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The Dollar Shortage Has Arrived: Africa Runs Out Of Dollars
Two months ago, when looking at the latest basis spreads, we showed that a disturbing development, first flagged here in March, was getting worse: namely the "Global Dollar Shortage Intensifies To Worst Level Since 2012."
We had expected this shortage to manifest itself synthetically - and gradually - primarily in the form of pressure on asset prices as market participants who found themselves in a dollar-deficit position were forced to liquidate USD-denominated assets. This indeed happened over the year as many emerging markets, and sovereign wealth funds, not to mention China, proceeded to offload USD-denominated reserves.
However, in an unexpected turn of events, the disappearance of not just synthetic but very physical dollars has hit one region much harder and much faster than we expected. Africa.
According to the WSJ, some of Africa’s largest economies, including Nigeria, Angola, Ethiopia and Mozambique, are restricting access to the greenback to protect dwindling reserves.
The implications are dramatic as the lack of dollars for everyday business operations means businesses from Transcorp Hotels to international giants like General Electric Co. and Coca-Cola Co., are all struggling to get the dollars they need for imports or to send profits back home.
While the shortage was predicted here on many occasions, however it is quite different to see it in action. The shortage comes as the inflow of dollars from resource exports, from oil to cotton (but mostly oil) has plummeted with the prices of these commodities. The commodity rout also is putting pressure on local currencies, which some central banks are trying to support with their dwindling supply of dollars.
This dollar squeeze is frustrating investors, increasing costs and delaying projects. It may hamper future investment in countries reeling from the fall in commodity prices. “It’s been a rough ride for a lot of companies in Nigeria, if not all the companies,” said Mr. Ozigbo, chief executive of Transcorp Hotels.
Nowhere has the dollar shortage been more acute, however, than Nigeria which gets more than 90% of its foreign-currency reserves from oil exports. Oil’s decline sent the value of the naira, Nigeria’s currency, sharply lower at the start of the year. In March, the Central Bank of Nigeria fixed its exchange rate at around 199 naira to the dollar. By this month, its currency reserves were down 18% to $29.5 billion from the same month last year; the are declining fast.
As also reported previously, this past summer Nigeria's central bank introduced a list of 41 items, from meat to concrete, that it won’t release dollars for. But no matter what a buyer wants their dollars for, their request has to be vetted against this list, slowing down any attempt to buy the currency.
A trader exchanges dollars for Nigerian naira in Lagos, Nigeria.
Photo: Joe Penney/Reuters
While the capital controls may have slowed the collapse of the Nigerian currency, all the central bank has managed to do is shift the impact of dollar shortage away from its own reserve balance sheet and into the domestic economy, which has hit a brick wall now that there are hardly any dollars with which to run day-to-day affairs.
Other African former energy exporting titans have followed in Nigeria's footsteps: Angola now lists industries, including the oil and food sectors, that have priority for the country’s dollar reserves, In Mozambique, the government requires companies to convert half of any dollar revenues into the local currency, as it looks to shore up its reserves.
“It’s obviously not like it used to be, where you would go to the bank and get your dollars,” said Jay Ireland, the Africa chief executive officer for GE. “Now it’s a process that they require and it takes longer,” he said, talking about Nigeria and Angola.
Mr. Ireland said GE remains committed to long-term projects in Africa, but the dollar shortage means that it now takes local clients longer to buy GE products priced in dollars.
This is also known as the "Venezuela approach", where incremental FX capital control regimes were attempted only to discover that none of them actually work.
Meanwhile in Africa, the dollar shortage is so acute, even some of the world's safest and most respected companies with African operations are starting to fell the impact. Case in point Coca-Cola, which has been in Africa for almost a century and can obtain dollars from across its businesses. However, "the beverage giant is concerned that its suppliers will start to feel the pinch as they struggle to fund imports that they need. “If there are no changes in monetary policy it might become a bigger challenge and that is a space we are watching very closely,” said Adeola Adetunji, Coca-Cola’s managing director in Nigeria. “Business is not as usual.”
As for smaller, less reputable companies, the dollar shortage means business is effectively frozen:
Mr. Ozigbo’s Transcorp needs dollars to pay contractors and to import building materials to upgrade one hotel and build another, among other construction projects.
Last year, getting a “sizable amount” of dollars would have taken 48 hours to a week, Mr. Ozigbo said. Now, Transcorp is lucky if it can obtain the money within three weeks, he said.
