The Dollar Standard Slipping Out of Control? by Alastair Crooke
(2020-08-03 at 13:44:14 )

The Dollar Standard Slipping Out of Control? by Alastair Crooke

As commentators focus on the hospitalisations of two Gulf monarchs, and permutate likely succession issues, they may miss the wood for the succession trees: Of course, the death of either the Emir of Kuwait (91 years old) or King Salman of Saudi Arabia (84 years old) is a serious political matter. King Salmans particularly has the potential to upturn the region (or not). Yet Gulf stability today rests less on who succeeds, but rather on tectonic shifts in geo-finance and politics that are just becoming visible. Time to move on from stale ruminations about who is "up and coming", and who is "down and out" in these dysfunctional families.

The stark fact is that Gulf stability rests on selling enough energy to buy-off internal discontents, and to pay for supersized surveillance and security set-ups.

For the moment, times are hard, but the States financial "cushions" are just about holding-up (albeit only for the big three: Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and Qatar). For others the situation is dire. The question is, will this present status quo persist? This is where the warnings of shifts in certain global tectonic plates becomes salient.

The Kuwaiti succession struggle is emblematic of the Gulf rift: One candidate for Emir, (the brother), stands with Saudi Arabia and its Wahhabi-led "war" on Sunni Islamists (the Muslim Brotherhood). Whereas the other, (the eldest son), is actively backed by the Muslim Brotherhood, Qatar and Turkey. Thus, Kuwait sits on firmly on the Gulf abyss - a region with significant, but disempowered Shi a minorities, and a Sunni camp divided and "at war" with itself over support for the Muslim Brotherhood; or what is (politely called) "autocratic secular stability".

Interesting though this is, is this really still so relevant?

The Gulf, perhaps more significantly, is held hostage to two huge financial bubbles. The real risk to these States may prove to come from these bubbles, which are the very devil to prick-down into any gentle, expelling of gas. They are sustained by mass psychology - which can pivot on a dime - and usually end catastrophically in a market "tantrum", or a "bust" - and with consequent risk of depression, should Central Banks ever try to lift the foot off the monetary accelerator.

The United States ubiquitous "asset bubble" is famous.

Central Bankers have been worrying about it for years. And the Fed is throwing money at it - with abandon - to keep it from popping. But as indicated earlier, such bubbles are highly vulnerable to psychology - and that may be turning, as the celebrated V-shaped, expected economic recovery recedes into the virus-induced distance. But for now, investors believe that the Fed dare not let it implode - that the Fed has absolutely no option but go on throwing more and more money at it (at least until November elections .. & then what?).

Less visible is that other vast "asset bubble": The Chinese domestic property market. With its closed capital account, China has a huge sum (some $40 trillion) sloshing around in collective bank accounts. That money can not go abroad (at least legally), so it rotates around between three asset markets: apartments, stocks, and commodities somewhat whimsically. But investing in apartments is absolutely king! 96% of urban Chinese own more than one: 75% of private wealth is represented by investments in condos - albeit with 21% standing empty in urban China, for lack of a tenant.

Long story, short, the Chinese massively chase property valuations. Indeed, as the WSJ has noted "the central problem in China is that buyers have figured out the government does not appear to be willing to let the market fall. If home prices did drop significantly, it would wipe out most citizens primary source of wealth, and potentially trigger unrest".

Even during the pandemic - or, perhaps because of it as the Chinese piled-in - prices rose 4.9% in June, year on year. The total value of Chinese homes and developers inventory hit $52 trillion in 2019, according to Goldman Sachs; i.e. twice the size of the United States residential market, and outstripping even the entire United States bond market.

If it sounds just like the United States of Americas QE-inflated asset markets, that is because it is. As things stand, both the Chinese residential and the United States equity bubbles are unstable.

Which might fracture fist? Who knows .. but bubbles are also vulnerable to pop on geo-political events (such as a United States naval landing on one of Chinas disputed South Sea islands, to which China is promising, absolutely, a military response).

No one has any idea how Chinese officials can manage the property bubble, without destabilizing the broader economy. And even should the market stay strong, it creates headaches for policy makers, who have had to hold off on more aggressive economic stimulus this year - which some analysts say is needed, partly because of fears it will inflate housing further.

Ah .. there it is: Out in plain view - the risk.

The condo-trade has hijacked the entire Chinese economy, tying officials hands. This, at the moment when Donald Trumps trade war has turned into a new ideological cold war targeting the Chinese Communist Party.

What if the Chinese economy, under further United States sanctions, slides further, or if Covid 19 resurges (as it is in Hong Kong)? Will then the housing market break, causing recession or depression? It is, after all, China and Asia that buy the bulk of Gulf energy: Demand shrinks, and price falls. The fate of the Gulf States economies - and stability - is tied to these mega-bubbles not popping.

Bubbles are one factor, but there are also signs of the tectonic plates drifting apart in a different way, but no less threatening. Bankers Goldman Sachs sits at the very heart of the western financial system - and incidentally staffs much of Team Trump, as well as the Federal Reserve.

