Global Economic Meltdown Looms

There were big smiles on Australian TVs last night as finance gurus enthused that the Aussie dollars was at a 17-year high against the US dollar. Why are these idiots smiling? The coming (and now inevitable) Doomsday for the Greenback will not be pleasant for anyone:

It is impossible to fully anticipate the effects of the falling dollar. The dollar is a currency unlike any other and it is the cornerstone of American power—political, economic and military. As the internationally-accepted reserve currency, it allows the Federal Reserve to control the global economic system by creating credit out of “thin air” and using fiat-scrip in the purchase of valuable manufactured goods and resources. This puts an unelected body of private bankers in charge of setting interest rates which directly affect the entire world.

Iraq has proven that the US military can no longer enforce dollar-hegemony through force of arms. New alliances are forming that are reshaping the geopolitical landscape and signal the emergence of a multi-polar world. The decline of the superpower-model can be directly attributed to the denominating of vital resources and commodities in foreign currencies. America is simply losing its grip on the sources of energy upon which all industrial economies depend. Iraq is the tipping point for America’s global dominance.

When foreign central banks abandon the greenback the present system will unwind and the “unitary” model of world order will abruptly end.

The only positive that will come of all this is an opportunity to change how the system works, remove the Big Money power-brokers from the political process, and create a more equitable system of global wealth. What are the chances that we, the people of this Earth, will seize that opportunity? Even as our entire planet overheats, human greed, fear and hatred are most likely going to dominate the post-crash landscape.

How bad will it get? How does this sound:

Grown men will weep and cry: "I'm sorry, kids, it wasn't meant to be like this!" Lifetimes of corporate servitude will be flushed away as homes are repossessed and middle class families are reduced to begging. Men with guns will roam the streets. Bizarre religious cults will flourish. Gangs will spring up among the homeless. Today's anarchy on the streets of Baghdad will be the model for Australian cities tomorrow.

Couldn't happen here? Let's wait and see...

UPDATE: The IMF - that prestigious body in the grip of US and European power elites - says everything is going great, although... um... perhaps not for the USA. Of course, they would say that, wouldn't they?

Under US and European domination since its inception towards the end of World War II, the IMF has traditionally been a lender of last resort to countries embroiled in financial crisis.

But 10 years after crisis swept through East Asian economies, the IMF is seen as barely relevant to fast-emerging powers like China...

"They’re rearranging the deckchairs on the Titanic," said Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, who argued that the IMF faces an inexorable loss of power.

"This is an institution that’s been controlled by the US for 60 years. They’re not going to give that up," he said.

Talk of an Asian monetary fund has revived, while Latin American countries are pressing ahead with their own multilateral lending initiative.

Meanwhile, a slew of countries like Argentina and Brazil have been paying off their IMF debts early, eager to escape the Washington institution’s economic tutelage.

And with world financial markets awash in private capital, all but the poorest countries have easy access to other sources of cash, a headache also for the IMF’s sister body, the World Bank.

Meanwhile Paul Wolfowitz is doing a heckuva job reforming that other noble pillar of international finance, the World Bank. Witness this:

Yesterday, bank staffers were stunned to see on their internal e-mail "kiosk" a blogger reporting that Wolfowitz's two aides, Robin Cleveland and Kevin Kellems, earn net salaries of about $250,000 and $240,000, respectively.

"What remains of the utmost importance to me," Wolfowitz wrote in his e-mail, "is the protection of the interests of this institution as a whole, and our need to remain focused on our agenda of helping the world's poor."

And this:

"How can the WB talk about governance when its president broke international legality with the Iraq war?" asked Mexican officials during a consultation process late last year, according to documents posted on the bank Web site.

Yes folks, it's true: the global economy is in the hands of self-deluding ideological fools like this, and we are heading over the frikkin' brink without a paddle, and the mainstream media and your government are all in cahoots with it, and nobody - nobody! - has any credibility left at all.

Except me, of course.

UPDATE: Bring on The Great American Catalyzing Event!!!