Amid delays, the cost of upgrading the Hilton in Abuja has ballooned from an estimated 16 billion naira ($79 million) to about 26 billion naira since last year. Mr. Ozigbo now has serious doubts about whether his project will remain economically feasible.
To be sure, African central banks have a simple way out: stop defending their currencies, and let the market determine the fair value. The problem with this approach is that it promptly leads to an immedate devaluation of the currency, and without fail, hyperinflation and social unrest. The latter is not an option for many African countries where inflation is already running red-hot in the double digits.
Angola, which is Africa’s second-biggest oil producer after Nigeria, has also been using its dollars to prop up its currency, the kwanza. Its central bank says it plans to stay on that course.
“If we devalue, it will have a huge impact on inflation because most of our food is imported,” said Gualberto Lima Campos, deputy governor for the Central Bank of Angola. The country has a 14% annual rate of inflation.
Of course, defending one's currency is a losing game as not only Argentina most recently, but the Swiss National Bank most infamously, will admit.
"As African central banks place restrictions on access to their dollars, while burning through these reserves to support their currencies, they are also storing up longer-term troubles. “Few investors will want to put money into a country at an official exchange rate that is not set by the market and which is not seen as sustainable in the long run,“ said Charles Robertson, global chief economist at investment bank Renaissance Capital."
For now Africa has avoided the "hyperinflation monster", the result of an all too predictable scarcity of dollars, however the countdown is on and with every passing day that oil prices do not rebound, the inevitability of a full-on continental currency collapse, with hyperinflation and social unrest to follow, becomes increasingly more likely.
Worse, Africa is just the start: while the manifestations will differ, the mechanics of the dollar shortage, which we recently quantified in the trillions of dollars, are universal, and should the Fed's rate divergence path with the rest of the world continue pushing the USD ever higher, soon this USD-shortage will escape the confines of the world's poorest continent and make landfall somewhere where it will be far more difficult to ignore the adverse consequences of the global commodity collapse and the Fed's monetary policy.
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Fracked in the ass.
They ran out of money, before they could even get clean drinking water.
.
Thats normal.
.
Our Life - One giant cosmic lie
note to self #14. There is a difference between physical fiat and electronic fiat. physical fiat is significantly more valuable in any shtf scenario...including avoiding being Cypressed.
...and if you're like me...you just like making things hard on the US Treasury anyway by stacking One's and nickels since for every one you stack, they have to print or stamp out another one.
Note to self...This is the result of money printing in local currrency to fund government deficit spending. Keynes destroys africa again...
Bullshit.
You can NEVER run out of lies from liars!
I hear fire makes liars dissapear.
Take that shit to the bank.
RIPS
Since a few months already, ATM's in Russia no longer issue any US Dollars.
Previously there was always an option whether you wanted to get Rubles or Dollar, but that is no longer so.
I will probably be in Azerbaijan in the next few days where ATM's are similarly equipped to issue either Manat or US Dollars, and I'm curious to see if they also still have the possibility to issue Dollars after the Manat crashed: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-21/azerbaijan-currency-crashes-50-...
What always puzzles me is -- how do you reconcile articles like this with the endless moan that the dollar is about to lose its reserve status, we are all doomed, the petrodollar is over, we are all doomed etc. It seems the dollar still has a healthy reserve status with just about every African, never mind all their central banks.
Lost My Shorts What always puzzles me is -- how do you reconcile articles like this with the endless moan that the dollar is about to lose its reserve status, we are all doomed, the petrodollar is over, we are all doomed etc. It seems the dollar still has a healthy reserve status with just about every African, never mind all their central banks.
-----
Those people saying it was over, are just early. I still give the US dollar about a year.
Watch what happens militarily. That is the key - whether the US can still back up the US dollar with the military. Russia and China are trying to change that. It is just like past empires in history. They expanded and fought wars. At the end of their reign, their military could not back up the currency. Economies imploded and so did that empire.
@ Lost My Shorts - When physical dollars disappear, how long would you hold onto them at max value? Said differently, how long would you hold onto a million dollar shack in a housing bubble? If not you, then someone will start the selloff... When that tide turns, it's coming back as a tsunami.
At least a reciprocal relationship : This year the US will create $5T in fiat electrons to roll over the national debt, inflation will be very high. ShadowStats said 10% from the $1T / year QE. 50%?
If so, our government's life will be short.
And that will be converted into some violence crisis so divide and rule goes on working. Otherwise, Israeli-Neocons hang.
We know full well who is responsible for the kleptocracy. 9/11 FF showed us who has the whip-hand in America.
https://thinkpatriot.wordpress.com/2015/12/23/amnesty-program-for-israel...
