Rickards: Afraid of USD devaluation

The collapse of the monetary system awaits the world in the near future, says financial expert James Rickards. Russia and China’s desire to rid the US dollar of its global reserve currency status is an early sign of the “increasingly inevitable” crisis. As one of the key events in support of his forecast, Rickards points to the words uttered by Russian President Vladimir Putin at the 18th International Economic Forum in St. Petersburg that took place earlier this month. “Putin said he envisions a Eurasian economic zone involving Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and Russia. 

The Russian ruble is nowhere near ready to be a global reserve currency, but it could be a regional reserve currency,” he said, as quoted by ETF Daily News. Rickards’ book about the demise of the dollar was released in April under quite an apocalyptic name – ‘The Death of Money.’ However, the author is surprised that the events are unfolding much faster than he predicted. “If anything, the tempo of events is faster than expected. 

Therefore, some of these catastrophic outcomes may come sooner than I wrote about.” Last Wednesday, China and Russia signed a historic US$400 billion gas deal which will provide the world’s fastest growing economy with the natural gas it needs to keep pace for the next 30 years. Experts say this could be the catalyst that dethrones the greenback as the world’s reserve currency. 

The best-selling author writes that the “linchpin” of the collapse is the approaching failure of the dollar since it is at the foundation of the system. Powerful countries such as Russia, China, Iran, and India do not rely on the US in their national security and would benefit from the US economy being weaker, thus desiring to break free from the dollar standard. He elaborates that the dual collapse “looks increasingly inevitable.” “The mistakes have already been made. 

The instability is already in the system. We’re just waiting for that catalyst that I call the snowflake that starts the avalanche,” he said, as quoted by ETF. There are three big international factors that are pressuring the dollar right now – Russia, China, and Saudi Arabia. “Since the 1970s, Saudi Arabia [has been] the leader in what’s called the petrodollar. It basically means that Saudi Arabia and, by extension, OPEC, price oil in dollars, so the world market is in dollars. “Russia is a major natural resource exporter; they price their exports in dollars as well. 

But Russia now is engaged in a financial war with the US around the issues in Crimea and Ukraine.” “China has three trillion dollars, but they are buying gold as fast as they can. China worries that the US is going to devalue the dollar through inflation so they want to have a hedge if the dollar goes down, so the gold will go up,” Rickards told RT.

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