That Is Everything You Need To Know.

And it is in the announcement of Russia's Central Bank: 

Russia’s sovereign wealth fund has enough reserves to cover budget deficit for years, even if oil prices stay between $25 and $30 per barrel, the Finance Ministry announced amid a dramatic oil market crash.Despite Monday being a public holiday in Russia, both the Ministry of Finance and the Central Bank were quick to react to the overnight drop in oil prices of nearly 30 percent. The former said that the Russian National Wealth Fund has $150 billion (more than 10 trillion rubles) worth of liquid assets from additional oil and gas revenues, which is enough to offset a possible shortfall from falling crude prices for 6-10 years.

So, if anyone thinks that this whole FUBAR with "markets" (quotation marks are deliberate) is about Saudi Arabia and Russia feuding, they better check the reality. It is way more than that. KSA in this situation is just one of the players and not the biggest ones at that. But most important are these conclusions which must be made and which, most likely, will not be made in the West but we will try:

1. This crisis shows what a house of cards this whole "global economy" is, because markets, as a place where REAL price on commodity is fixed, are a figment of imagination of all kinds of white board "analysts" who still believe in a false gospel of laissez-faire. Modern "markets" are speculation and political pressure machines which have zero in common with actual economic reality on the ground and as such cannot exist anymore in present form. In other words: system of trade imposed by the United States is pretty much done and we see it disintegrating in a front of our eyes;

2. It also shows what a Potemkin Village whole modern US economy is, when economic development is assessed in terms of the stock price and capitalization most of which are driven by stock buybacks and credit infusion. So much for Trump's "achievements" in economy. 

3. We are yet to establish the algorithm of Coronavirus panic being spread globally--it will take some time to figure out the REAL drivers behind this, most likely, grossly exaggerated danger--but it is already clear that the so called US economic sputtering was ongoing long time before any Coronavirus was ever discovered. 

In other words, the crisis is systemic and it cannot be fixed by monetary or any other present so called "market" means precisely because those markets as imagined by theorists do not exist. In general, we are at the precipice of a gigantic geopolitical shift which, indeed, will remove Petrodollar as a viable financial instrument through, first, completely defanging OPEC and then, or, rather, simultaneously deflating the bubble of the US speculative economy. This is my off the calf take on all that. Enjoy the spectacle. Expect more violence.

No Shit, Pardon My French.

It seems that self-evident things take time for a modern crop of Western economists to dawn. 

The author of 'Planet Ponzi' and blogs at PlanetPonzi.com talks to Max Keiser about the euphoria in the markets. He says that he is very bullish about commodities, which are the ‘real assets.’  “The commodities’ space is not up nearly as much in a bubble as everything else,” says Feierstein. According to the banker, who worked on Wall Street in the 1980s, commodities are “a real value” while “you can actually exchange them for something that somebody needs.” Feierstein says that in the next decade paper money, fiat currency is going to lose its luster. “US dollar hegemony will end in the next decade,” he says, as part of his “big prediction.” The analyst explains how right now fiat currency, particularly the US dollar, is overvalued.

No way! Actual things are "real assets". How could this be? I always thought that commercial and combat aircraft were growing on the trees, and that gas, oil, nuclear and other types of energy were appearing out of nothing due to quantum instability of the vacuum not as the result of human labor, creativity, education  and, often, sacrifice. Wait a minute, Wall Street is on-line with me... what do you say? Ahh, phew, now I can sleep calmly--it is all BS, real assets are papers produced on the Wall Street and TV, Radio and Internet entertainment. Facebook, too, with Twitter and other social networks being a real deal. Virtual economy, you know, like the insurance or real estate speculation and their "paper" derivatives--that is the real deal. Not mining, computing, processing, manufacturing technologies. Nah, indeed, cannot be right. Facebook stock, on the other hand... You get me being sardonic here, I hope.  

