Why The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As The Global Reserve Currency

Why The Dollar Will Lose Its Status As The Global Reserve Currency

Notes From the Field  By James Hickman / Simon Black

By the early 400s, the Roman Empire was coming apart at the seams and in desperate need of strong, competent leadership. In theory, Honorius should have been the right man for the job.

Born into the royal household in Constantinople, Honorius had been groomed to rule, practically since birth, by the finest experts in the realm. So even as a young man, Honorius had already accumulated decades of experience.

Yet Rome’s foreign adversaries rightfully believed Honorius to be weak, out of touch, divisive, and completely inept.

He had entered into bonehead peace treaties that strengthened Rome’s enemies. He paid vast sums of money to some of their most powerful rivals and received practically nothing in return. He made virtually no attempt to secure Roman borders, leaving the empire open to be ravaged by barbarians.

Inflation was high. Taxes were high. Economic production declined. Roman military power declined. And all of Rome’s foreign adversaries were emboldened.

To a casual observer it would have almost seemed as if Honorius went out of his way to make the Empire weaker.

One of Rome’s biggest threats came in the year 408, when the barbarian king Alaric invaded Italy; imperial defenses were so non-existent at that point that ancient historians described Alaric’s march towards Rome as unopposed and leisurely, as if they were “at some festival” rather than an invasion.

Alaric and his army arrived to the city of Rome in the autumn of 408 AD and immediately positioned their forces to cut off any supplies. No food could enter the city, and before long, its residents began to starve.

Historians have passed down horrific stories of cannibalism– including women eating their own children in order to survive.

Rather than send troops and fight, however, Honorius agreed to pay a massive ransom to Alaric, including 5,000 pounds of gold, 30,000 pounds of silver, and literally tons of other real assets and commodities.

(The equivalent in today’s money, adjusted for population, would be billions of dollars… similar to what the US released to Iran in a prisoner swap last year.)

Naturally Honorius didn’t have such a vast sum in his treasury… so Romans were forced to strip down and melt their shrines and statues in order to pay Alaric’s ransom.

Ironically, one of the statues they melted was a monument to Virtus, the Roman god of bravery and strength… leading the ancient historian Zosimus to conclude that “all which remained of Roman valor and intrepidity was totally extinguished.”

Rome had spent two centuries in the early days of the empire– from the rise of Augustus in 27 BC to the death of Marcus Aurelius in 180 AD– as the clear, unrivaled superpower. Almost no one dared mess with Rome, and few who did ever lived to tell the tale.

Modern scholars typically view the official “fall” of the Western Roman Empire in the year 476. But it’s pretty clear that the collapse of Roman power and prestige took place decades before.

When Rome was ransomed in 408 (then sacked in 410), it was obvious to everyone at the time that the Emperor no longer had a grip on power.

And before long, most of the lands in the West that Rome had once dominated– Italy, Spain, France, Britain, North Africa, etc. were under control of various Barbarian tribes and kingdoms.

The Visigoths, Ostrogoths, Vandals, Franks, Angles, Saxons, Burgundians, Berbers, etc. all established independent kingdoms. And for a while, there was no dominant superpower in western Europe. It was a multi-polar world. And the transition was rather abrupt.

This is what I think is happening now– we’re experiencing a similar transition, and it seems equally abrupt.

The United States has been the world’s dominant superpower for decades. But like Rome in the later stage of its empire, the US is clearly in decline. This should not be a controversial statement.

Let’s not be dramatic; it’s important to stay focused on facts and reality. The US economy is still vast and potent, and the country is blessed with an abundance of natural resources– incredibly fertile farmland, some of the world’s largest freshwater resources, and incalculable reserves of energy and other key commodities.

In fact, it’s amazing the people in charge have managed to screw it up so badly. And yet they have.

The national debt is out of control, rising by trillions of dollars each year. Debt growth, in fact, substantially outpaces US economic growth.

Social Security is insolvent, and the program’s own trustees (including the US Treasury Secretary) admit that its major trust fund will run out of money in just nine years.

The people in charge never seem to miss an opportunity to dismantle capitalism (i.e. the economic system that created so much prosperity to begin with) brick by brick.

Then there are ubiquitous social crises: public prosecutors who refuse to enforce the law; the weaponization of the justice system; the southern border fiasco; declining birth rates; extraordinary social divisions that are most recently evidenced by the anti-Israel protests.

And most of all the US constantly shows off its incredibly dysfunctional government that can’t manage to agree on anything, from the budget to the debt ceiling. The President has obvious cognitive disabilities and makes the most bizarre decisions to enrich America’s enemies.

Are these problems fixable? Yes. Will they be fixed? Maybe. But as we used to say in the military, “hope is not a course of action”.

Plotting this current trajectory to its natural conclusion leads me to believe that the world will enter a new “barbarian kingdom” paradigm in which there is no dominant superpower.

Certainly, there are a number of rising rivals today. But no one is powerful enough to assume the leading role in the world.

