China and Brazil have reached a deal to trade in their own currencies, ditching the US dollar as an intermediary
The deal will enable China, the top rival to US economic hegemony, and Brazil, the biggest economy in Latin America, to conduct their massive trade and financial transactions directly, exchanging yuan for reais and vice versa instead of going through the dollar.
:xicko:
Now the Belt and Road Initiative, please
TLDR: The US was massacring too many Viets and Koreans and were racking up a lot of debt because of that. They stopped pegging the dollar to gold, and now everyone had useless funny money in the vault. On the surface, this is good for those countries because now the USD is useless, but that means their own currencies are much more valuable thus products and services will become expensive. In order to combat those expenses, they have to prop up the dollar by trading in and buying USD , thus lowering domestic currency values which equals less expenses.
I would check out Superimperialism by Michael Hudson. It explains the origins of this mess. I don't know if it's the "definitive" book on the subject, but it was even used by the US government to help them understand their own financial domination.
His other works are also good for understanding modern finance speak. He has interviews , lectures, and podcasts that covers these things although most of them assume you're sorta familiar with what's going on. The one I linked is from Grayzone - they are cringe nowadays, but Ben Norton was an ex-writer there and has moved to an independent outlet which is much better. In many episodes he also summarizes or fully explains concepts that might bore veteran listeners, but good for newbies (or he'll link further info in the description box). Hudson is also a regular contributor to his show.
This is so darkly humorous. They don’t even know what they did, huh.
Thanks for the rec and the explanation!