July 5, 2023 | BRICS to Replace the Dollar?

The goldbugs cling to everything they can to promote gold at the destruction of the dollar. They are pushing the idea that China, Russia, and other BRICS countries are developing a dollar alternative. The truth of the matter is that is more fiction. Even India’s foreign minister S. Jaishankar came out and said, “There is no idea of a BRICS currency.” Foreign minister S. Jaishankar made it clear that the five-member BRICS group – consisting of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa – isn’t currently planning to develop a greenback substitute for trade and investments.  “On what we will discuss at the BRICS meeting, we’ll have to see because there are many other issues – but there is no idea of a BRICS currency,” he said, as shown by footage from the Hindustan Times.

To even attempt to do something is absurd to create a BRICS currency like the euro would doom their economies. The #1 market remains the American consumer, and to price things in some alternative currency would undermine their own economies. People need to understand currency.

That was the entire purpose of creating the Euro. German Chancellor Kohl took Germany into the euro for the purpose of eliminating the foreign exchange risk to other European states so that Germany could then sell more products throughout Europe. The euro was to eliminate that foreign exchange rise to increase sales. The propaganda of the goldbugs who just hate the dollar is utter nonsense. They will not create some BRICS alternative to the dollar, surrendering their sovereignty to some central power as all European states did by creating Brussels. Kohl denied the Germans the right to vote on joining the euro, for he knew he would lose. That is why he refused to consolidate the debts fearing the German people would rise up in revolt against him.

The Roman Empire was the financial capital of the Western World. They traded with both China through the silk road and India for spices. Even Alexander the Great attempted to conquer India and failed. Here we have an Indian imitation of a Roman gold aureus of Tiberius. The importance of Indian imitations of Roman gold coins demonstrates that there was a PREMIUM to the coinage of Rome above the metal content, which is why the Indians imitated Roman coinage. Otherwise, they would have minted their own coins in Southern India.

Indian imitations of Roman gold coins continued into the reign of Gordian III (2388-244AD), minted in Southern India that traded spices with the Greeks and the Romans. In Northern India, there was the Kushan Empire which was the first to issue Indian gold coinage. However, the Kushan Empire was not that portion of India that was engaged in the spice trade.

All of this proves a very significant point. The coinage was not simply the metal content. If that were the case, we would not find an imitation of the coinage of the dominant financial capital at that time. Here is a gold imitation of Philip II (359-337BC), Alexander the Great’s father.

We see the same imitation of the silver Athenian Owls (Tetradrachm) minted in Arabia. The same exists in Egypt, which did not issue its own coinage. Imitations of the dominant coinage of financial capital existed throughout the centuries.

Even during the 12-13th centuries, European states also imitated the gold Florin of Florence. All of this clearly establishes that the goldbugs are simply wrong and do not understand the monetary history of the world. There is always a premium to the dominant economic empire. For right now, that is the US dollar.

For now, the dollar will retain that role up to about 2029.

Martin Armstrong July 5th, 2023

Posted In: Armstrong Economics

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