In related news, about US Dollar: everything what made US Dollar at some point of time a desired (and reserve) currency--America's immense manufacturing capacity and an illusion of global military power--are all gone. Long time ago. Since 2000s it was a mythology of US military power which served as a foundation of US Dollars' reserve currency status, meaning that anyone without nuclear weapons, who would decide to use anything but USD in its trade would get thrashed by US military might. Like Libya. Remove military power aura from USD and suddenly things begin to look rather shaky. As I continue to say ad nauseam (I know, I sound as a parrot)--Eurasia, which is a main, by a gigantic margin, global production and consumer market, increasingly understands that she will be protected. Militarily. It is not one day process, of course, but it is fully in motion and once Eurasia is protected, the need for US Dollar will evaporate, in fact, it is already evaporating. Iran's strikes on US bases in Iraq is yet another tick in the last minutes of US Dollar's existence as a reserve currency. Indeed, what is a currency if it is not defended or, as is the case of Pax Americana, cannot be forcefully imposed? Not much really. Facebook's "capitalization" may be in hundreds of billions of US Dollars, but it takes merely a couple salvos of cruise missiles to make it zero. 

Gazprom's capitalization maybe down (due to mostly PR manipulations), but its real WORTH is orders of magnitude more than that of the few buildings with computers and routers of Facebook. People WILL survive without Facebook, in fact another iteration of a platform for exhibitionism and reports on bowel movements and Botox injections will emerge immediately, but without gas and heating, production will stop and people will begin to die from cold. Obviously, Gazprom, as is Rosatom, among many, are defended by actual military power, which CAN and WILL defend them in particular, and Russia in general. I can go on forever with those analogies, but, I guess, you got my drift. Five years ago, yes, I repeat it again, and, no, not for self-praise, I stated that American criminal coup in Ukraine was the start of the count-down to US demise. I based my, as it turned out correct, conclusion only on things which  "are the real assets", ranging from real economy and manufacturing capacity, real resources and real military power, not some ethereal BS of electronic transactions in imagination and air. So, I have a bit of disagreement with Mr. Feierstein--we are down to few years (less than decade) before the whole thing becomes irrelevant and, as much as I hate all those silly predictions, the amount of time left for US Dollar as premier global currency depends not even on successful completion of China's massive BRI project, with China's economy already dwarfing that of the US. No, this will depend on a progress of National Projects of Russia of which we will see first results by 2024. Why? Because of Russian culture and its ability to generate civilization models from which anyone can draw most attractive features. But here we are entering the issue of metaphysics, granted supported by Russia's massive "commodities", increasing manufacturing capacity and state-of-the-art military machine. 

For Monroe Doctrine Junkies.

Many in the US still cannot come to grips with a simple historic fact that Monroe Doctrine was not just about Western Hemisphere being US sphere of vital interests. Here is a short reminder: 

Monroe Doctrine, (December 2, 1823), cornerstone of U.S. foreign policy enunciated by Pres. James Monroe in his annual message to Congress. Declaring that the Old World and New World had different systems and must remain distinct spheres, Monroe made four basic points: (1) the United States would not interfere in the internal affairs of or the wars between European powers; (2) the United States recognized and would not interfere with existing colonies and dependencies in the Western Hemisphere; (3) the Western Hemisphere was closed to future colonization; and (4) any attempt by a European power to oppress or control any nation in the Western Hemisphere would be viewed as a hostile act against the United States. 

As you can see, the whole doctrine was predicated on a quid-pro-quo principle of not screwing with Europe and her possessions. Of course this whole thing was not worth the paper it was printed on once the United States solidified and started to grow in the postbellum years and suddenly recognized herself a colonial power with  pompous rhetoric about democracy and liberty serving as a fig leaf for full blown imperial conquests. Donald J. Trump is not known to be well endowed with historic knowledge so, naturally he, and many of his warmongering "advisers" concluded that:

US President Donald Trump has warned that Russia must get out of Venezuela. Two planeloads of Russian troops are currently in the Latin American country under the terms of a 2001 cooperation treaty. Speaking at the White House, Trump also warned that “all options are open” when it comes to getting Russia out of Venezuela.Around 100 Russian troops touched down in Caracas on Saturday, a show of support for President Nicolas Maduro’s government. The move caused consternation in Washington, however, with Vice President Mike Pence calling the deployment an “unnecessary provocation.”Pence also called on Russia to withdraw its support of Maduro and “stand with Juan Guaido,” the Washington-sponsored opposition leader who declared himself interim president in January.

