternative media outlet normally focused on global conflict describes Russia's move as extremely significant in their April 04 article which echoes alt-media producer Hal Turner when he states that;

“Nobody around the world will favor a US dollar, backed by nothing, from a nation $30 TRILLION in debt, versus a gold-backed Ruble.”

That graph leading off this blog post tracks the Russian Federation currency relative to the U.S. Dollar over the past 5-years. At this writing the Ruble is trading at 62.5 Ruble per USD, down from the high of 132.34 Ruble per USD on March 07 of this year; a doubling of the Rubles' value in sixty day and it is expected to keep rising even in the face of increasing western pressure, but helped along by a declining Dollar.

This is a worst-case scenario for the United States (and any currency tied to the U.S. Dollar, including the Euro), and it means the west must fight to the death in order to maintain the Dollar strength, which is already losing trust and popularity to the Chinese Yuan.

Remember Muammar Qaddafi and his plans to introduce a 'gold Dinar' in an effort to free African nations from the U.S. Dollar? Despite what western media tell you about the man, his attempt to displace the dollar is what got him killed.

Saddam Hussein announced that he would be selling Iraqi oil in currencies other than the U.S. Dollar and two months later he was hung at the Hague.  

Today there is the financial and trade alliance known as BRICS which has been working hard to separate the economies of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa from the U.S. Dollar. If you have been paying attention then you know that this is a big reason why none of those nations are friends of the U.S.

Are we going to see Vladimir Putin hunted down and bayoneted to death in a ditch like Muammar? Will Chines President Xi be hung at the Hague? No, probably not given the size and complexity of those nations, which means other, more aggressive tactics must be used to secure the Dollar and they WILL be used.

Today the United States, and by extension Canada, Europe, England and other 'allied nations' have no choice but to fight to the last Ukrainian (in this instance) to prevent a collapse of the western system. From here on in there will be no peace and no let-up in hostilities towards Russia, or China for that matter, and our western economies will quickly shift to a war-time footing, not because we wish to fight, but because without building war machines we won't be working.

Thank You,

Ted