China has a massive population and a huge economy. But it too has way too many problems… with the obvious challenge that no one trusts the Communist Party. So, most likely China will not be the dominant superpower.

India’s economy will eventually surpass China’s, and it has an even bigger population. But India isn’t even close to the ballpark of being the world’s superpower.

Then there’s Europe. Combined, it still has a massive economic and trade union. But it has also been in major decline… with multiple social crises like low birth rates and a migrant invasion.

Then there are the energy powers like Russia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Indonesia; they are far too small to dominate the world, but they have the power to menace and disrupt it.

The bottom line is that the US is no longer strong enough to lead the world and keep adversarial nations in check. And it’s clear that other countries are already adapting to this reality.

Earlier this month, for example, China successfully launched a rocket to the moon as part of a multi-decade mission to establish an International Lunar Research Station.

By 2045, China hopes to construct a large, city-like base along with several international partners including Russia, Pakistan, Thailand, South Africa, Venezuela, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Egypt. Turkey and Nicaragua are also interested in joining.

This is pretty remarkable given how many nations are participating, even if just nominally. Yet the US isn’t part of the consortium.

This would have been unthinkable a few decades ago. But today the rest of the world realizes that they no longer need American funding, leadership, or expertise.

We can see similar examples everywhere, most notably in Israel and Ukraine. And I believe one of the next shoes to drop will be the US dollar.

After all, if the rest of the world doesn’t need the US for space exploration, and they can ignore the US when it comes down to World War 3, then why should they need the US dollar anymore?

The dollar was the clear and obvious choice as the global reserve currency back when America was the undisputed superpower. But today it’s a different world.

Foreign nations continuing to rely on the dollar ultimately means governments and central banks buying US government bonds. And why should they take such a risk when the national debt is already 120% of GDP?

In addition, Congress passed a new law a few weeks ago authorizing the Treasury Department to confiscate US dollar assets of any country it deems an “aggressor state.”

While people might think this is a morally righteous idea, the reality is that it will only turn off foreign investors. Why should China, Saudi Arabia, or anyone else buy US government bonds when they can be confiscated in a heartbeat?

All of this ultimately leads to a world in which the US dollar is no longer the dominant reserve currency. We’re already starting to see signs of that shift, and it could be in full swing by the end of the decade.

Schiff Sovereign   James Hickman/Simon Black   https://www.schiffsovereign.com/about/

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/why-the-dollar-will-lose-its-status-as-the-global-reserve-currency-150843/

Five Predictions For The Coming Decade Of Decline

Five Predictions For The Coming Decade Of Decline 

Notes From the Field By James Hickman (Simon Black)  June 11, 2024

There is a well-known modern proverb (often attributed to the novelist G. Michael Hopf) that goes, "Weak men create hard times, hard times create strong men, strong men create good times, good times create weak men."

The saying sums up the cyclical nature of the rise and fall of societies– and it’s a topic in which I have tremendous personal interest.

Having recently reached middle age, I can comfortably say with the benefit of hindsight that I was born and grew up during the American prime time– the time at which the wealthiest and most powerful country in the history of the world was at its peak.

The US is still an incredible country with so much prosperity and opportunity. But it would be completely naive and ignorant to claim that America is not in substantial decline.

Its standing in the world has waned, much of it just over the past few years. It’s hard for adversary nations to take you seriously when your President shakes hands with thin air and embassy employees in Kabul have to be evacuated by helicopter.

Financial challenges keep piling up– from the insolvency of Social Security to the $35 trillion national debt to the inflation problem that just won’t go away.

And social divisions, many of which have been bizarrely self-inflicted, seem to grow more tense by the day.

Fortunately, America’s decline began from a historically high peak. So even in its diminished state, again, it is still wealthy and powerful.

But the real concern isn’t where the country is today. It’s the trend, i.e. where the country will end up in ten years’ time if it stays on current course.

I’ve spent the past fifteen years studying similar cases throughout history– the US is far from alone as the only nation that has ever peaked and declined.

And one of the best works on the subject I’ve ever read is The Collapse of Complex Societies, by anthropologist Joseph Tainter.

“Collapse” is a strong word and conjures images of anarchy and death. But Tainter’s definition is more precise; “collapse” doesn’t mean that a society or nation ceases to exist, but that it experiences a steep decline in political, social, and economic stability.

This is what (I believe it’s clear) the US is going through right now, and the trend is accelerating.

Tainter’s book examines the common factors of how different societies throughout history declined– from ancient Mesopotamia to Western Rome. And his analysis shows that one of the key culprits in collapse is the inability of a government to recognize problems… or to solve them.

Many ancient Roman emperors were legendary for failing to recognize the horrible problems brought on by their policies and incompetence– inflation, invasion, etc.

This pretty much describes the US federal government in a nutshell.

Politicians can barely talk about problems in a civil and rational manner. And quite often they refuse to even acknowledge them.

