Commenter just asked me what I think about the fact that five countries are potentially now working on creating their own currency. Those countries are Brazil Russia India China and South Africa. There's a piece here that we can take a peek at in coin. Telegraph Mainstream media surprisingly is not covering this.

Uh, at least not yet. So let's take a peek at what we've got here. We've got this story that we want to cover and let's see where there we go there. We can show it all right.

so let's see what we've got. We've got a new world Order Could be emerging as an economic power, or as economic powerhouses increase their efforts to distance themselves from the U.S Hegemony. Ooh, remember, hegemony is a regional power. According to reports, a top Russian official has claimed that the Brics Alliance is working on creating its own currency.

You know? Okay, let's let me stop right there. This is my first time reading through this, but let me stop right there. First of all, uh, the bricks. You're talking about relatively small economies with the exception of China here.

Uh, and but India has a substantial potential of being a relatively large player in the future. But let's let's add these together so we can do this at the same time. But in the meantime, my initial reaction to this is this is probably Uh Russian propaganda I Hate to say it, but it's probably Russian propaganda. Uh, and if this is coming just from Russia, it's not going to be, in my opinion, that credible.

It's entirely possible that in the past, maybe in 2019 2021, maybe there was this idea that oh hey, we should all get together and create a currency. Okay, maybe, but I don't think this is coming up now. I Think the the financial stability risks are too high right now and there's too much tenuousness right now to actually care about creating some kind of new currency now. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is sort of a revived idea of when these countries maybe had officials together like hey, we should make our own currency.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea, you know. I I Think people immediately get very nervous about this idea of oh my gosh, what's that going to mean for the United States The reality is nothing like this has been done many times before. I mean consider when the Euro was created. Did that really change anything? No, if anything, some people say the Euro helped create the European crisis and actually reduce growth in Europe because they had a combined currency and you no longer had central banks in individual countries which could respond: I Mean consider consider what happened with Europe Uh, the Euro really went into prominence What somewhere around 2003 and uh, you had a massive, uh, austerity crisis around 2000 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 I Mean there wasn't even enough money to pay for trash service in Greece Why was that? Well, it was because Germany was progressing so well and their economy was holding up so strongly that the entire Eurozone was actually lifted up by Germany.

And so the Eurozone thought. Okay, well, let's put a lid on Germany. Let's lower the the strength of the strong countries Germany France right? Uh, And now if we put a lid on them and they have austerity, well, crap. We are also essentially implementing austerity to all of the other countries.

But then when you look at what is derogatorially called the pigs, Portugal Italy Greece Spain These are the highly indebted countries, at least were. when you look at these countries, you look and go. wait. Why are they supposed to go through austerity? They they need stimulus, not austerity.

And so what ended up happening was not only massive protests, but a really a fear that the Euro was going to collapse. So if anything, people believe that this experiment of the Euro and sort of a common currency was actually a greater mistake because it didn't give you that freedom to basically print and trade and swap like liquidity swap so to speak. Uh, as uh, as as freely as Banks would like to create more of a market equilibrium. The more you try to engineer currency.

Oftentimes the the less functional it ends up becoming. And that was really seen in Europe Uh, substantially. And then growth fell so much in Europe Uh. Whether that's uh, that's uh, causation or correlation is is you know to be argued and debated, But growth fell so much in Europe that you ended up with negative interest rates at the end of uh of the decade.

Uh, so right before the pandemic, right? But I Mean, look at, look at the countries that you're talking about here that are listed together. First of all, Russia is like a joke in terms of economic size. They act like they're equal to the United States, but their economy is is somewhere around the size of Brazil's and it's probably substantially weaker today. Given that, I'm going to give you rush economic strength as of as of 2021 was about 1.77 trillion dollars.

Honestly, that's probably down somewhere around 20 percent. They're probably around a 1.5 trillion dollar economy that's a fraction compared to the U.S Uh, GDP And look, even though we talk about recession, recession might be a reduction of what, maybe half of a percent or something. So we're still sitting in excess of 23 trillion dollars of an economy that makes our economy 15 times as large as Russia's 15 times as large as a Brazil's Which is part of this. You know how many times the larger uh, we are compared to South Africa 55 times? Yes, China might hold a candle to us, but China has its own problems.

