At the issuance of paper money it was indeed backed by gold and silver. Like all good ideas born of convenience (you didn’t have to lug around heavy coins) it gradually became corrupted.
First the banks that held the coinage decided it was unnecessary to have a 1:1 relationship with depositors (quietly redefined as investors) and fractional reserve banking was born.
In the 1970s France called out the USA for printing more money than it had gold to back it up. To prove it they sent a battleship to New York harbor to pick up all the gold represented in paper notes to them.
So the crooks put their thinking caps on and pulled off something miraculous. President Nixon took the U.S. completely off the gold standard (Driving a stake through Bretton Woods).
Then the U.S. made an agreement with the Saudis that in exchange for our military protection they in turn would only accept the United States Dollar as payment for all worldwide transactions for OPEC oil.
And so, thanks to America’s superior war machine a deal was struck and the so-called Petrodollar was born. This gave the U.S. government what the French would coin as “exhorbitant privilege”.
But that privilege came at a price that changed America’s middle class permanently. Because in order for countries around the world to be beholden to the USD (trade back and forth) we had to outsource our industry thus eliminating millions of gainful job opportunities.
It also meant meddling in Middle East politics with created tensions at a level that previously didn’t exist.
And, it allowed the U.S. to throw its weight around via sanctions, and engage in war without pesky peace negotiations beforehand.
The truth is, all that cheap shit Americans enjoy from Walmart and elsewhere to offset their declining wages has come at a gigantic (yet hidden) price.
But it’s all coming to a slow and painful end. How it shakes out will be determined by the same crooked families that steered us into this mess in the first place.
At the issuance of paper money it was indeed backed by gold and silver. Like all good ideas born of convenience (you didn’t have to lug around heavy coins) it gradually became corrupted.
First the banks that held the coinage decided it was unnecessary to have a 1:1 relationship with depositors (quietly redefined as investors) and fractional reserve banking was born.
In the 1970s France called out the USA for printing more money than it had gold to back it up. To prove it they sent a battleship to New York harbor to pick up all the gold represented in paper notes to them.
So the crooks put their thinking caps on and pulled off something miraculous. President Nixon took the U.S. completely off the gold standard (Driving a stake through Bretton Woods).
Then the U.S. made an agreement with the Saudis that in exchange for our military protection they in turn would only accept the United States Dollar as payment for all worldwide transactions for OPEC oil.
And so, thanks to America’s superior war machine a deal was struck and the so-called Petrodollar was born. This gave the U.S. government what the French would coin as “exhorbitant privilege”.
But that privilege came at a price that changed America’s middle class permanently. Because in order for countries around the world to be beholden to the USD (trade back and forth) we had to outsource our industry thus eliminating millions of gainful job opportunities.
It also meant meddling in Middle East politics with created tensions at a level that previously didn’t exist.
And, it allowed the U.S. to throw its weight around via sanctions, and engage in war without pesky peace negotiations beforehand.
The truth is, all that cheap shit Americans enjoy from Walmart and elsewhere to offset their declining wages has come at a gigantic (yet hidden) price.
But it’s all coming to a slow and painful end. How it shakes out will be determined by the same crooked families that steered us into this mess in the first place.