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Collapse of the Petro-Dollar

Believe nothing until it has been officially denied...

RON PAUL is calling for the end of the Petro-Dollar system, writes Nick Giambruno at Doug Casey's International Man.

This system is one of the main reasons the US Dollar is the world's premier reserve currency.

Essentially, the former US Congressman is saying that understanding the Petro-Dollar system and the forces affecting it is the best way to predict when the US Dollar will collapse.

Paul and I discussed this extensively at one of the Casey Research Summits. He told me he stands by his assessment.

This is critically important. When the Dollar loses its coveted status as the world's reserve currency, the window of opportunity for Americans to protect their wealth from the US government will definitively shut.

At that point, the US government will implement the same destructive measures other desperate governments have used throughout history: overt capital controls, wealth confiscation, people controls, price and wage controls, pension nationalizations, etc.

The Dollar's demise will wipe out the wealth of a lot of people. But it will also trigger political and social consequences likely to be far more damaging than the financial fallout.

The two key takeaways are:

  • The US Dollar's status as the premier reserve currency is tied to the Petro-Dollar system;
  • The sustainability of the Petro-Dollar system relies on volatile geopolitics in the Middle East (where I lived and worked for several years).

The Bretton Woods international monetary system, which the Allied powers created in 1944, turned the Dollar into the world's premier reserve currency.

After WWII, the US had by far the largest gold reserves in the world (around 706 million ounces). These large reserves – in addition to winning the war – allowed the US to reconstruct the global monetary system around the Dollar.

The Bretton Woods system tied virtually every country's currency to the US Dollar through a fixed exchange rate. It also tied the US Dollar to gold at a fixed exchange rate.

Countries around the world stored Dollars for international trade or to exchange with the US government at the official rate for gold ($35 an ounce at the time).

By the late 1960s, excessive spending on welfare and warfare, combined with the Federal Reserve monetizing the deficits, drastically increased the number of Dollars in circulation relative to the gold backing them.

Naturally, this made other countries exchange more Dollars for gold at an increasing rate. This drained the US gold supply. It dropped from 706 million ounces at the end of WWII to around 286 million ounces in 1971 (a figure supposedly held constant to this day).

To stop the drain, President Nixon ended the Dollar's convertibility for gold in 1971. This ended the Bretton Woods system.

In other words, the US government defaulted on its promise to back the Dollar with gold. This eliminated the main motivation for other countries to hold large US Dollar reserves and use the US Dollar for international trade.

With the Dollar no longer convertible into gold, demand for Dollars by foreign nations was sure to fall, and with it, the Dollar's purchasing power.

Opec, a group of oil-producing countries, passed numerous resolutions after the end of Bretton Woods, stating its need to maintain the real value of its earnings. It even discussed accepting gold for oil. Ultimately, Opec significantly increased the nominal Dollar price of oil.

For the Dollar to maintain its status as the world's reserve currency, the US would have to concoct a new arrangement that gave foreign countries a compelling reason to hold and use Dollars.

From 1972 to 1974, the US government made a series of agreements with Saudi Arabia. These agreements created the Petro-Dollar system.

The US government chose Saudi Arabia because of its vast petroleum reserves, its dominant position in Opec, and the (correct) perception that the Saudi royal family was corruptible.

In essence, the Petro-Dollar system was an agreement that the US would guarantee the survival of the House of Saud. In exchange, Saudi Arabia would:

  1. Use its dominant position in Opec to ensure that all oil transactions would happen in US Dollars;
  2. Invest a large amount of its Dollars from oil revenue in US Treasury securities and use the interest payments from those securities to pay US companies to modernize the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia;
  3. Guarantee the price of oil within limits acceptable to the US and prevent another oil embargo by other Opec members;

Oil is the world's most traded and most strategic commodity. Needing to use Dollars for oil transactions is a very compelling reason for foreign countries to keep large US Dollar reserves.

For example, if Italy wants to buy oil from Kuwait, it has to purchase US Dollars on the foreign exchange market to pay for the oil first. This creates an artificial market for US Dollars that would not otherwise exist.

The demand is artificial because the US Dollar is just a middleman in a transaction that has nothing to do with a US product or service. Ultimately, it translates into increased purchasing power and a deeper, more liquid market for the US Dollar and US Treasuries.