Uh, fortunately, China isn't seeing inflation because they're not actually seeing this massive worker shortage. In fact, there are a lot of people with not enough money in China and so you're definitely still developing in many regards. In China India is is still somewhere around 1 8 the size 1 7 to 1 8 the size of we are. And yes, they're growing.

and yes, they have the potential of growing stronger. But when you consider Europe and the size of these economies am I really terribly concerned that oh, they might form today is some new currency. Who gives a crap? It really isn't going to make a difference. So I think a lot of this is probably just unnecessary fear-mongering that occurs.

Uh, and quite frankly I Made a video the other day because a lot of people now are talking about this idea of oh my gosh, the dollar is going to lose its Reserve status of the currency because it's going to no longer be used as the Petro dollar. Please just type into YouTube meet Kevin United States dollar China type that in and watch my video, the collapse of the dollar, the end of America on the rise of China And when you go through the video I think you'll realize this whole petrodollar and dollar crisis disaster is a historically something that's always been going on. and B not that big of a deal. Not that big of a deal at all.

It's It's a unlikely anytime in the near future, especially uh, before oil, in my opinion, becomes a lot less functional in our economy. But also this is quite quite quite silly. Look Mexico joining as well. Who cares? Like it? It doesn't? It doesn't matter.

Uh, it really. Then you have to also ask yourself. So first of all, we went through Europe Then we went through Petro Dollar. Now you have to ask yourself, who cares if they make their own joint currency? If anything, it's going to just cause the Euro problems.

But even if somehow they had their own currency? Big deal. Okay, Fantastic. Like congratulations, you have your own currency. Does that all of a sudden make your economy a lot stronger? No.

Is there an idea that? well, maybe people will want to buy this new currencies? uh, debt. And maybe there'll be a central bank to to moderate all of these countries. Now you have to ask yourself, do you really think China wants, uh, wants to lose control over the uh Bank of China uh and and basically relinquish monetary control to uh a shared voice with South Africa Brazil Russia India and maybe Mexico Of course not. It doesn't make any sense.

Like from a logical point of view, it makes little sense and then from a practical point of view, it makes little sense as well because of the Euro crisis. But then I mean even even the African states were considering creating a currency called the Afro. Look it up. That's not a joke.

After the Euros creation, there was a thought that African countries would get together and create the the Afro. It ended up falling apart and it was never. It was never launched. but uh, it really ultimately like okay, go have your common currency.

Does it really make that big of a difference? No, the entire currency is still going to be underwritten by the strength of the underlying economies. and even if in aggregate, somehow that common currency has a larger underlying economy than the United States Is the trust of that the same as the US dollar? No, and it won't be for a very long period of time because you still have to underrate right the risk of Russia going bankrupt and maybe 10 of your bonds becoming worthless. Uh, with with this combined break currency, right? So you still have to underwrite, you know it's like there's there's this famous I Don't know what they're saying if there's a saying to it. but there's this famous idea on Wall Street that when you take two mediocre companies or even two, you could even go as far as saying take two good companies and merge them, You end up with one mediocre company.

Usually mergers are not a good thing. you lose the innovativeness. uh, that originally came in and I think a lot of that would be true here as well. So so to me it's just once again, just a bunch of uh of nonsense and hogwash.

But we'll look at it anyway. according to reports the top Russian official. Again, the fact that Russia is claiming this is just a complete nonsense. But anyway.

uh and I'm not saying this is not potentially something that could happen at some point in the future, but I mean again I think I Made my argument Made the comments at the St Petersburg economic Forum event in India Whatever reportedly stressed the importance of both: Nations working together towards a new medium of payments. Well do keep in mind this a new medium of payments is different. uh, or or potentially different. I mean I Suppose you could have a some kind of currency system, but what you are seeing is this move away from Uh Swift to some extent.

Uh, China has its own Uh banking messaging system and platform uh called Cips, Sips and uh, that's that's been going on for years. I mean the larger these economies go, of course there's going to be competition to to Uh banking systems, but that's that's okay. That to some extent is also healthy. It keeps the United States innovating as well, right? You know? when you're when you're in the lead in a race and somebody's catching up to you, you start running faster.

He also said the currency could benefit from China and other brick members, not just the West right? I Doubt that the composition should not be based on inducting new monetary ties and establishing a strategy that does not defend the answer, but rather forms a new currency. blah blah blah shared objectives. Yeah, you all just want to grow. That's that's fine.

Russia would probably love this because then they'd have some currency stability. That's the other thing you have to keep in mind is if the source of this is Russia you know there's probably a reason the mainstream media isn't covering it because it's probably just Russian propaganda because Russia would love a stable Rupal that ruples down like 20 percent. Uh, it's it's uh, you know it's it's it's not good for their economy, so they would love to uh, you know, tie their anchor to to other countries. I mean Russia is essentially devastating their economy.

