Posts by James G. Rickards
Will Putin Destroy The Dollar While He’s Trying To Destroy Ukraine?
The headlines are full of stories about the financial war going on between the U.S. and Russia alongside the shooting war in Ukraine. U.S. financial sanctions imposed on Russia are extreme and have no doubt caused serious damage to the Russian economy and the global economy. These sanctions are likely to last long after the…
Read MoreFirst Comes A Russian War, Then North Korean Missiles. Is Iran Next?
The War in Ukraine is dominating the headlines, but it’s far from the only international security crisis underway. China has made longstanding threats to non-Chinese vessels in the South China Sea and to nations that share the sea with China. Obviously, Chairman Xi of China has repeatedly claimed that Taiwan is part of China and…
Read MoreGlobal Supply Chain Snafus Just Got Worse.
The global supply chain crisis was underway well before the War in Ukraine. In some respects, it can be traced to the beginning of the trade war under Donald Trump in January 2018. As Trump imposed tariffs aimed at China, the Chinese retaliated with tariffs of their own. Tariffs raise costs to suppliers and end-users,…
Read MoreIf Russia Pays Its Debt In Rubles, Is It Still A Default?
Among the many economic sanctions imposed on Russia by the U.S. is a ban on dollar payments through the global payments system and a freeze on the assets of the Central Bank of Russia. That sounds draconian (it is) and possibly even effective (it isn’t), but it begs the question of who bears the loss.…
Read MoreParty Like It’s 1998. Russia Will Default Again. Remember The Last Time?
We’ve all followed the cascade of financial and economic sanctions the U.S. and its allies have piled upon Russia in the past two weeks. The assets of the Central Bank of Russia (about $600 billion) have been frozen. Major Russian banks have all been kicked out of the global financial telecommunications system called SWIFT. High-tech…
Read MoreDeconstructing the ‘sanction war’ between Russia and the US
Click here for the Fox Business interview. Signs of looming financial damage are becoming apparent at many of the world’s biggest money managers, including BlackRock Inc. and Pacific Investment Management Co. But it’s not likely to be limited to these giant funds. Because much of Russia’s debt was rated investment grade just weeks ago, the securities were…
Read MoreBiden’s New Order Moves Us One Step Closer To The End Of The Dollar
In 2009, I facilitated and participated in the first-ever financial war game hosted by the Pentagon. This war game was conducted at the top-secret Warfare Analysis Laboratory of the United States (code name: WALRUS) located in the Applied Physics Laboratory about halfway between Washington DC and Baltimore. I wrote about this in 2011 in Chapters…
Read MoreThe First Big Victim Of Russia-U.S. Financial Warfare Is In … China.
Looking at the multi-dimensional battlespace in the Russian-Ukraine War (including kinetic, cyber, economic, and resource-related), we see mostly losers and no immediate winners. Ukraine’s infrastructure is being ruined, its military degraded, and its civilian population is suffering tragically. Russian citizens are being economically deprived – its economy will probably shrink 25% in the first half…
Read MoreCongress Wants To Freeze Russian Gold. Good Luck Freezing The Physical.
The War in Ukraine is the result of Ukrainian President Zelensky’s refusal to rule out NATO membership for Ukraine, and President Putin’s refusal to accept anything less. We are faced with the irony and tragic consequences of two non-NATO members fighting a war over … NATO. Both have blood on their hands. Still, the biggest…
Read MoreThe Sanctions Have Been Imposed. Now The Workarounds Begin.
The U.S. and its allies in the EU, and others around the world have imposed the harshest economic sanctions on Russia that have ever been used. Russia has been kicked out of the SWIFT global financial telecommunications system. A long list of Russian banks, oligarchs, and major companies have been listed among those who cannot…
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