The Amero
I've been hearing Amero rumors for over a year now, way back in the halcyon days of the Bush II White House. I always wrote them off as wild conspiracy-type stuff. And maybe they are, but The American Conservative blog has given the rumors a little legitimate bounce in its legs. Even if you think it's too weird to be true, it's still interesting stuff.
Aware of the above considerations, central banks around the world have been quietly distancing themselves from the U.S. dollar. Over the summer, officials in India, China, and Russia opined publicly on the desirability of a new global financial system, anchored on a basket of currencies or even gold.
We thus have in motion two huge trains of supply and demand, and the result will be an inevitable crash in the value of the dollar. Just as the Federal Reserve is embarking on a massive printing spree, the rest of the world is looking to dump its dollar holdings. It's impossible to predict the exact timing, but sooner or later the dollar will fall very sharply against commodities and other currencies.
A crashing dollar will translate immediately into huge spikes in the price of gasoline and other basic items tied to the world market. After a lag, prices at Wal-Mart and other stores will also skyrocket, as their reliance on “cheap imports from Asia” will no longer be possible when the price of the dollar against the Chinese yuan falls by half.
The consequences will be so dramatic that what now may sound like a “conspiracy theory” could become possible. Fed officials might use such an opportunity to wean Americans from the U.S. dollar. Influential groups such as the Council on Foreign Relations have discussed the desirability of coordination among the North American governments.
Blast from the Past
Received an email from a new TDE reader ("Don"). It read, in part: "Great to find you on the web - thoroughly enjoyed Wisdom & Order back in the 90's. I hope you and your family have a blessed Christmas."
Wisdom & Order was a four-page quarterly publication I produced for a few years before I started writing for magazines and newspapers. I'm guessing I had about 200 subscribers: enough to break even, but not enough to recuperate my up-front costs or make a profit. I did it for two or three years. It was in the pre-blog days, when a self-publisher's means were greatly circumscribed compared with today.
I don't think W&O made much of a splash. I remember that Fr. Richard Neuhaus subscribed, but that may have been just an act of kindness on his part. He never plugged it in First Things, though he did drop me an encouraging note once (something like, "Keep up the good work"). A Google of "Wisdom & Order" turns up only four hits, none of them pertaining to that little effort.
Anyway, if you read W&O back in the dark pre-blog days of the early 1990s, please let me know. I really got a kick out of hearing from Don.
