Imagine if you will, back in 2020, but definitely earlier, that the heads of various agencies: the US Military, the Federal Reserve, the Intelligence Communities, the Public Private Partnership agencies that balance our budget and control the US Stock Exchange and our financial markets and the Tech Industry, all got together one day and asked one singular question,
“What will happen when the fifty plus year partnership between Saudi Arabia and the United States finally comes to an end?”
For those who aren’t aware, but most of you did pay attention in 9th Grade Civics class, or Economics class or even History beyond the 1970’s so you know this already but for those that missed class that day: former President Nixon took the United States currency off a gold-backed reserve currency and switched it to an oil-backed currency, or what’s called the Petro Dollar. For my entire lifetime, our US Dollar has been backed by oil. It is not backed by labor, although labor leaders would like you to believe it is. It is not backed by gold. For 5 decades or more, we have been able to sustain a decent living in this country and keep a fairly free-floating economy due to the fact that our entire existence is backed by the trade of oil in a global market.
And, when the US Dollar is backed by oil it needs to corner the market on oil. So one thing former Mob Boss Richard Nixon did was he created an alliance between Saudi Arabia and the United States that said, “If the oil you produce to the entire world is traded exclusively in US Dollars then we won’t sabotage your trade with other countries. I mean, we will offer protection of your oil reserves by extending our military to you. For protection. Because it’d be a shame if something happened to all that nice oil you make that the whole world depends on.”
This strong armed, mob-like exploitation, I mean partnership lasted my entire lifetime, or about 50 years. When it came time to renew, Saudi Arabia decided not to.
Shocking!
What this means, according to your favorite podcaster or social media influencer who exists to put the fear of God in you is that our dollar is going to collapse and we are all going to starve to death. We will die immiserating deaths of poverty and obscurity because our dollar is now worthless now that Saudi Arabia has decided to sell its oil in just about every other currency that exists, from BitCoin to the Japanese Yen.
But, before you run screaming out of your house with your hair on fire, clogging up your socials with insanely wild speculative posts that only add anxiety to an already anxious world, I’d like to insert some context, opinion, rational outside-the-box thinking and facts.
Let’s go back to my original question at the top of this post. What if all those State agencies and markets did ask that singular question?
I suppose the answer would be, “Well, since oil isn’t the natural resource we are now basing our US Dollar on, how about another untapped natural reserve?”
“How about Humans. Specifically US or Western Humans?”
Imagine if you will, the US Military announces to the joyous applause of all anti-war activists around the world that it’s pulling the bulk of its troops out of the Middle East, say somewhere between 2018 and 2020 and resetting where its military budget goes. Where would the budget go? Maybe the US Military budget would be redirected into its own untapped reserve of US humans, who have been conveniently labeled combative and domestic terrorists thanks to the Patriot Act and the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act.
Biological, Chemical, Radiological and Neurological programs that have always just squeaked by over the years but were always given just enough funding to stay relevant suddenly got a huge influx of funding during a time when we needed it most: for the production of countermeasures, marketed by affiliate military agencies who partnered with Big Pharma to produce and distribute something the world really really really needed, especially in 2020: a vaccine.
I’m guessing when we all were screaming for the US Military to get out of the Middle East we didn’t mean for those troops to occupy our own US agencies and turn the weapons on us. Yea, that’s not what we wanted.
Can we get a do-over?
Not to belabor the point, but it needs to be repeated: Saudi Arabia has historically only traded its oil throughout the world in US dollars, also known as petro backed dollars, dollars that are backed by oil since in 1972 the USA decided to abandon the idea of gold-backed currency. This means, for example, if Saudi Arabia wanted to sell its oil to the country of Sweden, Sweden would have to exchange its current currency, Krona, to US Dollars in order for the deal to be made. Currently, One Swedish Krona doesn’t even equal one US penny ($.096).
Saudi Arabia has now decided, with US approval, to sell their oil in just about every other currency that exists. This means the US will need to boost up its dollar value significantly, since it’s no longer valued or boosted by Saudi Arabia trading its oil to other countries in US dollars. When the value of the US dollar needs a boost, it usually means inflation. Or, it means we need to bridge gaps between other countries that produce even more oil than Saudi Arabia does. Those countries are Russia and Iran, just to name a couple.
