Will Gold replace the Petrodollar?

For decades, foreign nations have tried to get away from the dollar. They disliked America’s financial dominance by holding the world’s reserve currency. The dollar has its great dominance in the oil market. The petrodollar system is essentially the global practice of exchanging oil for US dollars rather than any other currency. This means that no matter what country is buying the oil, they pay the oil-producing country in petrodollars, which are denominated in US dollars.

The dollar-based system survives on trust. People know it’s not going to lose any major value in a short period of time. Because there are so many dollars in circulation, traders can move huge mountains of cash in various transactions in a matter of seconds. In 2018, the average total volume of treasury securities traded per day was over 547 billion US dollars. A dealer in France can get a dollar-based loan and buy $200 million worth of steel out of Australia.

China has tried to convince the world that its renminbi would make a good replacement for the dollar. President Xi traveled the world, making one trade agreement after another that promised both nations would use their own currency for trade. Nothing happened because few people trust a currency that is completely controlled by the Chinese government. If a financial crisis occurred in China that caused the value of the renminbi to collapse, holders of the currency would suffer major losses.

A key driving force in why nations wanted to get away from the dollar is the American practice of using it as a weapon against other nations. Since 1990, the use of sanctions by the United States significantly increased, and since 1998, the United States has established economic sanctions on more than 20 countries.

The Russians had their bank accounts locked up because of their invasion of Ukraine. It’s not just thugs and dictators that have to toe the line with American policy. Banks in Switzerland long had a history of secrecy with money. Uncle Sam said open your accounts so we can look for American tax dodgers, or we will kick out the dollar trade system. Switzerland had no choice but to comply.

In many Latin American nations, it is very hard to open a bank account. The Fed assumes that anyone who sends money south of the border is dealing in drugs. You are a criminal until proven innocent. Many of the laws that were established after 9/11 have motivated the US government to stick its nose into everyone’s personal business.

Another motivation for a dollar replacement is the massive national debt and trade deficit the US has with the rest of the world. Our current debt has reached $31.4 trillion, which was only $13 trillion in 2010. Our trade deficit is equally out of control. Each month foreign countries ship us $100 billion more in Goods  than we ship to them.

International bankers are increasingly coming to the conclusion that a gold-based system is the only way to wrestle control from America and put the US on a financial diet. Gold has no counterparty risk. If a nation has a ton of gold in a bank, there is no one in Washington who can press a button and make it worthless.

No rich nation should ever allow gold to leave its border. When you read about countries selling off their reserves, it’s because they’re in a state of economic collapse. What allows a nation to retain its gold is a financial system that makes gold transactions on a fractional reserve system, the same way the dollar operates. A nation may have gold worth on the market $10 billion, but it can back a banking system of $100 billion.

If a nation suffers high inflation, the citizens can be protected by the value of gold soaring in price. India has suffered many financial calamities over the years. Millions survived the hardship by having their core assets in gold.

One overhanging reason why we need a financial system is related to what happened during the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The world had a massive meltdown with losses reaching, in one report, $26 trillion. The Federal Reserve is the only entity that could produce dollars, so it made good all these losses. A little over a decade later, the world is right back to those same levels of derivative and leverage.

I don’t know what role the Antichrist would play in a gold reserve system. Since he will be the man with all the answers, he may introduce several of its key components.

“Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them on the day of the wrath of the LORD. In the fire of his jealousy, all the earth shall be consumed; for a full and sudden end he will make of all the inhabitants of the earth” (Zephaniah 1:18).

–Todd

Nearing Midnight and the Doomsday Clock

Jesus set Heaven’s end times clock, foretelling when the second hand of eternity will reach near the midnight hour for the inhabitants of planet Earth. He did so by giving God’s heavenly family the assurance that we will be snatched up before that time; we will be rescued from this planet of rebels doomed to suffer His righteous wrath and judgment.

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh” (Luke 21:28).

The phrase “these things” refers to the issues and events of prophetic significance that have long since begun to “come to pass.”

Todd Strandberg, founder of Raptureready.com, and I have for decades written our commentaries on “these things” for the “Nearing Midnight” section of this website. We have tried, in effect, to show the progress toward that midnight hour. We’ve presented what we believe is not a “doomsday clock” but a heavenly horizon marquee announcing the great event that all who believe in Jesus Christ for salvation are swiftly approaching.

It is more than intriguing that, while we look at all the wickedness being done by the evil men and seducers who are growing worse and worse, secular watchers of mankind’s nearness to the same midnight hour perceive that time is almost up.

Such came starkly into view with the most recent setting by the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist Doomsday Clock” watchdogs:

A panel of international scientists has warned that humanity’s continued existence is at greater risk than ever before, largely as a result of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists set its Doomsday Clock at 90 seconds to midnight, the closest to midnight the clock has been since it was established in 1947 to illustrate global existential threats at the dawn of the nuclear weapons age.

Rachel Bronson, the president and CEO of the Bulletin, said the clock had been moved forward from 100 seconds to midnight, where it had been for the previous three years, “largely, though not exclusively, because of the mounting dangers in the war in Ukraine.”

“We are living in a time of unprecedented danger, and the Doomsday Clock time reflects that reality. Ninety seconds to midnight is the closest the clock has ever been set to midnight, and it’s a decision our experts do not take lightly.” (“Doomsday Clock at record 90 seconds to midnight amid Ukraine crisis” | World news | The Guardian)

The secular doomsday clock watchers hope that, by posting the warnings of impending nuclear war and other catastrophes, they can somehow avert reaching that midnight hour they so fear. This is what, for example, those who believe they can institute the so-called Great Reset believe they, in their god-like confidence in their own ability, can accomplish.

But there is one thing and one thing only that can help mankind avoid the coming judgment and wrath of that midnight hour. That is repentance and turning to the Lord Jesus Christ, who came to die as a sacrifice for the sin into which humankind has been born since the fall in Eden’s garden.

God has set the doomsday clock, and His second hand hasn’t stopped moving toward that midnight moment. My own belief, along with many of God’s watchers on the wall of Bible prophecy, is that clock’s second hand is much closer to the 12 than the 90 seconds away the authorities of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists recently placed their second hand.

The people of earth are on the cusp of being thrust into that midnight hour. You don’t want to be one who is left behind to suffer that time of horror Jesus Himself said will be the worst of all human history (Mathew 24:21).

Here is how to avoid that fate and instead go to be kept within the safe harbor of Jesus Christ when He calls all believers to Himself.

“That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved. For with the heart man believeth unto righteousness; and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Romans 10:9-10).

–Terry