So, when Donald J. Trump, and the whole choir of America-based Monroists, tries to convince Russia to "get out" of Venezuela they should really read attentively what Monroe Doctrine is actually about, you know pp. 1 and 2. Last time I checked the United States has more than 800 military bases around the world and, surprise, surprise, is involved in fomenting troubles, humanitarian catastrophes, support of terrorism and other activities which null and void any idea embedded in the Monroe Doctrine. After all, it was the United States which unleashed a bloody coup in Ukraine (together with her lapdogs from EU) and any referrals to Monroe Doctrine and its principles are just for PR. United States through its incessant aggression around the world since 1999 lost any moral and judicial grounds to demand anything from anybody. The ongoing coup in Venezuela, with all my huge reservations about "lefty" Latin American regimes, is a blatant violation of Venezuela's sovereignty and having a convicted crook and neocon such as Abrams (supported by draft-dodger and coward Bolton) as a handler of Venezuela pretty much answers all questions who is behind events in Venezuela. I omit now a criminal role of propaganda and disinformation US media play in all this affair--by now no one should be surprised with that.

So when chicken hawk Bolton proclaims with pathos that:

The United States will not tolerate hostile foreign military powers meddling with the Western Hemisphere’s shared goals of democracy, security, and the rule of law. The Venezuelan military must stand with the people of Venezuela. 

And Trump threatens with "all options" being opened, they should really consider some few cost-benefits factors in case (and it may happen) of US attacking Venezuela with Russian advisers in it. Never mind the fact that militarily a hundred or so military personnel, primarily IT people to help Venezuela fight off those "strange" electricity blackouts, are not really there to set up a base or anything of like.  Even Bloomberg gets it. Russia knows that the US now is in full blown attack on Nord Stream-2 and that new (what round? Number 100?) sanctions are coming, but Russia doesn't care. Why Russia doesn't care? Few factors:

1. Militarily Russia can annihilate conventionally any combination of threats in Eurasia. This capability only grows with time and US knows this. Pentagon has to live (and it tries, actually) with the fact that it neither has forces nor force structure to win anything conventionally in Eurasia in general and especially in Russia's immediate vicinity. 

2. Economic, and here are two really stunning graphs. 

Russia's Gold Reserves:

China's Gold Reserves:

And I mean physical gold, not those funny papers which pass for gold on all those speculation platforms such as Wall Street and other so called "exchanges". 

What you see is the death of a US Dollar in progress. The US simply ran out of her military luck and ability to "color revolutionize" serious players. It also ran out of ability to bomb those--how can US bomb China or Russia, or India? Did anyone even calculate the consequences for the US? Once the United States stops being able to overthrow or bomb into submission nations which prefer to trade in own currencies and in gold, you already guessed what is going to happen with grossly overvalued US economy and US Dollar. Remove US military "power" from equation and then just dismantle present US-based global financial system one country at a time. As per Venezuela, will see where it all goes. In my mind the best way to do things would have been US and Russia secretly negotiating some kind of settlement but I doubt today, seriously doubt it, that there is much time left for that or that US has competent people on its very political top to negotiate anything at all. Russia and China seem also settling something really huge which both dramatic growth of Chinese gold reserves and Russia's incessant growth of the same support. 

Well, this, plus a dismantling of Russia's "liberal" economic block together with massive purges of inept and corrupt administrative elite--leftovers from Yeltsin's criminal years. Paradoxically, Russian-American trade continues to grow despite all sanctions and other monkey wrenches morons in Congress continue to throw at it. Well, of course, this trade is small relative to Russia's or US' trade, but still--in few billions. I think it is too late for the US but who knows, now she has to think how US can block China, if the US even have any resources for that. I doubt she has but US still has some aces to play but are required skills there? This I don't know but something tells me--not anymore. It could have been great, it could have been new prosperous century--too bad self-proclaimed hegemon turned out to be the main reason for everything going down the drain. Time of reckoning is upon us.