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El Guiri
9da75b1f4e3f5ac9779ebecd27ca8032b2632389e1f00e8f9eb5ecd40f24dc6d
Geologist and nature lover

Northern Cape near whitsands

Love south Africa. Such a beautiful country. Its odd though. When you see the amount of rubbish everywhere, it's like the population living here hate it!

All aligned for a great day!

Replying to Avatar Undisciplined

Why Are Houses So Expensive? It's Deliberate Government Policy

https://mises.org/mises-wire/why-are-houses-so-expensive-its-deliberate-government-policy

By Ryan McMaken

> High prices are not the “unintended consequence” of good intentions.

![](https://m.stacker.news/123477)

![](https://m.stacker.news/123478)

I wonder if homeowners will get rugged once Boomers have less political power than the Zoomers. I'm guessing not, because localities also count on high property values for tax revenue, so the pressure will always be upwards.

https://stacker.news/items/1373457

Just look in gold terms. Says it all

Maybe he had a bitcoin book that had fallen over

Love quiver trees. So unusual

Thanks. Was definitely a great start for the day!

Another 305kg of gold removed from bullionvault? That's some serious stacking!

In 2000, Saddam Hussein did something very few people paid attention to.

He announced Iraq would start selling oil in euros, not U.S. dollars.

Three years later, the United States invaded Iraq.

No weapons of mass destruction were ever found.

But something else happened quietly.

Iraqi oil went right back to being priced in dollars.

Most people call that a coincidence.

I call it a lesson.

In 2009, Muammar Gaddafi proposed something even more dangerous.

A gold-backed African currency — the gold dinar.

It would have allowed African nations to buy oil without using dollars.

In 2011, NATO intervened in Libya for “humanitarian reasons.”

Gaddafi was killed.

The gold dinar disappeared.

Libyan oil? Back to dollars.

Another coincidence.

I’m noticing a pattern.

Go back further.

In 1971, President Nixon took the U.S. dollar off the gold standard.

The dollar was no longer backed by gold — only a promise.

By all historical logic, the dollar should have collapsed.

It didn’t.

Why?

Because three years later, Henry Kissinger cut a deal with Saudi Arabia.

The deal was simple:

Sell oil only in U.S. dollars, and the U.S. military will protect the regime.

From that moment on, every country on earth needed dollars to buy energy.

That wasn’t free-market economics.

That was force-backed monetary policy.

Or, more honestly, a protection racket.

And it works — as long as the military can enforce it.

Watch what happens when countries challenge it.

Russia demands rubles for natural gas?

Sanctions. Escalation.

Syria discusses pipelines priced outside the dollar system?

Civil war intensifies. Pipeline never happens.

Iran tries to sell oil outside the dollar?

Decades of sanctions.

I’m not saying these are good governments or bad governments.

I’m saying watch what happens when anyone threatens the petrodollar system.

Once you see it, the pattern isn’t subtle.

SWIFT is not a neutral payment system.

It’s a weapon.

Get cut off from SWIFT, and you’re locked out of global trade.

Russia.

Iran.

Cuba.

Venezuela.

Different politics. Same outcome.

They don’t teach this in school because it’s uncomfortable.

We don’t send 18-year-olds to die for “freedom.”

We send them to protect reserve currency status.

Currency funds the military.

The military protects the currency.

That’s how empires work.

Britain learned this the hard way.

The British pound was the world’s reserve currency for nearly 200 years.

After World War II, Britain lost reserve status.

Within two decades, the British Empire collapsed.

Same cycle.

Dutch guilder.

British pound.

Now the U.S. dollar.

Ray Dalio has been warning about this for years.

Late-stage empire looks like this:

• Military overextension

• Rising debt

• Currency weakening

• Rivals building alternatives

China’s Belt and Road isn’t charity.

It’s about creating debt relationships denominated in yuan.

BRICS aren’t talking about alternatives because they’re friends.

They’re building an exit ramp from dollar dependence.

When the dollar loses reserve status — not if, when — the ability to print money without consequences disappears.

- Then the military contracts.

- Then the empire ends.

- You can call this cynical.

I call it financial history.

Every war in my lifetime had a currency angle — if you knew where to look.

“Freedom and democracy” is the marketing.

The actual policy documents talk about

“maintaining dollar liquidity in global energy markets.”

I’m not anti-military.

I’m anti-bullshit.

If we’re sending people to fight…

We should at least be honest about why.

The link to iraq and libya is something that there's definitely a knowledge divide. I mention these things outside USA and people are much more likely to know. Am in south Africa and I didnt mention it myself but was brought up by a chap in conversation yesterday. It's an american blind spot because many people outside understand the link, hate it and want the cycle of violence to stop

Random chats to many people on my wanders around south Africa, I think we should redefine politics as "the co-ordinated act of extraction from the productive sectors of society"

So many videos etc about health say "before you try this, discuss it with your healthcare provider" and yet most medical consultations now seem to be aimed at getting people out if the don't within 10 minutes. Where's the discussion potential? So hyper fiat

Ask if merchants accept bitcoin every time and more importantly, if they say yes, pay in bitcoin. Just takes everyone doing that. Also whilst paying, encourage merchants to offer discount, even if just the 3.5% they pay card companies