They should just counterfeit the dollars, its funny money anyways.
As long as they have yuans they are fine. They can buy any commercial or consumer products they want with yuans.
~"In March, the Central Bank of Nigeria fixed its exchange rate at around 199 naira to the dollar. By this month, its currency reserves were down 18% to $29.5 billion from the same month last year; the are declining fast."~
Hmmmm, sounds like the naira has moved into "asswipe" territory. A guy with a suitcase full of Bejamins could corner the market in hookers and uhm..., spices.
Because Zimbabwe has changed to Yuan.
Lost My Shorts
What always puzzles me is -- how do you reconcile articles like this with the endless moan that the dollar is about to lose its reserve status, we are all doomed, the petrodollar is over, we are all doomed etc.
it is pretty comical, isn't it? Gold buggery at the best.
Puutie must have made the ruble a reserve currency. That means that USD is no longer necessary for Russian peoples.
Or maybe the money tree they picked those USD from has died. Those ZH followers who bought those baskets of rubles must love Puutie a great deal.
A trader exchanges dollars for Niggerian naira -- caption on the photo above made me laugh
Governments, sincere with their people make dollar disappear from their country before it turn out to be a confetti and save their population from dollar disaster.
Question - why do they import their food? Answer - because US international aid is strucutured to force third world countries to export resources and grow cash crops instead of food. They get their food by importing US grain. Which is great if you are part of the bureaucracy and part of the bribe chain, but bugger all use if you're a peasant.
As Weimar discovered so brutilly, if you have a perpetual negative trade balance and are forced to import food and building materials, sooner or later your fucked. Africas clear destination is more revolution as all the little Obamas start to starve. The bad thing about oil is you can't eat it.
Fate the Magnificent
"Push the Button, Max"
I guess these countries are too scared that the Freedom Bombs would reign down upon them like in Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc. if they ever decided to kick the fucking central banksters out and started using a sound monetary system, ay?
I wonder if China will be willing to defend these countries militarily at some point as they expand the yuan throughout Africa and eventually back it with a percentage of their huge gold stash?
Agnola's currency is the Kwanza????? So much for Happy Kwanza!
THis article puts whole new aspect on the email's many of us have received from a Nigerian Prince who needs our help to get his fortune out of the country!!!
'Our Life - One giant cosmic lie'
Agreed!
And unfortunately they can't even print out a wad like the US when they run out and will have to borrow some at interest!
No matter it will all change in the New Year......
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/12/the-fix-is-in-franc...
My understanding (which may be incorrect) is that a large number of poor Africans reject the ideas of clean drinking water and do stuff and don't do other stuff that is very unhygienic. Hard to teach a man to fish if he doesn't think fish is edible. This may be God's way of saying to Africans, "Your as as capable as any of my people and I'm going to require you to show it to the world."
Dear god please don't explain it. They might listen and we're already being overrun. Imagine if they didn't have appreciable infant mortality?
Same damn thing happened to me!
Somebody go check those c130s that flew them those dallas to iraq. Might be a pallet or two that got missed
Cash and carry only works if you have cash. I expected something like this, but not until Spring. Oh well, they can always use Buttcoin since it has magical superpowers.....
Joo World Order loading ... ... ... ... 35%
Does this mean Africa will resort to a black market?
well, they certainly have no white collar crime
Oh my lord
Oh my soul
Never saw a Nigerian
With a white turdole
They might resort to yuans...
Obama's war on oil has taken out $3 trillion in revenues from oil producers. That is a big chunk of the global GDP of $70 trillion or so.
The fall in oil is affecting other commodities too. Developing economies are screwed. And Africa will remain screwed until oil prices recover.
Africa will remain screwed forever.
Reminds me of what they say about Brazil: "It's the country of the future, and always will be"
As will Detriot.
Any country with corrupt politicians will remain screwed or will be screwed i.e.USA
Do like Zimbabwe, shift to the yuan.
No problem, Yuan is legal tender in zimbabwe.
And in many areas they do physical gold, just like india.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-clintons-nigeria-record-once-a...
Nigerian President Muhammadu Buhari's visit to Washington, D.C., Monday to discuss the fight against Boko Haram has prompted critics to again question why Hillary Clinton refused to label the West African insurgents as terrorists during her State Department tenure.
Buhari and President Obama discussed U.S. support of Nigerian counterterrorism efforts, which was made possible by Secretary of State John Kerry's decision to place Boko Haram on the terrorist watch list in late 2013, just months after Clinton left office.