And Goldman wrote something this week that one might not expect from such a system stalwart: Its commodity strategist Jeffrey Currie, wrote that "real concerns around the longevity of the United States dollar as a reserve currency have started to emerge".

What?

Goldman says the dollar might lose its reserve currency status.

Unthinkable?

Well that would be the standard view.

Dollar hegemony and sanctions have long been seen as Washington,D.C.s stranglehold on the world through which to preserve United States primacy. Americas "hidden war", as it were. Donald Trump clearly views the dollar as the bludgeon that can make America Great Again.

Furthermore, as Mr. Trump and Mr. Mnuchin - and now the United States Congress - have taken control of the Treasury arsenal, the roll-out of new sanctions bludgeoning has turned into a deluge.

But there has also been within certain United States circles, a contrarian view. Which is that the United States needs to "re-boot" its economic model with a Tech-led, "supply-side" miracle to end growth stagnation. Too much debt suffocates an economy, and populates it with zombie enterprises.

In 2014, Jared Bernstein, Barack Obamas former chief economist said that the United States Dollar must lose its reserve status, if such a re-boot were to be done. He explained why, in a New York Times op-ed:

"There are few truisms about the world economy, but for decades, one has been the role of the United States dollar as the worlds reserve currency. It is a core principle of American economic policy. After all, who would not want their currency to be the one that foreign banks and governments want to hold in reserve?

"But new research reveals that what was once a privilege is now a burden, undermining job growth, pumping up budget and trade deficits and inflating financial bubbles. To get the United States of American economy on track, the government needs to drop its commitment to maintaining the dollars reserve-currency status."

In essence, this is the Davos Great Reset line. Christine Lagarde, in the same year, called too for a "reset" (or re-boot) of monetary policy (in the face of "bubbles growing here and there) - and to deal with stagnant growth and unemployment. And this week, the United States Council on Foreign Relations issued a paper entitled: It is Time to Abandon Dollar Hegemony.

That, we repeat, is the globalist line. The CFR has been a progenitor of both the European and Davos projects. It is not Donald Trumps. He is fighting to keep the United States of America as the seat of western power, and not to accede that role to Ms Merkels European project - or to China.

So why would Goldman Sachs say such a thing?

Attend carefully to Goldmans framing: It is not the Davos line.

Instead, Currie writes that the soaring disconnect between spiking gold price and a weakening dollar "is being driven by a potential shift in the United States Fed towards an inflationary bias, against a backdrop of rising geopolitical tensions, elevated United States domestic political and social uncertainty, and a growing second wave of covid-19 related infections".

Translation: It is about United States explosive debt accumulation, on account of the Coronavirus lockdown. In a world where there is already over $100 trillion in dollar-denominated debt, on which the United States cannot default; nor will it ever be repaid. It can therefore only be inflated away. That is to say the debt can only be managed through debasing the currency. (Debt jubilees are viewed as beyond the pale.)

That is to say, Goldmans man says dollar debasement is firmly on the Fed agenda. And that means that "real concerns around the longevity of the United States dollar as a reserve currency, have started to emerge".

It is a nuanced message: It hints that the monetary experiment, which began in 1971, is ending. Currie is telling United States that the United States is no longer able to manage an economy with this much debt - simply by printing new currency, and with its hands tied on other options. The debt situation already is unprecedented - and the pandemic is accelerating the process.

In short, things are starting to spin out of control, which is not the same as advocating a re-boot. And the debasement of money is inevitable.

That is why Currie points to the disconnect between the gold price (which usually governments like to repress), and a weakening dollar. If it is out of the Feds control, it is ultimately (post-November) out of Donald Trumps hands, too.

Should confidence in the dollar begin to evaporate, all fiat currencies will sink in tandem - as G20 Central Banks are bound by the same policies as the United States. Chinas situation is complicated. It would in one way be harmed by dollar debasement, but in another way, a general debasement of fiat currency would offer China and Russia the crisis (i.e. the opportunity), to escape the dollars knee pressed onto their throats.

And for Gulf States?

The slump in oil prices this year already has prompted some investors to bet against Gulf nations currencies, putting longstanding currency pegs with the dollar under pressure. GCC states have kept their currencies glued to the dollar since the 1970s, but low oil demand, combined with dollar weakness would exacerbate the threat to Gulf "pegs", as their trade deficits blow out. Were a peg to break, it is not clear there would be any obvious floor to that currency, in present circumstances.

Against such a backdrop, the royal successions underway in Gulf States might perhaps be regarded a sideshow.

Reprinted here from the "Strategic Culture Foundation" provides a platform for exclusive analysis, research and policy comment on Eurasian and global affairs. We are covering political, economic, social and security issues worldwide. Since 2005 our journal has published thousands of analytical briefs and commentaries with the unique perspective of independent contributors. SCF works to broaden and diversify expert discussion by focusing on hidden aspects of international politics and unconventional thinking. Benefiting from the expanding power of the Internet, we work to spread reliable information, critical thought and progressive ideas.