Norris McDonald | ‘Moneytricks kass-kass’, China’s success, US election anxieties

Saudi Arabia and America are at war over oil ‘moneytricks’ after the global oil cartel, OPEC+ and others, rejected a demand to postpone any oil price raise for one month.

Meanwhile, China held its 20th Congress of its Communist Party against the background of the remarkable achievement of lifting almost 800 million people out of absolute poverty!

Let us take the ‘moneytricks’ kass-kass between America and Saudi Arabia first!

Saudi Arabia is now being called ‘a royal backer stabber’ by America because they joined with the Organization of Petroleum Countries (OPEC+) to cut oil supply, to boost prices, just before the upcoming November 8 midterm elections.

MONEYTRICKS KASS-KASS

Given such desperation, America’s political leadership appears to be irrationally lashing out at Saudi Arabia. This is a country who, for over 50 years, helped them to bamboozle the world with their ‘moneytricks’.

“Oh, what a tangled web we weave,” Sir Walter Scott once said, “when first we practice deceiving.”

America and Saudi Arabia now appear to be trapped in their own deceitful political web. It is this bamboozling, with the use of the petrodollar, that I called ‘moneytricks’.

‘Moneytricks’, explained in my July 13, 2022 Gleaner article, was the 1971 ‘Petro-dollar’ whereby the American dollar had to be used as the benchmark in which oil prices were quoted.

This Petro-dollar was then “recycled into the purchase of US Treasury bills”, Alex Gladstein says in bitcoinmagazine.com.

The US dollar, therefore, operated as a hedge against international money crisis.

The continued use of financial sanctions against nations – the seizing of their US held assets – appears to have made the American dollar increasingly lose its attractiveness as a global reserve currency.

Let me emphasise this point.

I think the seizing of Russia’s US$350 billion may well have frightened developing nations who are not as big, bad and powerful as Russia.

We, therefore, see a rapidly emerging tendency, in which nations such as Indonesia has joined Russia, China, India in not just dropping the ’petrodollar’, but now plan to use their own national currencies in international trade.

Meanwhile, as more and more countries lose faith in using the American dollar to do business, China’s strong national currency, the Yuan, has emerged as a big winner.

Let’s examine why.

CHINA’S ECONOMIC SUCCESS

Over the last 40 years China has spent its money to build a thriving economy which is number two in the world.

China has now emerged as a financially strong world power that, along with Russia, India, South Africa, Saudi Arabia and – quite surprisingly even Turkey – are challenging America’s imperialist hegemony over world affairs.

Given an extremely large budget surplus, China has emerged as the global lender of last resort. The strength of the Chinese Yuan and growing fears of American use of financial punishment is more and more being seen as frightening.

China’s US$5 trillion Belt and Road Initiative allowed her to gain international stature.

Many nations feel more confident to approach China – instead of the World Bank or the International Monetary Fund – to seek financial assistance for the development of roads, railways, bridges, ports, schools, and other forms of infrastructure.

“China has contributed close to three-quarters of the global reduction in the number of people living in extreme poverty,” the World Bank says in its April 1, 2022 report.

“Over the last 40 years,” the World Bank continued, “at China’s current national poverty line, the number of poor [people] fell by 770 million.”

It was against this background, such remarkable achievements, that the Chinese leader, President Xi Jinping, was literally being made ‘president-for-life’ at the recently concluded 20th Congress.

Why is China successful?

This is a key question Dr Godfree Roberts sought to explain.

Dr Godfree Roberts’ book, Why China Lead’s the World: Democracy at the Bottom, Data in The Middle, Talent at the Top, (2021), says that, among other things, China places a great emphasis on recruiting “able, compassionate people willing to sacrifice their lives in the service of people”.

My friends, we have two key elements.

First, the combination of historical, spiritual, and national way of life of the Chinese people – as represented by what Dr Roberts calls “a Confucian just hierarchy that is designed to weed out sociopaths”.

Second, we have the moulding of national consciousness, to create what Dr Roberts calls the “national collective efforts” now led by the Communist Party of China (CPC).

In trying to understand some reasons for China’s economic success, Dr Godfree Roberts puts forward a thesis that examines the importance played in their striving for competitive, national excellence that is literally a part of Chinese culture, spirit, and way of life.

These elements have been combined with the political efforts of the CPC to develop “a socialist market economy”. The idea behind it is the creative use of capitalist, free market principle, as a means to boost their economic development.

The crisis-prone market mechanism is, however, guided.

Central planning is guided by the CPC. In addition, the national wealth that is created is used to solve poor people’s needs.

To wrap up.

POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY

My dear friend, politics takes place in a world of uncertainty.

Political planning attempts to look ahead. The aim is to anticipate political pitfalls down the road.

I don’t think President Biden and his Democratic Party seriously planned ahead, with a long-term vision on their own electoral prospect. Now, with mid-term election just around the corner, political anxieties are rising.

‘Working Man Joe Biden’, while being very busy confronting Russia and China, may have lost the American electorate support.

The political pressures are rising. Only nine per cent of swing-voting independents think President ‘Working Man Joe Biden’ is doing a good job.

President Biden and his out-of-touch Democratic Party are now increasingly fearful that a very revengeful, Donald Trump-loving Republican Party may grab power come November 8.

Maybe if Working Man Joe Biden and his Democratic allies had not tried so hard to prove how much they are better, war-profiteering corporate lovers than their Republican political opponents, then they would not be now wildly flaying around, like a snake that has lost its tail.

That is just the ‘bitta’ truth!

Norris McDonald is an economic journalist, political analyst, and respiratory therapist. Email feedback to columns@gleanerjm.com and miaminorris@yahoo.com