No, the Iran Bourse is not a casus belli (and another POV)

[katty]

No, the Iran Oil Bourse is not a casus belli…

excerpt: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20EN20060310&articleId=2076

The F-16 dollar backing

Since 1979 the US power establishment from Wall Street to Washington has maintained the status of the dollar as unchallenged global reserve currency. The role, however, is not a purely economic one. Reserve currency status is an adjunct of global power, of the US determination to dominate other nations and the global economic process. The US didn’t get reserve currency status by a democratic vote of world central banks, nor did the British Empire in the 19th Century. They fought wars for it.

For that reason, the status of the dollar as reserve currency depends on the status of the United States as the world’s unchallenged military superpower. In a sense, since August 1971 the dollar is no longer backed by gold. Instead, it is backed by F-16’s and MI Abrams battle tanks, operating in some 130 US bases around the world, defending liberty and the dollar.


A Euro challenge?

In order for the Euro to begin to challenge the reserve role of the US dollar a virtual revolution in policy would have to take place in Euroland. First the European Central Bank, the institutionalized, undemocratic institution created by the Maastricht Treaty in order to maintain the power of creditor banks in collecting their debts, would have to surrender power to elected legislators. It would then have to turn on the Euro printing presses and print Euros like there was no tomorrow. That is because the current size of the publicly-traded Euroland government bond market is still tiny in comparison with the huge US Treasury market.

As Michael Hudson explains in his brilliant and too-little studied work, ‘Super Imperialism,’ the peverse genius of the US global dollar hegemony was the realization, in the months after August 1971, that US power under a fiat dollar system was directly tied to the creation of dollar debt. The debt and US trade deficit was not the ‘problem,’ they realized. It was the ‘solution.’

[Turbineguy]

1. But at some point....

There will be an economic region with 800 million people using the Euro and about 300 million in the US. That would mean that the US would have to maintain a 2.67 times per capita GDP over Europe.

To me however this sounds like good news. Having the US economy collapse just so we can blame Bush is not an attractive proposition.

[katty]

2. yeah-agree