Tariffs and sky high audio prices.

Back in the day, we kids in grammar school were given copybooks in which to practice our handwriting. (Yes, we learned to write in cursive back then).

Each lesson in the copybook had a heading that had to be copied over and over until the handwriting was perfect. The headings were truisms, and the idea was to not only practice our handwriting but in addition, to burn the truisms into our subconscious minds in order to develop us into good citizens.

Rudyard Kipling wrote a poem about copybook headings to illustrate just exactly how societies crumble and fall. I’d like to share it with you guys:

• The Gods of The Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race, I Make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market-Place. Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn: But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision, and Breadth of Mind, So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace, Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market-Place. But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch, They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch. They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings. So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace. They swore if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease. But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe, And the Gods of the Copybook Heading said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life (Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife) Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all, By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul; But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy, And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don’t work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew, And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four -- And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man -- There are only four things certain since Social Progress began -- That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire, And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire -- And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins, When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins, As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!

--- Rudyard Kipling - 1919

I want to come back to something ghasley said:

The dollar is the world’s reserve currency because oil is traded in US dollars. Also, ask England what it’s like to be the world’s FORMER reserve currency. If we think it can’t happen, it’s likely already happening.

Correct. Good point about England. And yes, it is indeed happening. Right before our eyes.

Prior to WWII the world was on a gold standard. The meaning of that is even more distorted than globalist so for the sake of clarity let me explain exactly what that means.

The gold standard I am talking about was a voluntary agreement between nations to settle their trade balances in gold. Most countries at the time used silver and gold coins within their borders. But even if they did not they would have to settle trade deficits or surpluses with other countries by physically shipping gold bullion.

Naturally, any nation running a big trade surplus was taking in and accumulating more gold. As the gold available to buy imported goods becomes more plentiful then you could buy more imports, which to the extent that happens there goes your excess gold. Meanwhile, any nation running a trade deficit would be in danger of running out of gold. As the gold available to buy imported goods became more scarce the motivation to produce at home became greater, and more cost-effective. With no one able to create gold artificially the system is beautifully balanced, self-adjusting, and voluntary.

The US accumulated some 24,000 tons of gold. Financially, militarily, and in pretty much every other way the US emerged after WWII the strongest country. The world began trading in dollars- except not really dollars, as after 1913 the currency went from gold and silver to Federal Reserve Notes.

A crucial distinction. Because while the formerly used gold could only be produced by enormous effort finding, digging, refining, the new counterfeit FRN can be created at almost no cost on a printing press. Boggles my mind people don’t comprehend the significance. This marked the beginning of perpetual US deficit spending.

By the 1970’s the world had been accumulating trade surpluses with the US and redeeming our paper FRN’s for gold bullion to the point where US gold had dwindled from 24,000 to only about 8,000 tons. Paper you can print but gold you have to dig. Faced with the all too present reality of the US running out of gold Nixon took the "temporary emergency" measure of suspending gold convertibility.

Watch the YouTube video. Blames it on traders. Right. Politicians and bankers were to blame. Each in equal measure. Okay mostly the bankers. Whatever. Beginning of the end. Then go watch the Charles De Gaulle address.

With that history now finally we get to ghasley’s remark. No longer backed by gold the US needed something or the world would abandon dollars. If that happens, who needs dollars, they all come back home. Inflation skyrockets. Economic disaster. The US imperative was to create global demand for dollars.

The deal was the US would agree to protect Saudi Arabia with all our military might if the Saudi’s would require that oil be paid for with FRNs. This new global demand assured the US would be able to deficit spend for decades at a level that would otherwise have been massively hyperinflationary.

This is where the term petro-dollar comes from. With every country depending on oil that can only be bought with dollars they all had no choice but to save them. The world reserve currency was born.

Again, for those who missed my earlier post, the vital national interest Saddam Hussein threatened was to sell oil for Euro and not dollars. Iran, same deal. Now China. Not only that, but more countries are doing more trade directly, bypassing the dollar. Highly recommend people who want to follow and understand what is going on bypass the fake news and get in the habit of following news sites like zerohedge.com as you will see hardly a week goes by without some development in this area.

The magnitude of these markets is such that even as fast as new developments occur we are still a long ways from the inevitable hyperinflationary collapse. But it is, as ghasley says, already happening.

@inna 

I'm not sure I understand your post - "In other words, do something more than babbling on Audiogon."

^^^ And as Kipling said it the poem I posted ...

 "As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!"

Frank