What is it with the Fed raising IRs?

[Will!]

On 27/12/2018 at 23:05, Sour Mash said:

I agree that from a purely financial point of view there's not that much pressure on the dollar  - However, there has been a lot of talk of de-dollarisation from non-Western countries after the US has repeatedly 'pushed the nuclear button' and overtly used the dollar as a blunt political tool.

It's becoming pretty clear to just about any national government outside the Western alliance that by transacting in dollars you are a) Reinforcing US Global hegemony by essentially creating demand for dollars that the Fed can and will print as it sees fit    and     b) Leaving yourself wide open to US economic pressure if you don't bend the knee.

 

All this is going to make the dollar shakier and shakier over the mid term future.

Financial Times: Russia ditched dollar holdings to foil US sanctions

[zugzwang]

5 hours ago, Will! said:

Financial Times: Russia ditched dollar holdings to foil US sanctions

And on similar lines, I don't think the creation of INSTEX has been mentioned on HPC before. A rare instance of the shadow banking system working for the public good.

INSTEX is the new exchange created by UK, France, and Germany, to be based in Paris and run by a German banker, to get around US sanctions against Iran.  Apparently it will sell Iran humanitarian goods such as pharmacueticaals and food not subject to the sanctions, with those being paid for with Iranian petroleum that will then get sold elsewhere, none of this involving any US dollars.  It is probably too small to threaten the dominance of the international SWIFT bank exchange system, but this does open up the possibility for nations to avoid US limits on their international financial transactions, with the US having used the SWIFT system in the past to crack down on unfavoured nations.

https://sputniknews.com/business/201902011072017622-instex-spv-need-to-know/