The State Department under Clinton resisted congressional calls to designate Boko Haram as a terrorist organization.
Robert Jackson, acting assistant secretary of state for African affairs,testified before Congress in May of last year that the agency could have acted sooner on Boko Haram.
Clinton's ties to Gilbert Chagoury, a prominent Nigerian businessman and Clinton Foundation supporter, have prompted at least one member of Congress to question the motives behind her decision not to slap Boko Haram with a Foreign Terrorist Organization classification.
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., wrote a letter to Kerry in March asking the State Department to turn over emails in which Clinton discussed Boko Haram.
"[G]iven the drastic foothold Boko Haram was allowed to gain prior to being designated an FTO, the nexus between the Department's decision against designating Boko Haram as an FTO and connections to outside groups should be brought forward," Vitter wrote.
Vitter questioned whether the Clinton's relationship with Chagoury influenced her decision against labeling Boko Haram a terrorist group.
He noted Bill Clinton had participated in events with Chagoury while his wife was secretary of state, and that the Nigerian land developer had "previously agreed to a $66 million plea deal during international investigation into corruption charges against him."
More here:
http://www.judicialwatch.org/blog/2015/05/did-clinton-foundation-donor-g...
Even more here:
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/hillary-clintons-fifteen-biggest-scand...
The evidence against the Clintons is piled higher than that waste dump that collapsed in China. It is a testament to the utter corruption and arrogance of the Democrat party that they dare try to foist these criminal scum on the electorate . . . again. I guess getting away with putting the undocumented alien with the sealed records in there, twice, made them believe they could get away with anything. Of course they need an utterly corrupt tool.
It brings to mind a scene in the play "A Man for all Seasons," about Thomas Moore: he says to his manservant: "A man cannot serve two masters." His servant responds, holding up a pouch of coins: "I serve only one."
The fed is raising rates while every other central bank in the world is desperately cutting creating a global market call. If I was a cynical person I might think that the fed and it's owners are planning this global chaos....., if I were a cynical person.
They are too dumb to "plan" anything. However, they convinced themselves that being a "contrarian" is cool...
Now in the rush for the cashless society like Sweden, isn't it all just digital dollars were are talking about. You generate a "barter sheet" for dollars like 2 goats for 1 dolla, 4 hrs of bricklaying for 1 dolla, 12 tomatoes for 1 dolla. You march into the bank and say, "I got 4 ho's so gimme 100 dollas". Simple, see.
I'm the Nigerian oil clerk wh has 3 million dollars left in a project that I will gladly split with you if you will just show good faith by putting a mere $15,000. into this account number so that the Nigerian treasury will know this is a viable firm and the 1.5 million can be transferred from the Oil Ministry.
Free.....Floating....Currencies......
If currencies just floated then the obvious would happen....countries with no exports would not be able to get imports unless they gave up gold (that is the only asset central banks will deal with). Too bad gold is not priced higher. Africa would be able to get Coke, Pepsi and maybe even medicines.
The tribe is also screwing Africa over big time. Nigeria borrowed 1billion in fiat from New York banks back in the 1970s, now due to the magic of compound interest it owes them about 50 billion.
I wish those black lives matter dudes would wake up and smell the coffee, they are being fucked by the tribe but also being financed by the tribe to deflect attention onto bollocks like white privilidge, how about Jewish privilidge?
Guess: we have a short period of mild decline in the markets Q1/Q2 (maybe 15-20%) and Fed unleashes the Kracken once again.
Looks like monopoly money.
The fed acts like it's monopoly money.
“If we devalue, it will have a huge impact on inflation because most of our food is imported,”
Tropical country...maybe they should learn to grow some food instead of succumbing to the plundering.
When the NWO SHFT unfolds and reaches them the desired effect of killing the eaters will be self inflicted.
This is terrible! Can't the federal reserve print them some? When congress passed a law that the federal reserve had to disclose the amounts they had loaned to foreign banks, Bernanke took care of it in one sentence "we don't have to:" and that was the end of that issue.
Paying the price of being tied to the $.
They have to learn not te be dependant on the $ or risk economic instability.
Make contracts in local currency or develop a new currency backed by gold.
Gold is a currency by default anyway.
Wrong answer....gold is a wealth asset...it absolutely sucks as a medium of exchange. Everyone on the planet knows this and it is only gold bugs who so very want it to be so who still insist that carrying around a pocketful of Krugerands is a good idea.
