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   feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:22:31 JST feld
   As I predicted: we are going to bully countries into using the dollar now. It is officially in decline. They can't trust us to manage the USD anymore or trust that we won't attack them with sanctions or tariffs if they disagree with us on any policy.
   • lainy likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     lainy (lain@lain.com)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:23:49 JST lainy

     in reply to
     @feld will be interesting to see how long it works. tariffs hurt both sides, so it's not easy to do it with the whole world
     feld likes this.
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     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:24:20 JST feld

     in reply to

     • lainy
     @lain Either way it's good for Bitcoin 🤑🤑🤑
     lainy likes this.
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     lainy (lain@lain.com)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:24:53 JST lainy

     in reply to
     @feld i'm doing all kinds of trades and some are good and some are bad but the best is still just hodling btc
     feld likes this.
   • Embed this notice
     Random Damage 🌻 (randomdamage@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:31:48 JST Random Damage 🌻

     in reply to

     @feld nah, That Fucking Guy just doesn't know how to run a country.

     Proof that not all experience is created equal

   • Embed this notice
     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:31:48 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Random Damage 🌻
     @RandomDamage This was going to happen anyway. The Petrodollar died last summer when our agreement with the Saudis ended. Countries do not NEED US dollars to buy oil anymore, so they're not being forced to do imbalanced trade with us to acquire dollars
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     feld (feld@friedcheese.us)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:44:20 JST feld

     in reply to

     • Random Damage 🌻
     @RandomDamage yes but Saudi Arabia essentially controls OPEC. That's how this works.
     
     I can pull up my links for the specifics if you're interested, but this started in the late 60s / early 70s. We entered into an agreement with the Saudis that we would sell them weapons and protect them if they made everyone in OPEC only sell oil for US Dollars. And so they did.
     
     I think a lot of people don't realize how exactly that works. I'm just going to type this out for the peanut gallery as you might already know:
     
     If you're a small poor country like Bangladesh you want to make things better for your people. Well, modernization in industrial and transportation requires energy, energy requires fuel, modern fuel is mostly based on oil and gas.
     
     Where do you get your oil and gas?
     
     You likely have to purchase it from a member of OPEC.
     
     How do you buy it? Dollars.
     
     How do you get dollars? You don't just to to a bank and ask them to exchange your currency for dollars. It's not magical, someone has to have the dollars. How does the Myanmar government get dollars?
     
     Trade with the USA.
     
     And here the sweatshops enter the conversation.
     
     How do you get the USA to give you dollars for your goods? Sell Americans (e.g., Walmart) things like clothing that is cheaper than anyone else.
     
     How do you make it so cheaply?
     
     Child labor. And also just punch yourself in the face by selling at less than you could get elsewhere because you REALLY need the dollars.
     
     So after you exploit your labor force, you can get dollars. Then you can get oil. Then you can maybe improve your country and infrastructure.
     
     
     It was all a scam to extract as much wealth as possible from the rest of the world through imbalanced trade. That's what forcing everyone to use dollars for oil does.
     
     This era is now over. The agreement expired, they are starting to buy and sell oil in different currencies now. The world is rapidly changing. The only way we can keep the dollar as the World Reserve Currency is to sanction, tariff, and threaten military force.
     
     But it won't work for long. We can't take on everyone all at once. This will fail quicker than people expect as we have to punish ourselves in the process and we're in a very bad position to be doing that.
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     Random Damage 🌻 (randomdamage@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:44:21 JST Random Damage 🌻

     in reply to

     @feld encouraging alternate fuels within the US would be sufficient for that, Saudi Arabia is only the second largest oil producer in the world.

     https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_production

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     Random Damage 🌻 (randomdamage@infosec.exchange)'s status on Saturday, 01-Feb-2025 06:49:39 JST Random Damage 🌻

     in reply to

     @feld right, and OPEC Used to be able to swing oil prices really hard, with nasty results in the 1970's, which eventually led to various agreements with them *as well as* the interest in efficient cars in the US at the time.

     The *potential* is still there, but OPEC hasn't been too disciplined lately

     The market's going to do what the market's going to do, and a lot of the "Green New Deal" was aimed at making it a soft landing for ordinary Americans

     And the Republicans as a party just hate anything that might make life easier for you

     feld likes this.