Setting aside the goldbuggery, the real value in gold is that it can't be easily sanctioned.

So, Russian gold reserves (the fifth largest in the world) have allowed the country to continue trading internationally (particularly with Indian and China) on credit, despite being cut out of the SWIFT banking system in Europe. And gold reserves in countries like Libya, Syria, and Iraq allowed their respective dictators to do business with European private interests despite heavy sanctions from the European host countries.

But also, its a physical asset that cannot be easily transferred. So you end up with the problem Venezuela's Maduro had when they trusted £1.4bn in gold bullion to the Bank of England only for the bank to effectively steal it.

On the flip side, Libya and Syria and Iraq were all toppled by foreign invasion. And their large gold reserves became a lucrative pay-off to the private interests of the incoming militaries, as well as a fungible tool for the cartels and gangs that would come to dominate these countries after the central government's collapse. Effectively, these large reserves became the bounty for their leadership's decapitation.

So... there's a double-edge to large gold reserves, both held domestically and abroad.

The us has lost all credibility to me, and a lot of others here in the UK. Only the idiots, the corrupt, and the sycophants seem to still believe in it.

In 2015ish I was all "Hey, usa peeps. I require your TV entertainment. Your movies. And some of your fast foods. A bit of the Google, and a bit of the Amazon."
In 2016ish I was all "Are you seriously going to elect this idiot? Wow. Ok, usa peeps, I require your movies, a bit of Google and Amazon."
By 2019ish to 2023-24 I was all "Hey, usa peeps, I use Google when I have to but you shove everything else up your arse. Oh, and, FFS, jail that slimy child raping orange, traitorous, convicted criminal piece of shit. For god's sake. Christ!"
In 2025 I was all "ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING, electing that kiddie fiddling thing for the first term was almost forgivable, almost. But you've got no excuse this time. None whatsofuckingever. I want nothing from you. NOTHING. Until you actually make the obese cunt feel consequences I want nothing. And if you don't do something then I'll remember what has happened for the rest of my life. And you'll never be forgiven. Ever."

I actively won't use anything from the us now.
And, you know what, by the many conversations I've had I'm not the only one who hates what's going on. I've only ever met one person who actually supports Donvict Drumpf here. And that person is the local towns' gossip hound and blatant racist...that everyone tries not to talk to.

Cause we are fucking nuts!

Is this what state-collapse looks like?

Part of this is deliberate. Scott Bessant'a background is as a currency trader and his plan is to devalue the dollar to inflate away the gargantuan national debt while making exports cheaper.

There has been a spike in short term debt issuance by the Treasury and tariffs are raising import prices to encourage domestic producers while making exports cheaper by bringing down the value of the USD.

Its a high stakes gamble and it doesn't look like its working.

This is exactly where the US is weakest and where we'll be hurt the most. If the value of the dollar drops significantly and/or the market for Treasury Bonds collapses, the US is FUCKED.

I’ve lost all faith in economy ‘experts’ ever since they pulled the “well the US=Rome and have to do something they are in debt and everyone needs to work and bring jobs back to the US and stop being so codependent that is THE entire problem here” and these so called experts failed on the fundamental understanding of how trade debt works and how insubstantial of a factor it was to how the dollar value is affected by treasury and borrowing during that first round of tariffs.

Putin loves watching a little more chaos.

Either Americans start doing something to save what is their country, or where I live, we could be possibly forced to learn how to speak in Mandarin, as already we import more Chinese goods and thus we are still so much under Xi's thumb.

The thing is that the Dollar needs to lose credibility to weaken Trump. He can just print arbitrary amounts of money; this needs to end. Fiat currency needs to end. There should be sth like a gold standard again.

Let the heists resume!

Maybe one day, we sit together and decide on a world currency. But not today.