De-dollarization: Collapse of US$ as Reserve Currency?

             (Natasha Kaneva’s post from The JPMORGAN USA on 01 July 2025.)

De-dollarization: Is the US dollar losing its dominance? Top dollar no more? Learn more about the factors threatening the dominance of the world’s reserve currency. While the U.S.’s share in global exports and output has declined, the dollar’s transactional dominance is still evident in areas including FX volumes and trade invoicing.

On the other hand, de-dollarization is unfolding in central bank FX reserves, where the share of USD has slid to a two-decade low. In fixed income, the share of foreign ownership in the U.S. Treasury market has fallen over the last 15 years, pointing to reduced reliance on the dollar. De-dollarization is most visible in commodity markets, where a large and growing proportion of energy is being priced in non-dollar-denominated contracts.

The U.S. dollar is the world’s primary reserve currency, and it is also the most widely used currency for trade and other international transactions. However, its hegemony has come into question in recent times due to geopolitical and geostrategic shifts.

Myanmar Dictator Banned from The ASEAN Summit

       (Karishmar Vyas’s post from The ABC NEWS Australia on 26 October 2025.)

Myanmar too low on agenda as regional leaders meet Trump for summit: Sitting inside an open-air shack along Thailand's porous border with Myanmar, Koko Chit couldn't believe that he was still alive.

Desperate for money, he had left his wife and three children in July and travelled back to northern Myanmar to scavenge for jade at Hpakant's notorious mines. The work was deadly, but it was the civil war that almost killed him.

"There's no security there. When you go to work, there's fighting," says Chit, 31, who didn't give his real name because he feared for his life. "The State Administration Council (Myanmar's military) conscripts workers. They fire their guns to threaten people for no reason. And the resistance forces fire back."

What Happened in 1971? Ending the Gold Standard

        (John Zadeh’s post from THE DISCOVERY ALERT USA on 13 April 2025.)

The Nixon Shock Explained: On August 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon unilaterally ended dollar convertibility to gold, a decision that would fundamentally transform the global economic landscape.

This dramatic move came as US gold reserves had declined precipitously from approximately 20,000 tons to just 8,333 tons. The depletion occurred because foreign nations, particularly France under President Charles de Gaulle, were increasingly redeeming dollars for physical gold as the US ran persistent trade and budget deficits.

Nixon's decision, made during a secret meeting at Camp David with key economic advisors, was essentially a choice to preserve America's remaining gold reserves rather than face an inevitable default on gold-for-dollar obligations. Treasury Secretary John Connally famously remarked during this period that "the dollar is our currency, but it's your problem," highlighting the unilateral nature of this momentous economic shift.

Su Bin The Chinese Spy Who Stole F-35 & C-17 Secrets

                       (Jim Sciutto’s post from The CNN USA on 14 May 2019.)

‘The Shadow War’: How a Chinese spy stole some of the Pentagon’s most sensitive secrets. To his American friends and contacts, Stephen Su was an affable businessman and gregarious guy. “People liked him,” Bob Anderson, the FBI’s former head of counterintelligence, told me. “They didn’t think he was an asshole and I know that sounds stupid, but people are people and that’s how it started.”

Stephen Su, who also went by his Chinese name Su Bin, lived in his native China but traveled frequently to the United States and Canada, to build a business in the aviation and aerospace sectors. His company, Lode-Tech, was a small player in a field of giants. However, from 2009 to 2014, Su steadily and deliberately built a network of close business contacts inside far bigger US and Canadian defense contractors who held some of most sensitive US military contracts.

“So, he cultivates you over time,” Anderson recalled. The information Su was most interested in related to three of the most advanced US military aircraft ever built, the Lockheed Martin F-35 and F-22 stealth fighters and the Boeing C-17 Globemaster transport aircraft.

China Backing The Yuan with Real Gold!

            (Staff post from The SILVER ACADEMY on 19 September 2025.)

China Unlocks Gold-Backed Yuan: The Dawn of a New Global Reserve Era. Yuan’s gold convertibility lets global trade bypass the dollar, accelerating a shift to a gold-anchored, multipolar financial order.

