Comment by anon84873628
1 day ago
Until you can buy oil without dollars. This was an explicit agreement called the Petrodollar system, which was premised on the US navy securing international trade. If the US navy proves unable to do that (and exhausts its arms and demonstrates unpreparedness for future conflicts) then the whole premise falls apart.
You might also stop buying real estate if the government seems unstable and economy is poised to collapse. Good soybeans also depend on fuel prices and the continued flow of fertilizer...
"$20 Billion Oil Deals Paid in Chinese Yuan, US Dollar Left Out"
https://watcher.guru/news/20-billion-oil-deals-paid-in-chine...
"China and Saudi Arabia Settle First Oil Trade Using Digital Yuan"
https://www.economywatch.com/china-and-saudi-arabia-settle-f...
Or until you don't need to buy oil at all. China has reduced its consumption by 1.5M barrels/day this year alone.
To nitpick, much of that is probably due to halting refining for export and drawing down reserves. But of course the point stands that they are rapidly electrifying and expanding renewable generation.
Oil will only become more and more volatile. The supply chain is both complex and fragile to geopolitical nonsense. China is betting on stability and reliability, environmental concerns is just a bonus.
Also tons and tons of coal. Hopefully just a stopgap.
7 replies →
This isn’t true. You can buy oil with other currencies. It’s just that dollars are liquid. No pun intended.
Until you find a more thrustworthy stewart of the international order. Everyone yells loudly about how bad the us is, but then you realize that the whole world voted with there feet that every other alternative is worse. The russians tried for years to write some replacement fiction into reality (BRICS) even though they would be the first to get shanked if the old great game returned. Its a absurd situation where empire cosplayers long for the times of "greatness" while struggling on even small "to real" acts ..
China is "trustworthy" in the sense that they have obvious, rational, consistent motivations and very stable government.
China's government is "very stable" until it's not. As a society, China has a long history but the central government has essentially collapsed or experienced violent revolution in 1976, 1969, 1949, 1927, 1911, 1850, 1796, 1644, etc. Perhaps we have reached "the end of history" and the Chinese Communist Party will now maintain stable control forever. Or maybe it will all fall apart again in a few decades due to resource shortages or factional power struggles or a foreign war.
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> Everyone yells loudly about how bad the us is, but then you realize that the whole world voted with there feet that every other alternative is worse.
The main problem right now is that the US are not the US for which we voted with our feet. They are a worse alternative to the US that created the status quo (to their advantage obviously, but much of the world also benefitted from free trade and the lack of other world wars).
Are we talking about Russia or the US in that last sentence, or is the ambiguity the point?