As for 'gold backed currency' the Euro is already a gold backed currency. The ECB has 10,800 tons of the stuff on their books. It comprises over half of their assets. ALREADY DONE!!! Why can no one see this? here:
http://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/reports.do?node=100000129
gobs of the stufff....marked to market!!!! We already have a 'gold backed currency'. People just can't imagine a new way of using gold to 'back' a currency. Rueff, Triffin, Duesenberg, Giscard d'Stang...way ahead of the ZH crowd...and they have a ll been dead for a decade at least...
...comon folks ...catch up.
maybe they should stop eating their dollars? stupid africans the dollar was given to you to buy food not to eat it
actually, that's the plan- global chaos. I'm sorry guys, I am also disappoinded about Putin being the tool of creating the tension. Look at this monument below. It's all about playing the black and the white side of the chessboard at the same time.
http://www.whale.to/c/pillars.jpg
They should place an order for US dollars from North Korea.
They should place an order for US dollars from North Korea.
Oh really?
Then how do you explain this:
http://i4.ytimg.com/vi/3wR52s45R8Y/hqdefault.jpg
see dat wut ah mean bah nigro rich...
ohwa ohwa
I know...hyperinflation...
Sorry to hear about Nigerians' problems. Decent, honest, efficient and hard-working people, dedicated to the principle of an honest day's pay for an honest day's work.
/sarc
See Work Say Shirk
There is so much corruption in Nigeria. Should be an extremely rich nation from all the oil, but it gets squandered so quickly, theybhardly even have electricity. Now that the price of oil is dropping they are paying the price for all the corruption.
let's see,... what is the root word of Nigeria? could that be a clue as to why nigeria is a cesspool?
In a word, yes.
The guy charged with leading the fight against Boko Haram (first name Sambo!!) has managed to siphon of over $3 billion in about 18 months. That shows a great capacity for hard work.
Hmmm... that might explain why Zimbabwe ( remember them )
has adopted the Chinese Yuan as their Official currency...
Wait for it... ;)
You would think some country somewhere would just print/counterfeit the USD. Problem solved.
Djiboutian Franc is as solid as a rock!
http://www.xe.com/currencycharts/?from=USD&to=DJF&view=5Y
Yes, a shortage of physical dollars makes it difficult to conduct business, make purchases, etc., but the larger problem is that it makes it much harder to pay down global debt, most of which is denominated in US $. Scarcity will make the dollar more valuable, and devaluing the local currency just hyperinflates it, without solving the dollar debt problem.
The day is coming when people will see that the only way to pay off the world's dollar debt is to hyperinflate the dollar, which by then will be so valuable that dollars will be unavailable. So, crushing levels of deflation first, then the inflationary bonfire.
As the Bible says, borrower is slave to the lender. If you bowwow money, you are a slave. If you borrow in dollars, you are a dollar slave. If you bowwow in Euros you are a Euro slave, if you Borrow in any fiat money you are slave to the masters of that fiat. People enslave themselves by borrowing. Choose your slavemaster, the Fed, ECB, China, etc.. Those who control the central banks control the world.
You misspelled it every other time, Please tell you did that on purpose
And O'bomba claims to care about Africa, and African Americans.
The shallow, vain, venal ways of the modern political class and their insolvent central banks are plain for all to see.
Cue: half of Africa and the ME empties into Europe in a giant stampede of dust and long skinny black limbs. Global chaos, good times.
And our descendants all look like Tiger Woods.
I'll bet the drug dealers can get them all the dollars they want
the central banks need to go digital money as fast as possible or they face a pissed off population.......there isnt $4quadrillion dollars of real hold in your hand cash and that might be a problem.....if you are rich.....hahahaha
I have the pleasure of working in Angola. The kwanza is getting screwed down. Forget about getting dollars from banks, it's impossible, but the black market is thriving. 4 months ago you could get US$1/120 kwanza; it's now $1/300 kwanza on street corners. Angolans are getting crushed. Inflation is out of sight.
The "pleasure" of working in Angola? I was there.......a bloody hell-hole.
Wrong answer....gold is a wealth asset...it absolutely sucks as a medium of exchange. Everyone on the planet knows this and it is only gold bugs who so very want it to be so who still insist that carrying around a pocketful of Krugerands is a good idea.
As for 'gold backed currency' the Euro is already a gold backed currency. The ECB has 10,800 tons of the stuff on their books. It comprises over half of their assets. ALREADY DONE!!! Why can no one see this? here:
http://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/reports.do?node=100000129
gobs of the stufff....marked to market!!!! We already have a 'gold backed currency'. People just can't imagine a new way of using gold to 'back' a currency. Rueff, Triffin, Duesenberg, Giscard d'Stang...way ahead of the ZH crowd...and they have a ll been dead for a decade at least...