Additionally, the US has the unique privilege of not having to use foreign currency to buy imports, including oil. Instead, it gets to use its own currency, which it can print.

It's hard to overstate how much the Petro-Dollar system benefits the US Dollar. It's allowed the US government and many Americans to live beyond their means for decades.

The geopolitical sands of the Middle East are rapidly shifting.

Saudi Arabia's strategic regional position is weakening. Iran, which is notably not part of the Petro-Dollar system, is on the rise. US military interventions are failing. And the emerging BRICS countries are creating potential alternatives to US-dominated economic/security arrangements. This all affects the sustainability of the Petro-Dollar system.

The Saudis are furious because they don't think the US is holding up its end of the Petro-Dollar deal by more aggressively attacking their regional rivals.

This suggests that they might not uphold their part of the deal much longer, namely selling their oil exclusively in US Dollars.

The Saudis have even suggested a "major shift" is under way in their relationship with the US To date, though, they haven't matched their words with action, so it may just be a temper tantrum or a bluff.

The Saudis need an outside protector. So far, they haven't found any suitable replacements for the US In any case, they're using truly unprecedented language.

This situation may reach a turning point when US officials start expounding on the need to transform the monarchy in Saudi Arabia into a "democracy." But don't count on that happening as long as Saudi oil sells exclusively for US Dollars.

Regardless, the chances that the Kingdom might implode on its own are growing.

For the first time in decades, observers are calling into question the viability of the Saudi currency, the Riyal. The Saudi central bank currently pegs the Riyal at a rate of 3.75 Riyals per US Dollar.

The Saudi government spends a ton of money on welfare to keep its citizens sedated. Lower oil prices plus the cost of their mischief in the region are cutting deep into government revenue. So there's less money to spend on welfare.

There's a serious crunch in the Saudi budget. They've only been able to stay afloat by draining their foreign exchange reserves. That threatens their currency peg.

Recently, Saudi officials have begun telling the media that the currency peg is fine and there's nothing to worry about. That's another clue that there's trouble. Official government denial is almost always a sign of the opposite. It's like the old saying: "Believe nothing until it has been officially denied."

If there were a convenient way to short the Saudi Riyal, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Long before Nixon ended the Bretton Woods system in 1971, it was clear that a paradigm shift in the global monetary system was inevitable.

Today, another paradigm shift seems inevitable. As Ron Paul explained, there's one sure way to know when that shift is imminent:

We will know that day is approaching when oil-producing countries demand gold, or its equivalent, for their oil rather than Dollars or Euros.

It's very possible that, one day soon, Americans will wake up to a new reality, just as they did in 1971 when Nixon severed the Dollar's final link to gold.

The Petro-Dollar system has allowed the US government and many US citizens to live way beyond their means for decades. It also gives the US unchecked geopolitical leverage. The US can exclude virtually any country from the US Dollar-based financial system...and, by extension, from the vast majority of international trade.

The US takes this unique position for granted. But it will disappear once the Dollar loses its premier status.

This will likely be the tipping point...

Afterward, the US government will be desperate enough to implement capital controls, people controls, nationalization of retirement savings, and other forms of wealth confiscation.

I urge you to prepare for the economic and sociopolitical fallout while you still can. Expect bigger government, less freedom, shrinking prosperity...and possibly worse.

It's probably not going to happen tomorrow. But it's clear where the trend is headed.

Once the Petro-Dollar system kicks the bucket and the Dollar loses its status as the world's premier reserve currency, you will have few, if any, options to protect yourself.

This is why it's essential to act before that happens.

The sad truth is, most people have no idea how bad things could get, let alone how to prepare.

Yet I believe there are straightforward steps you can start taking today to protect your savings and yourself from the financial and sociopolitical effects of the collapse of the Petro-Dollar.

US Congressman Ron Paul of Texas enjoys a national reputation as the premier advocate for liberty in politics today. The leading spokesman in Washington for limited constitutional government, low taxes, free markets, and a return to sound monetary policies based on commodity-backed currency. He is known among both his colleagues in Congress and his constituents for his consistent voting record in the House of Representatives.

Dr. Paul never votes for legislation unless the proposed measure is expressly authorized by the Constitution. In the words of former Treasury Secretary William Simon, Dr. Paul is the "one exception to the Gang of 535" on Capitol Hill.

See full archive of Ron Paul articles

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