Roundtable Discussion: Currency Wars

Sanctions as Weapons

Russia’s war on Ukraine has kicked off a financial ‘world war’ / ‘cold war’ with one side being the “allies” of US, Europe, Japan and other nations putting on all sorts of sanctions that are US dollar and Euro based. Then on the other side you have “the axis” of Russia, and to a lesser extent China, Syria, Iran and North Korea. Russia formally asked China for financial and military assistance this week.

Then to complicate things, the OPEC nations are more aligned with Russia than the USA, because of the Biden administration’s “green” war on fossil fuels. So, Saudi Arabia and the UAE are not backing the sanctions, and they are not pumping more oil at the administration’s request. Furthermore, they are unhappy with the Biden administration’s big push to resign the Iranian nuclear deal, which those same countries are at war against Iran via the Yemeni civil war Houthi rebels (Iranian backed).

This is all critically important, because of the power of Petro Dollars, whereby the USD has dominated the settlement/payment of the global oil and gas markets. Critically, in 1973/4 the US promised to defend Saudi Arabia (and later other OPEC nations) militarily in exchange for imported oil and that the settlement currency for all nations would be in dollars. This coupled with the Saudi promise to invest excess proceeds for oil sales in US treasury bills, notes and bonds (US Debt).

Now all bets are off, as this week Saudi Arabia put a “shot across the bow” of the Biden administration by moving toward doing a “new deal” with China for oil exports that is settled in Yuan, which would be unprecedented.

Crypto and CBDCs

The next dimension of the currency wars is the “space race” for crypto and central bank digital currencies.

U.S. Roadmap to Digital Currency

There are proposals on the table that would not only create a digital dollar, but also create individual accounts with the Federal Reserve. This is a new level of dependency on the Federal Reserve bank and its computer systems. This also would disintermediate many functions of local banks, credit unions, coop banks, and thrifts.

Federal Reserve: Money and Payments: The U.S.Dollar in the Age of Digital Transformation (January 2022)

We first discussed the Fed studying digital dollars back in 2020 in the Crypto Currency discussion

Treasury: Executive Order on Ensuring Responsible Development of Digital Assets (March 10th)

One of the critical aspects of both are how payment systems of the world work. Crypto mainly relies on digital wallets for accessibility, which are regulated by the central banks as they interface between the banking system and the crypto world. This became apparent in the Canadian state of emergency where they froze the Trucker’s digital wallets which effectively locked-up any access to their crypto.

The Storehouse Imperative

All of this points to the “new world” which we are financially and technically entering into. With “Babylon” imposing more and more sanctions and controls, and with more conflict coming on the earth, coupled with more scarcity and inflation – we The Church need wisdom and Godly solutions. Both to sustain us, and to provide refuge in a storm to those who do not yet believe. We find the answers in the bible, and as reflected in the new wineskin of the Storehouse vision and the New Breed approach of heavenly supply lines.