In Russia’s case it seems we have actually reached some sort of agreement and the US has been in trade with Russia for a while now. The USA has been purchasing Russian crude oil since 2023 through a loophole in an embargo.
What? We’re actually working with Russia to keep gas in our tanks? I thought Russia hated us!
Well, not really. It’s not about friendships. It’s about loopholes and gaming the system.
After the most recent invasion of Ukraine the U.S. banned the direct import of Russian oil; and who knows, this ban might even go back to the 2004 Revolution or the 2014 Revolution. Geez, how many Revolutions does Ukraine need anyway?
Imagine the latest conflict between Ukraine and Russia started right about the time USA was negotiating extending or ending the 50 plus year partnership with Saudi Arabia. Imagine investors pulling out of portfolios tied to that partnership and allocating their investments elsewhere.
Since the US banned the direct import of Russian oil, other countries started buying that oil. They can legally refine it and sell it back to the U.S. That’s the loophole. And that’s what’s been keeping gas in American gas tanks for a few years now. It’s not ideal but it does keep the price of gas from rising to levels that we’ve never seen, like say $25.00 per gallon.
Did you ever wonder why our gas prices didn’t inflate to these levels since this 50 plus year partnership between Saudi Arabia & the USA ending could have made it nearly impossible for Americans to put gas in their cars at an affordable rate? This loophole in the refinery agreement may give us crude oil, but at least it keeps our gas prices low. Imagine gas at $25.00 per gallon. This is what you’re avoiding through this loophole.
Also, why is it that the cost of food for instance has risen to levels we’ve never seen, while gas prices have remained fairly stagnant? Not to get too far off track here, but it is a question no one seems to be asking.
Believe it or not, this story about Saudi Arabia moving off the trading of its oil in the US dollar isn’t really the main story, since the various Administrations over the years knew it was coming. It’s called “burying the lead.”
Wnat is the lead then? It’s multi-pronged and multiple stories, the least not being that Central Bank Digital Currency, although not at scale, needs a reason to come into existence. Now it has one.
Also not mentioned in any of the public stories of this ending of this 50 plus year partnership is that Saudi Arabia is a limited partner in Andreessen Horowitz, NEA, Craft Ventures, General Atlantic, Dragoneer, ICONIQ, Insight, and many others. You should look up these companies and make note of their worth, and what types of businesses they are and where they are located. Even if you don’t want to look up these companies, it’s not uncommon for investors to diversify their portfolio.
So, Saudi Arabia not signing another 50 year “partnership” means it’s watching where the trends are headed. These trends are turning away from oil and further into the human-tech-hybrid market and all that untapped potential.
And just so you know, Saudi Arabia no longer trading their oil exclusively in US dollars is not a “black swan” event, as some reactionaries might have you believe. It was totally expected, prepared for and inevitable. They’ve wanted to diversify their market and find alternative energy sources to invest in for a while. After all, the only reason Uber and Lyft exist today is because of a large investment by a couple of Saudi Princes, back in the day.
With the partnership between Saudi Arabia and the USA ending, Saudi Arabia is now less constrained. Imagine if you will what a drain it must have been on Saudi investors to constantly have to negotiate with the US over “protecting” a natural resource they lost interest in a while ago. By opening up their trade currency to a world market Saudi Arabia is practically making its own oil worthless or of little value on the global scale. It’s almost like they’re divesting or dumping oil into the ocean or something, by sellling it at every currency in the world.
Why would they do that?
Saudi policymakers have been pretty vocal about their intent to invest approximately $100 billion by 2030 (Oh! There’s that year again! Your ears must be burning) into advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI), semiconductors, emissions reduction, robotics, and smart cities. Which, funnily enough, are ALSO US Military markets as well! Wow! What a coincidence. It’s almost as if ending the partnership over oil protected by the US Military is really just a redirection of that partnership into all those technology markets I just listed above.
This fifty year plus partnership ending with Saudi Arabia is going to be waved off as nothing, I imagine. it’s going to be whittled down to an “adjustment’ in our economy or barely even covered by the fourth estate. And those self-appointed gurus and influencers of finance and technology that are all over the socials will draft a word salad of acronyms, professional influential assessments on the global market scale, political analysis and historical dates that will make you think you’re learning something valuable, but you’re not.