Hong Kong’s push to become a global gold trading and reserve hub highlights a sharp contrast between real assets and endlessly printed fiat money. While the United States continues expanding its money supply — diluting purchasing power through debt-driven policies — China and now Hong Kong are moving in the opposite direction, stacking tangible wealth in the form of gold.

By targeting storage capacity of over 2,000 tonnes within three years and rolling out tokenized gold investment tools, Hong Kong is positioning itself at the center of a new gold-based financial system. Unlike dollars that can be created with a keystroke, gold holds centuries of trust as a store of value and hedge against inflation.

Idiot Trump’s Crazy Tariffs Bankrupting US Farmers

       (Lindsay Chutel’s post from The NEW YORKTIMES USA on 24 October 2025.)

An ad, bought by the province of Ontario, sent an anti-tariff message using sound bites from an address President Ronald Reagan made decades ago. President Trump claimed the ad was “fraud” and terminated trade talks with Canada.

In calling a halt to trade talks with Canada, President Trump pointed to an ad paid for by the province of Ontario that used a speech President Ronald Reagan made decades ago. In it, Mr. Reagan speaks against tariffs, a tool Mr. Trump has widely deployed, including against Canada, and warns against protectionism.

Mr. Trump claimed that the ad was fake and that it had been aired “to interfere with the decision of the U.S. Supreme Court,” which is considering a legal challenge to many of his tariffs. But the advertisement, which Ontario’s provincial government purchased to air in the United States, uses sound bites from a radio address Mr. Reagan made in April 1987 that was critical of tariffs. It reproduces Mr. Reagan’s quotes accurately, but changes the order he said them.

Singapore’s Minibond Saga (2008)

               (Staff post from The SINGAPORE INFOPEDIA in August 2023.)

Lehman Brothers Minibond saga: The Lehman Brothers Minibond saga refers to the chain of events resulting from the Lehman Brothers’ bankruptcy filing in September 2008.

Following the collapse of the Lehman Brothers, about 10,000 retail investors in Singapore lost their investments totalling over S$500 million in structured investment products linked to the American investment bank. The financial institutions that distributed the products were accused of having mis-sold these relatively high-risk products to investors, many of whom were elderly and less educated.

This prompted government investigations, which led to penalties being imposed on 10 financial institutions, and tighter supervision of the industry.

Hidden Risk Growing in Australia’s Mortgages

             (Aidan Devine’s post from The DAILY TELEGRAPH on 17 October 2025.)

Hidden risk in Australia’s home loans as high risk lending grows: More homeowners are buying with smaller deposits amid rising competition for properties and relaxed lending.

Australia’s housing market is being increasingly propped up by risky lending as interest rate cuts encourage banks to take on higher leveraged loans – and it could leave homeowners paying more.

Analysis of APRA figures revealed loans to home buyers with fractional deposits of less than 5 per cent surged to record levels over the 12 months to August. Lending to those with small deposits under 5 per cent hit $14.2 billion over the period, according to the analysis by Primara Research and investment property group Our Top 10.

The Movie "Margin Call" Is For Real!

                         (Jake Zamansky’s post from The FORBES on 25 Oct 2011.)

The movie “Margin Call,” which opened this past weekend, advertises that it was inspired by a true story.

The fictional head of a Wall Street firm “John Tuld” (a composite character resembling Merrill Lynch’s John Thain and Lehman Brothers’ Dick Fuld and played by the wonderfully villainous Jeremy Irons) is told that the firm is drowning in toxic mortgage-backed securities.

Tuld orders his traders to rid the firm’s balance sheet of the junk by dumping it on unsuspecting counterparties and customers. Tuld is told: “You’re selling something you know has no value.” He replies: “Be first, be smarter or cheat.”

CDO Man "Wing Chau" wasn’t Defamed by The Big Short

          (Mark Wilson’s post from The FINDLAW on 21 March 2019.)

Michael Lewis Didn't Defame Wing Chau in 'The Big Short': Michael Lewis' nonfiction book The Big Short, published in 2011, chronicled the 2008 financial crisis as seen through the eyes of some of the people involved in it, including the hedge fund managers who "shorted" (bet against) the market.