...comon folks ...catch up.
So the USA dolla is backed up by Phyzz?.
The EU has 10,800 tons (you think that comes close to DEBT issued against it?.)
ROTFLMAO
They have 10,800 tons on the books. How much has been leant out or leased never to be seen again?
Apparently, almost all of it. Crunch time is near.
The US dollar has no such guarantee. Neither does the euro. It is not backed by gold. Show me where they print on US currency or on the euro where it will exchange for a certain weight of gold. Or silver. Or even cow shit, for that matter.
“The ECB has 10,800 tons of [gold] on their books.”
So wrote “lasvegaspersona”; at 14:43, reply.
I wonder what he /she / it / they were sniffing.
According to the Financial statements of the ECB for 2014 D 31, their Asset statement listed “Gold and gold receivables” as €15.98 billion. This converts to $17.6 billion (using ex rate of $1.05/€). This gives us $37 million per ton of gold; leading to $17.6 billion / $37 million – approximately 460 tons for the category “gold and gold receivables”.
The “gold receivables” has been lost to the gold carry trade.
Really, what was he sniffing? Or, what were his CIA / FBI / Mossad handlers sniffing?
And, last time I examined an ECB annual report, there was no explanation as to how much gold was physical, and how much bad paper.
I always thought the Euro was backed 15% by gold. And that was the reason they couldn't just print more Euros. Unlike the USSA which backs the dollar with death from above. Use it (dollar) or lose it (life).
Well, if that's the case, then 85% of a euro is dog shit right off the bat.
The business model of a central bank is simple.
Flood the monetary universe with product making things grow uncontrollably and at peak growth shut off the growth juice so things begin to starve for juice, they control the juice, so their owners know when the juice will flow and won't flow.
The owners just surf the wonderful world of fore-knowledge and connected planning.
They prepare and store up enough juice plus they have an emergency lifeline back to the juice and as such they are in perfect position to pick up all the tossed away goodies dropped by those dying of lack of juice.
Rinse and repeat this FOREVER.
That's it and it aint no more complicated than that.
The spice must flow!
The IMP's move in effect declaring Ukraine debt to Russia and Russian corporations and banks to be odious - and opening the way more governments like Poland, Latvia, Georgia and Turkey to do the same - opens the gates to a financial war where the BRICS and other agencies not controlled by the Empire can forgive countries failing to pay their debts to the Empire's governments, banks and corporations or even to the IMF itself.
Leaving aside the problem that the US would use its military and pet terrorists and mercenaries to crush countries doing that (like Libya), could African countries simply walk away from their debts and start over with BRICS credits?
I imagine that will only be possible for governments well enough armed to protect themselves and their near neighbors. Armed with nukes.
Iran can perhaps rely on the Russian umbrella. Brazil and South Africa will need to re-think their anti-nuclear stance. The Soviet Union could have thrown a protective web over them, but Russia and China are in no position to project that kind of power in Africa. Russia is stretched to its limit just protecting Syria.
Relief for Africa may have to wait until the hold of the Empire on the US population itself collapses, but controlling the chaos in Africa may require substantial troops on the ground which will hasten its end.
I watch this one closely. You brought up some good points. I would think that countries that walked away from the US dollar might in fact find some space under that umbrella. And Russia is not stretched to its limit. Russia has more oom pa pa then you think. It's the US that's stretched to its limit.
The US won't reach ist limit as long as the world continues to accept the output of the Fed's printers.
Why don't they just print more dollars? Problem solved.
And where are all the gazillions of dollars that the Fed has been printing for the last 20 years?
They already did that. But if they put them in circulation, Zimbabwe might as well go back to the Zim.
The fucking ethiopians probably ate them.
Is it a shortage of dollars / as in few dollars are in the system - or is it a massive drop in the velocioty of dollars?
A dollar shortage will be replaced with a Yuan overage.
It seems I remember a recent post here on ZH c Greenspan's wife from 60 minutes. If I remember right she was in Africa doing a story on a country which was using digital currency that was loaded on your mobile device. "Let's try it on the poor African's first and work all the kinks out."
Poor balance sheet management all over the EM Map. Nothing to do with the People, just let their thugs disintegrate and spark a contagion. Do these wastelands with their vanities (concoted fiat currencies) matter ? People in such places should lug their cultures to safer terrains albeit challenging to find.