dramamine
Well-known member
There's a lot more to it than that. OPEC countries purchase US treasury bonds (our debt) with their profits. That's really nice for the US as we effectively export our debt, and most of the time the yields on them are good. But it makes these country's economies extremely vulnerable to changes on our economy. It also limits their ability to reinvest profits into their own country.dollars are the benchmark, which you don't understand. other currencies are converted (not really, just for quantifying the transaction) and enumerated as dollar equivalents. something tells me you won't understand that, either. you gotta have an accepted unit from which to work from. a yen is not equal to a dinar is not as valuable as a GBP is more valuable than a peso or a fuckload of rubles... and you're pissed because they use dollars as the base unit. whose currency would you prefer? i don't GAFF...
US inflation, especially, skims money right off the top of their profits. This gives the US de facto control of their wealth. Venezuela has a shitload of treasury bonds that have been frozen by the US.
The OPEC members that try to break out of this paradigm are dealt with quite severely. See Iraq, Libya, and Venezuela for examples of that. Saudi Arabia is making moves currently to change this for themselves, which may be interesting.
Mr. Kissinger was the instrumental individual who set up this system, with the weight of the US military/agency behind him. That info wouldn't have appeared in USA Today or whatever in those terms, but it is still our history.
I'm not pissed, nor an expert in this stuff, and I think you'll probably blow off whatever I write here anyway, so I'll leave it there.
Last edited: