Egypt is one of the handful of countries joining BRICS next year.

Friends and family here who don’t normally talk about finance are talking about it a lot. They see it as a pathway to escape the yoke of the dollar and American imperialism. They ask if this could mean the downfall of the dollar, and so forth.

I’ve been writing about long term de-dollarization for the past 3-4 years, and of course Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent freezing of Russian reserves accelerated it around the margins. I touch on de-dollarization in Broken Money too, in the ā€œHeavy is the Head That Wears the Crownā€ chapter.

But like most things, people got overly excited by this process. Popular gold analysts were calling for a gold-backed BRICS currency announcement here in August, which of course never came.

Some major BRICS countries don’t even really like each other, like India and China. This will be a stepwise piece by piece process of closer financial and trade integration. Over time, countries can swap currencies rather than go through dollar rails.

It’s an important geopolitical process, but beware of people hyping it up too much or making something out of it that it is not.

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While careless and vodka argue that they need to settle the score.

Since synthesis is not Egyptian.

šŸ¤·ā€ā™‚ļø

Thank you for the insight to Egypt.

Think in a similar direction since I got on track.

would be interested what you think about this gold backed currency? Would it be neccesary at all? Don't they get along better not having it?

Best Regards

Mateusz

If gold backs a fractional reserve currency, it’s only a matter of time until the backing breaks.

Are Egyptians not worried about switching from US hegemony for Chinese hegemony? Even with the new members joining, China alone accounts for well over half the GDP of all the BRICS.

The ones I know and talk to like the idea of being part of a group rather than one country controlling everything. No one has brought up the China concern. And while China is the BRICS lead, I don’t think any country is in a position to have the level of global control that the US achieved after WWII.

And on the black market what physical cash do most Egyptians buy? Dollars.

There are way smaller black markets for euro and some Gulf currencies. A yuan black market here is either small or nonexistent.

Alternative media influencors have incentive to peddle bullshit as their whole business model is based on selling you alternative reality to the mainstream.

They need every bit of news to be able to get their clicks. In the end its like mainstream media bullshit, just other flavor.

Kinda hard to stop something that weighs a million pounds and is moving 10,000 mph.

The only way to do it is slowly over time, otherwise you get a very big bang all at once.

Not only did Russians have their money confiscated but Ukrainian people did too.

Yes hard to imagine prices of commodities and unit of account in general not in dollars, at least for a few more years.

Ebook downloaded, looking forward to reading it

It's a long process. You're being very objective.

These countries don’t really want a gold-backed currency, no? Wouldn’t that take away their ability to print?

Correct, they want a "gold-backed" currency šŸ˜‰

There is absolutely no way the BRICS nations will ever adopt a hard money standard. That entails too much responsibility. They need to retain the ability to print for themselves. Most of the governments within BRICS are far more irresponsible than the United States. In this case I believe that change can only be affected from the bottom up by individuals adopting bitcoin.

Irresponsible in terms of what? I'm not a fan of any government really, but there have been and are some pretty irresponsible things happening in the US. For example, nutritional and health advice, health insurance, deficit spending, warmongering...

A brics gold-backed currency was actually "fake news", as Jeff Deist recently noted on the WiM show...

https://fountain.fm/clip/QMNCwNczxs1XJDI5t7Z7

Argentina will not be in BRICS, the new government will not be moving in that direction. Just to clarify.

Looking at that map is telling, hopefully all that "colour" in the middle east isn't too upsetting to "the powers that were"

I agree šŸ’Æ.

No doubt it's an important step geopolitically, but (fiat) money is trust-based, and BRICS don't trust eachother enough... yet, at least.

That would be a long process.

It will still be very good that those countries strengthen ties, though.

šŸ«‚

it's the R and C in BRICS that are the problem. wish expanded BRICS would adopt Bitcoin for international settlements

When Ireach 15k followers on X i want to give away 10 copies of you book as a gift to them. I hope you dont mind.

Seems like this always takes longer than anticipated…

The dollar's network effect is huge. And then you have to overcome Gresham's law. Not going to happen any time soon. While capital controls have increased its nothing compared to the controls the BRICS nations have. Then consider how bad the economies of those nations are as well and it'll be a while before they are a real threat to the USD. Nevertheless change can happen fast and a crack up boom in the US could see all the USD abroad coming back fast. Regardless fiat is slavery and we should move away from it.

Just my 2 sats

I find it remarkable that both Iran and Saudi Arabia are joining. brics have big potential to unite against the backdrop of failing us empire

When something big collapses, a period of chaos follows. So, before a new reserve currency settles, there will be a lot of currency trouble world wide where different countries like China, India etc will try to put their own currency as the new reserve currency. And that trouble will hit exactly the countries pushing de-dollarization.

100% agree. Imagine, how long it took for Russia and China to come to this stage of trusting each other. These are long term processes, especially if someone else is always trying to sabotage it. China/India will take years to come to the same result. Or imaging Saudi Arabia and Iran. It needs a masterpiece of diplomacy from Russia and China to get these two together. And the USA won't make it easier.