Really? I mean you have to consider that the individual who was arrested uh, who worked for the Wall Street Journal Uh, let's see. Russia economy that was. this is the last piece the uh Wall Street Journal reporter made before before he was arrested in uh, in Russia in Moscow I believe it was was the following and I think it's also worth looking at because it just gives you a little bit more of insight into how much should we really actually care about this? This Russian propaganda really. And there we go.

Let's throw up the coupon code while we're at it. Uh, that will. by the way, the price for that will be going up on April 12th, so that's in about 10 days. That's when CPI occurs Anyway, So what do we have here? Uh, let's see there I can expand it a little bit good.

The opening months of Russia's Invasion into Ukraine last year drove an increase in oil and natural gas prices that brought a windfall for Moscow. Those days are over as the war continues into its second year. in Western, sanctions bite harder. Russia's government revenue is being squeezed and its economy has shifted to a lower growth trajectory likely for the long term.

See, of course Russia's lashing out and the idea is, let's let's all create a currency together with countries that aren't falling apart like, uh, like Russia The country's biggest exports gas and oil have lost major customers. Government government finances are strained. The Rupal was down over 20 since November against the dollar. The labor force has shrunk as young people are sent to the front.

the warfront that is, or flee the country over fears of being drafted a lot of Russians by the way, fleeing to Finland which Finland is a potential NATO member. there's a train or I'm not sure if it's operational anymore I believe that goes from St Petersburg directly to Finland like a Non-Stop kind of train. Uncertainty has curved business investment. Yeah, no kidding.

Could you imagine being a business in Russia Right now, you just want to survive. Could you imagine trying to expand right now? Russia's economy is entering into a long-term regression that's even worse than recession. There's no sign the economic difficulties are bad enough to propose a short-term threat to Russia's ability to wage war. In other words, don't think there was going to end because of this.

but state revenue shortfalls suggests an intensifying dilemma over how to reconcile ballooning military expenditures with the subsidies and social spending that have helped. Vladimir Putin Shield civilians from hardship. In other words, at some point you're going to inflate away the value of your currency. Russian Billionaire blah blah Warned this month that Russia is running out of cash.

There will be no money Next year. We need foreign investors. Look at this so you hear you have a Russian billionaire and raw materials guy Commodities kind of guy. which the Commodities just are not surging the way people thought they would.

People thought as soon as China reopened, Commodities would surge. It's just not happening right now. Uh, but now what do we have this out of this here? Well, we have this indication that look the but you basically have a Wall Street Journal reporter who quoted a Russian billionaire saying Russia is running out of money and we need money. We need help and immediately after this gets arrested Evan Over here.

this was his last piece before he got arrested. I Mean basically the day after the story published, he was in handcuffs and in prison. The fact that he made Moscow a second home was mind-blowing to me, but then again, that's probably how he actually got the content for his stories. So I suppose it cuts both ways.

But anyway, having largely lost its European market next door and with other investors pulling out, Moscow is becoming ever more resilient on China See, look at this. they want that. I'm telling you what's What's the phrase I think there's a relation a relationship phrase. Hitch the wagon Moscow is trying to Hitch their Wagon on China because they're falling apart, threatening to realize long-simmering fears in Moscow of becoming an economic colony of its of its dominant Southern neighbor.

Despite Russia's resilience in the short term, the long-term picture is Bleak Moscow will be much more inward looking and overly dependent on China instead of senior fellow think tank in London Big part of the diminishing Outlook stems from a Bad Bet by Putin last year that he could use Russian energy supplies to limit Western Europe's support for Ukraine Oops. European Governments instead of tempering their support for Kiev moved rapidly to find new sources of natural gas and oil. You know what we really ought to do is build more nuclear power plants. That's a phenomenal energy source, but people are weenie babies about that because you know I don't want a power plant in my backyard I mean I get that? I wouldn't love an extra nuclear power plant either.

So I mean I can't blame that, but you got to build them somewhere. most Russian gas flows to Europe have stopped after initial jump Global gas prices have fallen sharply Moscow Now says it will cut oil production. You know what's funny and it shows you how worthless a Moscow's attempts to control the oil? Market are it seems like any time oil said or Moscow says they're going to cut oil production, Oil prices do nothing. In other words: I think Moscow thinks that the oil prices you know are going to Surge after they say well, we'll cut production and everybody's like whatever that's Russia being Russia I Really think that's almost how this this brick currency piece is is being understood.