We’ve seen this over and over again with issues such as inflation, the southern border, crime, and social security.

For example, the Social Security trustees publish a report each year stating plainly that the program is going to run out of money by 2033. But no one in Washington wants to talk about it. Joe Biden has even pledged to veto ANY efforts to reform the program.

Biden’s top officials also repeat the bold-faced lie that “the border is secure”, while actively encouraging illegal immigration. The federal government even sued Texas to stop the state from securing the border on its own.

The people in charge demonize and defund police, decriminalize theft, and elect progressive prosecutors who let violent criminals go free.

It’s the same dysfunction with federal spending. These people can’t even acknowledge that a $35 trillion national debt is catastrophic. Most politicians happily ignore it, and others come up with more outrageous spending to further the debt spiral.

They cannot acknowledge the problem, let alone discuss it rationally. Merely passing a budget now routinely devolves into a crisis.

Our view of where this trend leads is clear:

1. Inflation is coming.

There is little hope of responsible spending. The government’s own projections forecast an extra $20 trillion in new debt over the coming decade, and frankly that’s optimistic.

History shows that explosions in national debt are financed by the Federal Reserve creating new money– which ultimately causes inflation.

When the Fed created $5 trillion of new money during the pandemic, we got 9% inflation. How much inflation will $20+ trillion cause?

And the worse inflation becomes, the more urgency the rest of the world will have to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency… which will result in even MORE inflation in the US.

It’s a vicious cycle in which inflation will create more inflation. We project this is 5-7 years away.

2. Social Security is not going to be there for you.

Social Security is not a political problem; it’s an arithmetic problem. And the math just doesn’t add up.

Every year the US Secretary of Treasury signs the report saying plainly that, by 2033, Social Security’s trust funds will run out of money. Benefits will have to be permanently cut by 25% and then become worse over time.

3. Higher taxes are virtually guaranteed.

Politicians love claiming that people should pay their “fair share” but can never quite define how much that means.

And they have already moved the goalposts on who exactly owes society more— the “billionaires” became the top 1%, then quickly shot up to the top 5%, then 10% and soon it will be the top 25%.

Higher taxes won’t just be federal. State and local taxes— from sales tax to property tax— are very likely to cost more, while your governments provide much less.

4. Continued social chaos.

Every time it feels like the lack of civility and unity across Western Civilization can’t get any worse, something new erupts.

The latest is university students screaming “from the river to the sea” and “Just Stop Oil” while defacing artwork and public monuments. Rising tides of socialism and racial animosity never seem to ebb, and idiotic wokeness just won’t go away.

These social divisions will likely continue to grow.

5. Maybe most importantly, major geopolitical disruptions.

As the financial and social decline of the US becomes increasingly obvious to the rest of the world, adversaries are becoming more emboldened.

Nations like China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran are likely to grow more assertive, and there will be significant calls to replace the dollar as the global reserve currency.

Soft war incidents like spy balloons, manufactured pandemics, cyberattacks, etc. will persist— and if we’re very lucky, there won’t be a shooting war. I give it 50/50.

It’s exasperating. Anybody over the age of about 35 remembers a time when it wasn’t like this.

Yet now chaos is the norm. I’m not saying this to be dramatic– it’s important to be intellectually honest.

Part of being intellectually honest means acknowledging that, again, the US is still a great country with an incredibly powerful economy, boasting some of the most valuable businesses in the world.

And Americans still enjoy an extremely high standard of living— albeit one that has been disrupted in recent years by the combination of inflation, crime, and social chaos.

The most exasperating part is that these problems are fixable.

The US government could spend responsibly, encourage capitalism and innovation to grow the economy, and its debt problems would melt away. The dollar would remain valuable. US leadership might even earn back global trust.

But with the current people in charge, I wouldn’t hold my breath. And I also wouldn’t put all my hopes and dreams on the voters smartening up anytime soon.

Yet there are still plenty of solutions that independent-minded individuals can execute without relying on the government.

For example:

Problem: Future inflation will pose a major problem to one’s savings.

Solution: Invest in assets which do well during, or even benefit from, inflation— real assets such as energy, mining, and productive technology. Right now many of these are selling for record low prices, yet poised for substantial growth.

Problem: An overrun border and rising crime rates threaten cities and living standards.

Solution: Obtain a second residency in a foreign country where you really enjoy spending time, or even obtain a second passport. This way you and your family will always have a place to go if the need ever arises.

Problem: Social Security’s trust funds will run out of money within a decade.

Solution: Maximize contributions to retirement accounts— including a special type of 401k which could allow you to double contributions and direct where funds are invested. This lowers your taxable income, puts more money away for retirement, and allows the investments to grow tax-free.

There are solutions for people who, unlike the government, are willing to recognize the problems and actually do something about it.

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/five-predictions-for-the-coming-decade-of-decline-151037/

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To your freedom,  James Hickman  Co-Founder, Schiff Sovereign LLC