Tectol, I'm glad you found the article worthwhile albeit a bit of a tough read.

I agree with so much of what you say and do not believe the yuan as the next currency that allows currency hegemony.

Gold remains the one reliable medium of exchange. When I studied economics years ago although I was the last person I believed would ever be a gold bug, I am reformed.

Perhaps it was idealism and naiviete that inspired my confidence in the free market, perhaps it was the lack of globalization which could never advanced so quickly without the advent of a PC and wide accessibility to the internet, perhaps it was the arguments of Adam Smith and Milton Friedman but gold seemed arcane.

Its relevance as a store of value becomes increasingly clear as money being printed recklessly with no intrinsic value versus the effort to mine and the cost to produce be it through the manual effort of prospecting or the leaching of 4 grams of gold (a healthy deposit) from a ton of earth helps aid in perspective.

The fact it cannot be easily substituted has a definitive mass and is generally recognizable allows a person to rest assured that value will exist beyond their lifetime as scarcity of the resource and difficulty to bring to market is its greatest attribute of value.

The cost of protecting the value of the US$ at any cost appears to include the decimation of the future of its citizens unless of course confidence in the US$ can be restored. Given the mismanagement of its wealth, through overconsumption which regardless of wealth level is totally unsustainable en masse, along with the massive debt levels throughout the the American populace, the worldwide overcapacity for production which is unsustainable environmentally, and the total absence of competitive manufacturing capabilities in the USA, I think we can rest assured or perhaps tremble at the thought of their being little chance of the restoration of confidence.

The progressive governments in Latin America where leaders like Bachelet, Chavez, and Morales along with others not interested in oppressing their people (at least to the advantaged of the prior benefactors whether you wish to call them the bourgeousie, the capitalists, the corpratocracy, or some other label) will see continue on a path of justice.

A masive recoil from the current corrupt, misguided, and mismanaged country once the beacon of hope for many will not be surprising. Indeed it has already begun in the shift by some countries to work more closely with China, Russia and those who have demonstrated the ability to resist American Hegemony over the long haul.

As the depth of corruption and the effort to conceal the abuses to humanity become more readily apparent we can only hope that those with the opportunities to move humanity progressively forward will resist any temptation to resurrect the despicable characteristics of those not globally motivated to improving humanity.

orgy