It's just quite frankly it's Russia being Russia it's it's not that big of a deal. Uh now, uh, what is a big deal though As we continue with this story here is uh, the fact that you can get life insurance in as little as five minutes by going to Kevin.com Life and take a look at this Stream Yard which is the platform that I use to bring you my daily content every single day. For over the last two years I've been using Stream Yard to help me produce content and live stream to you. They are now a sponsor of the channel so you can go to Metcaven.com stream Yard learn more about them.

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As a result, the government's energy Revenue fell by nearly half in the first two months of this year compared to last year, with a budget deficit deepening the fiscal Gap ahead of 34 billion in the first two months. the equivalent of more than 1.5 percent of the country's total out economic output output is forcing Moscow to dip into the Sovereign wealth fund. Basically, they're liquidating money just to stay alive right now. We're not going to read this all word for word, but I Think the the obvious impact here is uh, we are.

Uh, we're looking at at Russia That's that's essentially lashing out uh, over the fact that their oil revenues are drying up. Here, You can see on the left side, oil and gas revenues drying up. The federal budget is negative. Retail trade Uh is is also under its its 100 base index, so you're down about six seven percent over here.

Fallen Exports tight labor market has increased government spending and worsening inflation risks. Russia's inflation was around 11 uh in February compared with February of last year. Uh, so so look. I mean you've you've got issues you've got.

Uh, we're that. Russian Billionaire who was interviewed was dreaming of competing with Uh Elon Musk SpaceX Yeah, Oops, Uh well and this goes sort of into a little bit more background on the Billionaire here. So but I think the point is this idea about this? this Brics currency or whatever. whatever man, bring it on.

But really I mean learn the less. study the Euro if you want to be cons and look I I I'm really simplifying this. I actually I spent years studying uh, the collapse of the Euro because that was that was a lot of what I had to write papers on in in college. uh and uh, you know I studied economics, accounting, political science at UCI Corporate Finance All these things.

and uh, the Euro was such a big subject at the time because while I was going to school, the crisis was occurring and uh, I you know we even visited Europe and studied it there. Uh, of course I was also born in Germany so visiting Europe is really fun. but um, but yeah, I think this is just nonsense I mean I appreciate it coming up and I think it's uh, it's it's good to talk about. but really, you know if somebody's gonna make Heaven the bricks are gonna replace the US dollars.

Stop worrying about it. if anything, I think it's just good ammunition for. But quite frankly, it doesn't surprise me that a lot of crypto papers are talking about it because the more fear there is that the dollar is going to lose its strength and that other countries are going to create their own currency. The first thing that happens is people start going well.

I Just made Crypto Gonna go up. Oh well, yeah, to some extent that that is kind of what it what happens now. One of the neat things about Bitcoin is it's actually been resting on 28 000 uh, 200-ish which is a pretty important threshold here so we'll see if BTC can hold. But you know after after we realize how much manipulation there potentially is from Binance, it makes me a little nervous.

but uh, that's not to say I'm not a big fan of longer term. what What blockchain could bring us? I think I've said for years, big fan of blockchain Technology Not so much of a fan of the order books yet and the order flows I Think they're still too easy to manipulate. So anyway, that is my thought on this Brix question again I appreciate you bringing it up I think it's wonderful I think you even donated money here to to bring that question. It was fantastic.

So hopefully this was, um, this was useful to you. What is this? Uh, 247 years ago the founders of the Us rebelled against the theft of money taxation by the Central Bank of England 137 years later the same owners of that of that's the whole thing. Look, uh, you know it's it's uh I I Think we've made our case here. Uh and uh and and uh.

We don't need to go through some of the arguments again here, but this is an interesting one though here. This uh, this comment here from Ronald Trust in Central Bank hasn't worked out for the average person. it's destined to fail. Well see: I would question where you are evaluating what people's trust is in, uh, in central banks And quite frankly, if you look at inflation expectations from the consumer, it certainly appears as though the consumer is not as terribly worried about the dollar as anybody in the finance Community seems to be.

It also seems like the average consumer doesn't actually feel like they're in a recession. Given that they're mostly spending through this recession, it seems like most people are just going on about their lives as usual, mostly because they probably built up enough financial strength during Covid that they can. So good for them so. But anyway, that is the end of our bricks segment and fun.