October 21, 2024 | The Russian propaganda machine is working full time to promote Moscow’s latest scheme for a new international payments system. Russia will present the proposal to fellow BRICS nations at the group’s summit this week in Kazan, Reuters reported, citing a document distributed by Moscow to journalists ahead of the event.
The BRICS nations – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – admitted four new members at the start of 2024: Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates. Although the BRICS nations desire an alternative to the dollar, none of the members states have yet to design a workable plan. Indeed, the Russian proposal to the BRICS seems like a desperate move and essentially amounts to a system for facilitating barter between the participating nations.
“The dollar’s stranglehold on global finance is fraying, and Russia’s proposal could be the nail in the coffin,” declares the Russian website www.rt.com. “And here’s the kicker: the U.S. and its allies, so adept at weaponizing the dollar, now find themselves cornered. Washington loves to peddle ‘freedom’, but when it comes to global finance, it’s all about coercion and ensuring the dollar’s imperial reign continues.”
The event’s theme of anti-colonialism is appropriate given the venue. The Mongols ruled Russia for 240 years during the 13th to 15th centuries. Kazan was captured from the Tartars by forces loyal to Ivan the Terrible in 1552. The region was gradually Russianized and Muslim religious activity suppressed for centuries until the fall of the Soviet Union.
Located 450 miles due east of Moscow, Kazan is a symbol of the ebb and flow of geopolitical power between East and West in Eurasia. Like many cities in Russia, Kazan became a major manufacturing center for arms during WWII. Yet today Russia remains hobbled by economic and financial weakness that stems from the country’s authoritarian government.
Despite the war in Ukraine and the loud pretensions of Vladmir Putin, Russia is declining and China is again in the ascendancy, although neither nation is really growing in economic terms. Russia first organized a meeting of the BRIC nations in 2006 but has yet to produce any tangible results. Under Putin's erratic leadership, Russia has destroyed its economic ties to Europe and has resumed its place as a vassal state to Beijing.
Today, China and the US are the move-movers of global economic affairs, although the status of the former is increasingly in doubt. Meanwhile, as we discuss in the upcoming Second Edition of "Inflated: Money, Debt & the American Dream," the use of the dollar is slowly declining. Many nations choose to hold the currencies of major trading partners other than the currencies of the US, China and EU. Rather than a replacement for the dollar, the global currency system seems to be displaying accelerating entropy.
“Central to that is the proposal for a new payments system based on a network of commercial banks linked to each other through the BRICS central banks,” Reuters reports. “The system would use blockchain technology to store and transfer digital tokens backed by national currencies. This, in turn, would then allow those currencies to be easily and securely exchanged, bypassing the need for dollar transactions.” Whenever you hear the magic words "blockchain" and "digital tokens," it's a good guess that whatever follows is nonsense.
China has become the leading player within the BRICS in recent years, but troubles in the Middle Kingdom caused by that nation’s incompetent communist government have hobbled economic growth. There are more empty, unused dwellings in China built at the command of paramount leader Xi Jinping than there are total homes in the US. And in keeping with the spirit of the event, no western credit cards may be used in Kazan.
No word yet on who is going to safekeep the national currency backing the unnamed digital tokens that will be used to settle transactions. The BRICS payments scheme lacks a functioning financial system as a foundation. The global payments system based upon the dollar is not merely a function of a large and liquid system for exchanging value in terms of trade, but an equally important system for financing trade and other types of economic activity.
Replacing the dollar is not merely a matter of creating a new means of exchange but of replacing a global market for finance and investment built over half a century following WWII. More to the point, there is no leverage in the new BRICS payments scheme. Will member nations extend credit to other nations that are in deficit?
Perhaps Russia, using its large gold reserves, will propose a new IMF-style lending arrangement to finance trade and current account deficits? Not likely. So far, none of the BRICS nations have shown a willingness to inflate their currencies sufficiently to serve as a viable alternative to the dollar as a global means of exchange.
The BRICS proposal to supplant the role of the dollar is inadequate. Less than a replacement for the dollar, the BRICS system seems to be a revival of the gold standard with a veneer of technology provided by blockchains, tokens other superficial techno trappings. Despite Putin’s pretensions about cooperation with the BRICS members, you can be sure that when the Russians sell you oil or arms, they will want to be paid in kind in tangible tradable assets such a commodities, gold or, yes, even dollars.
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