Combining the “Roman Republic” and the “Roman Empire,” they had a good run of almost 1,000 years. It is the Empire that gets all the publicity as the Republic spent most of the time subduing the locals into what became the Empire.
For the first 200 years—until about 175 AD—of the Empire it was all Pax Romana. Then things started deteriorating. You might think that the fall of the Roman Empire was all about invading barbarians and that was a part of it. Actually, though, ancient Rome ended with a whimper and not a bang.
At the height of the empire, Rome’s population was 450,000 and probably higher. At the end, the population had fallen to less than 30,000. The surrounding farms were emptied out, the soldiers left to become mercenaries, and business closed up shop. They killed a city because the government “killed” the money.
In 180 AD Roman coins contained four grams of silver and by 260 AD—80 years later—there was almost no silver in the coins. By 286 AD the capital of what was left of the Empire moved to Mediolanum, the ancient city where Milan now stands.
The “why” of the monetary debasement is another story, but the results were the same as now. When the money loses value, confidence in government disappears, leading to economic ruin. However, the difference is now the government can create money through “artificial” borrowing, artificial in the sense that the debt is never paid back in full. It’s all good.
But this new system requires that everybody play the same game. In ancient Rome, people could move someplace else where the money still contained viable amounts of silver. The same is not true today. When US President Franklin Roosevelt changed the dollar value of gold, everyone had to go along and all currencies went with the flow. The same was true when Nixon stopped converting dollars to gold, although everybody else beat him to that policy leaving the US with no other choice.
Often something comes along that upsets the system, and that is now Russia and the Russians being cut out of the global economic system.
We have been talking about the “Death Of The Dollar” for decades. It has not happened because The Dollar replaced gold as the global “reserve currency.” Currency is no longer backed by a hard asset but by the debt of the nation that issues the currency, and the US had and still has the overall strongest economy in terms of the balanced factors of size, growth, and political stability.
This is how a “reserve currency” operates. In 1900, you could buy a top-quality suit of clothes for one ounce of gold in New York, London, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Bombay, Shanghai, and Tokyo. Due to variations in the local economies, included in the price might also be shoes, hat, and a night at the local cabaret. But gold as the US dollar is now, was universally accepted and held approximately the same value across the continents.
“Yuan jumps after report Saudis consider its use in oil deals” is fine for bilateral trade. But notice “Yuan jumps.” Where did “yuan jump?” Against the US dollar.
How many bitcoins to buy a suit in New York, London, Berlin, Vienna, St. Petersburg, Bombay, Shanghai, and Tokyo today? You first have to check the BTC exchange rate to the United States Dollar, the currency of the land of the free and the home of the brave…and the global reserve currency no matter how much Saudi-China yuan trade.
It is going to change eventually as governments led by the US debase their currencies not by reducing the amount of silver in the coins but by “debasing” the debt, which backs currencies.
All the babble about economic sanctions against Russia centers only on one thing. Get Russia to default on its debt. Do you think that stealing a billionaire Russian’s mega-yacht means anything? That is feel-good nonsense for the public fools, the sheeple. But get the default and Mother Russia’s currency becomes worthless.
However, read these headlines. “January 31, 2019: Central banks bought a net $27bn worth of gold last year (2018), driven by Russia, whose net purchases were the highest on record.” “July 21, 2020: Turkey scrambles for gold, overtaking Russia as top buyer.” “India spends record $55.7 bln on gold imports in 2021.”
“March 8, 2022: Are we heading for World War Three?” WW3 started a couple of years ago. They just didn’t tell you.
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