What you’ve just learned with the ending of this 50 plus year partnership is that the USA just bilked Saudi Arabia for $100 billion to further financialize you, your data, turn your cash into a digital currency, pen you in a dumb smart City, and inflate the price of Hostess cupcakes only to mock you into subservience. Whether extorting money out of Saudi Royals for protecting oil fields or extorting money to revolutionize a technological market that doesn’t even have a lot of there-there, it’s still the same game: the US economy existing on exploitation under the authoritarian attitude that we deserve it, we need it and we can’t live without it, and wouldn’t it be a shame if Saudi Arabia weren’t part of it.
But what’s different on this side of the same coin is that In this new venture, the Nixon mob-like tactic of the promise of military “protection” of Saudi oil fields, has evolved into business ventures that seem suspiciously like soft-power techniques similar to how China conducts business when brokering deals with other countries.
After all, just about every single technological market and digital project needed to advance these markets are from actual factories, resources and labor and materials provided by, or cultivated by, China.
No one will see the correlation between where our financial markets are going (the human body, the digital body, the centralized body) via soft power techniques, and where our military is being re-directed: off of oil and into the conflict over the South China Seas (it’s a war we’re not hearing about and it consists of separate powers wanting to dominate trade) as well as investments into the untapped potential of the human body.
Well, no one will see it, except this platform of course. This highly censored, crushed, ignored platform.
This now broken 50 plus year arrangement to only sell Saudi oil in US dollars expands Saudi Arabia into global markets and puts more value in their contracts & trade agreements with other countries.
Saudi now expanding their market, diversifying their portfolio, investing into alternative energies, focusing their investments on Silicon Valley (whose been purchased by China and the US Military at this point, I’m convinced of it) equals influence in the tech field, the Electronic Vehicle (Elon Musk) plan, thus gathering influence in powerfully advancing fields that are crawling with vulture (venture) capitalists who are again backed by US funding of some sort (hint: military).
Politically, this move means that the next US Administration will need to support technology: Silicon Valley, digital currencies, and every other form of a move to a more tech-based world. This Administration is already chosen and will either be Shanahan (the real candidate, not Kennedy), Trump or Newsom (or a reasonable facsimile). It just depends on who fits that perfect balance of promising funding to these digital, centralized markets, looks the best on camera and has the best PR team capable of making the public fall in love with them the most.
The world is changing. Some of those changes are good. Some are not so good. How Americans respond to these inevitable changes will either make them or break them. The best response to this is not to respond.
Use cash. Make a plan. Learn a skill, pick up a trade. Give your money away to someone in need, or someone who will use it to enrich their life or another’s life. Go local. Take your twenty dollar bill and give it to the baker or the local market or a small community church or even the local coffee shop. Eat healthy. Get lots of sun. Ride a bike.
For years we have used our dollar for uses that go beyond just protecting oil in a far off Middle Eastern country that you or I have never even visited and likely never will. It’s how we use our money that gives it increasing value and with each small exchange of dollars and change we invest back into a market that we need, we make it vibrant again. The US dollar isn’t in default. It’s not worthless. it’s vibrant and real because you are vibrant and real. Don’t you know when they convince you the dollar is worthless it’s an insidious metaphor to undermine your worth and value? The more we collect the dollars and exchange them for services, the more we turn the currency they want to remove from our life into something our world simply cannot live without. So, buy the seeds, buy some small equipment to help plant if for no other reason that to beautify your space, pay the dog walker, tip your mail carrier from time to time, pay the local kid to mow your lawn.
And eventually the currency we exchange for these goods or services may actually become moot and pointless. We can live in a world of gratitude and exchange ourselves for an abundant life. My lawn needs mowing, so I’ll put gas in your car so you can take that long drive to the next state over. Your aunt needs her electric bill paid so she will be your babysitter. Robert could really use a new cowboy hat, and lucky you, he knows how to fix a car. The next door neighbor’s kids got straight A’s and I just happen to have extra chocolate chip cookies for them. We lived this way for years, long before social media and long before our currency was backed by other people’s oil. And, this is what gave us value, not the dollar itself, but how we invested it back into each other.
Forget about the billionaires and the financial experts and what they have to say. It’s your dollar. It belongs to you and it’s not worthless.
They, and all the others, are only rich because of you. Now, they want your body and all that it facilitates to keep it going like debt, and your digital presence and your belief in the allopathic medical system, and even your investment into digital trinkets and markets.
They want all of you.
Don’t give it to them. Give it back to yourself. One little dollar at a time.