In one chapter of the book, Steven Eisman, one of Lewis' sources, meets Wing Chau, the owner of an investment firm that managed collateralized debt obligations (CDOs). CDOs were investments comprised of portions of thousands of subprime mortgages; they were a key vector for the financial collapse.

Chau sued for defamation based on 26 discrete statements in Lewis' book. The statements range from Eisman's opinion that Chau was a "sucker" for buying CDOs, to statements that Chau was knowingly selling junk investments, to representations that he was making huge sums of money betting against the market.

Rear Earth Minerals Supply: US-China Trade War

             (Charlotte Martin’s post from The IDTechEx UK on 15 October 2025.)

US-China Trade War Drives Investment in Domestic Rare Earth Supply: Rare earth elements and critical minerals are now frequently featured in global news cycles due to the national security and economic impacts of increasing supply disruption.

Growing export restrictions placed on defense-related rare earth materials from China at a time of multiple international conflicts underscores growing demand in the US and Europe to develop alternative supply.

2025 is set to be an inflection point, as a year of tariffs and trade wars drive record investment into strategic Western rare earth supply chains. IDTechEx’s latest research, ‘Rare Earth Magnets 2026-2036: Technologies, Supply, Markets, Forecasts’ explores rare earth investment and supply chain partnership trends driven by increasingly restrictive global rare earth supply.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan?

             (Staff post from The CHINA BRIEFNG on 02 June 2025.)

2025 is a pivotal year in China’s policy cycle, marking the close of the 14th Five-Year Plan and the lead-up to the 15th, which will chart the country’s course from 2026 to 2030. President Xi Jinping is already steering discussions with senior officials on key priorities, while state media mobilize public input ahead of the CPC Central Committee’s expected approval this fall.  

2025 is a pivotal year in China’s policy landscape, marking the final year of the 14th Five–Year Plan and setting the stage for the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee to put forward proposals for the 15th Five-Year Plan in the fall.

China’s political leadership is currently laying the groundwork for the release of this pivotal document, which will shape the country’s social and economic development over the next five years. President Xi Jinping has held meetings with senior officials to discuss key priorities for the new plan, while state media have launched a national campaign to gather public input and feedback.

How US Destroyed Toshiba in 1987?

              (Huang Lanlan’s post from The GLOBAL TIMES on 28 September 2020.)

Lessons from Toshiba, Alstom: how US suppresses foreign rival companies to maintain tech hegemony. The continual suppression by the US of Chinese tech companies including Huawei and TikTok has been a farce the world has watched ever since Washington started regarding these fast growing and expanding Chinese tech giants as threats to its domestic counterparts.

People in the know are no longer surprised by the aggressive treatment of foreign tech companies by the US. In past decades, companies around the world such as Japan's Toshiba and France's Alstom were targeted, sanctioned and seriously hurt by the US government that used excuses like security, anti-dumping and anti-bribery.

There is no essential difference between the suppression of Huawei or TikTok today and Washington's past crackdowns on Toshiba or Alstom, said Zhang Monan, a chief research fellow of US studies with the China Center for International Economic Exchanges. "Washington continues its technological hegemony, placing its laws and administrative instructions above market order," Zhang told the Global Times.

The GrandMothers Hypothesis Explained!

               (Mwenza Blell’s post from The WILEY FREE ONLINE LIBRARY.)

The grandmother hypothesis is a hypothesis to explain the existence of menopause in human life history by identifying the adaptive value of extended kin networking. It builds on the previously postulated "mother hypothesis" which states that as mothers age, the costs of reproducing become greater, and energy devoted to those activities would be better spent helping her offspring in their reproductive efforts.

It suggests that by redirecting their energy onto those of their offspring, grandmothers can better ensure the survival of their genes through younger generations. By providing sustenance and support to their kin, grandmothers not only ensure that their genetic interests are met, but they also enhance their social networks which could translate into better immediate resource acquisition. This could extend past kin into larger community networks and benefit wider group fitness.

The grandmother hypothesis is an adaptationist explanation for the fact that the human female life span extends beyond the period of fertility. Human female reproductive life spans are variable in length but reproductive senescence occurs much faster than somatic aging.