The fraying of the U.S. global currency reserve system (lynalden.com)
recommended by 2 users | 2020 | 348 points by paulsb | economics | original thread |
2 users recommended this thread. What they said:
patrickk Dec 14, 2020 | on: Apple TV Was Making a Show About Gawker. Then Tim Cook… | context

> Because Saudi are our allies? Why are they our allies? I genuinely don't know.

Assuming you're not trolling, it's because of the petrodollar and the deal Nixon cooked up with the Saudis in 1974[1] to prop up the dollar, after the US got off the gold standard (established between the Western allies as WWII was coming to an end). In the end no one in power in Washington cares about human rights as much as maintaining the balance of power.

There was an amazing discussion on the gold standard dollar to petrodollar history recently on HN[2].

Then you can start asking questions on the timing of the Libya intervention, given Gadaffi's plans to trade oil for gold instead of the US dollar, which would upset the balance of power.

The more you start digging, the more realpolitik strategies sound like something from a Metal Gear plot.

[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-05-30/the-untol...

[2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25407583

hnick Feb 11, 2021 | on: Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index | context

You may like this somewhat recent story, I enjoyed the link a lot for some background on the petrodollar idea.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25407583