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Stunning stuff.  The end of the petrodollar is explained, incluiding it's history, meaning and importance to the American way of life.  March 20th was the trigger date, when Iran begqan accepting settlement payments for oil in non dollar denominations.  A currency basket backed by hard commodity ratios (gold :) is being used instead of the dollar.  China is now aggresively promoting the yuan as a gold backed alternative to the inflated dollar.  The tipping point will probably happen in June of 2012.  

As many know, i spent quite a bit of time working for a Chinese Company seeking to enter the USA-European software market.  My task was to research the market, discover and define a market opportunity, design the product, and then work as product manager to get that service to market.  I took this job to better understand the Chinese marketplace and how sovereign Chinese companies work.  What i learned is how the Chinese seek to exploit and totally dominate open markets.  Software is just a category whose time has come.  and there are thousands of Chinese companies lining up.  The first step though is to fine tune the existing blueprint used by other Sina sovereigns.  amazing stuff. My take away from this experience is that the USA MUST set up a 30% tariff on ALL imports, and do so IMMEDIATELY!!!  Yesterday is not soon enough! As a newly minted libertarian, i wondered about the obvious conflict with Austrian Economics and their dedication to free markets and free trade?  I found the answer at this Libertarian forum, where many members were in heated discussion.  Comment #7 sums it up best i think.  Including a link to Ron Paul's Tariff-NAFTA speech. The thing is, the 30% Tariff should be part of an overall TAX REDUCTION PLAN.  I support the FAIR TAX and the Balanced Budget Amendment.  As an alternative to the Fair Tax, I would also support a 17% flat tax with no exceptions.  The ideal situation being an immediate, uncompromising, no exceptions 30% tariff on ALL imports coupled with the Fair Tax and the Balanced Budget Amendment.   And yes, i do believe this plan is consistent with the Founding Fathers Constitution.  But it took some kind of research to establish that opinion.   I've also concluded that "conservatism" is a convenient philosophical vehicle for the corrupt crony corporatism of both the military-industrial-complex, banksters and, international corporations.  Free trade and open markets concepts are perverted to become a thin veil

The established New York credit agencies would play a strategic role in this post-1971 dollar system. During the 1970's the US Government's Securities & Exchange Commission, charged with oversight of bond and stock markets, issued a ruling giving the then-dominant New York credit rating agencies-Moody's and Standard & Poor's (and later Fitch Ratings)-a de facto guaranteed monopoly in an unregulated market, when they ruled that only "Nationally Recognized Statistical Rating Organizations" would be qualified to issue appropriate ratings, i.e. only Moody's and S&P. Corruption was made endemic to the US ratings game and Washington was party to the dirty deal. By the end of the 1970's, using the vast amount of OPEC "petro-dollars" from the two oil price shocks in 1973 and 1979, New York international banks, using London, began to loan to the rest of the world to finance imports of oil and other essentials. The New York credit rating agencies, previously primarily rating US corporate bonds, expanded into the new foreign debt markets as the largest and only established rating agencies in the new phase of dollarization and globalization of capital markets. They set up branches in Germany, France, Japan, Mexico, Argentina and other emerging markets much like the US Big Five accounting firms. During the 1980s the rating agencies played a key role in down-rating the debt of the Latin American debtor countries such as Mexico and Argentina. Their ratings determined if the debtor countries could borrow or not. Financial market insiders in London and New York openly spoke of the "political" rating agencies using their de facto monopoly to advance the agenda of Wall Street and the Dollar System behind it. Then in the 1990's, the New York rating agencies played a decisive role in spreading the "Asia Crisis" of 1997-98. With the precise timing of its downgrades they could worsen the panic because they had been suspiciously silent right up un

From my ongoing monitoring of news in the Mid-East, this article accurately summarizes the situation in Syria, except for involvement of the Russians on the side of Syria's established government. A fairly large portion of the Russian Navy is now positioned within Syrian ports and Russian ground to air missile systems are positioned around the country, serving as a strong deterrent to Libya-style U.S.-British air support for the "rebel" forces that largely consist of Jihadi foreigners. But U.S. mainstream media continues to falsely paint the situation in Syria as one in which the established Syrian government stands on the precipice of a just military defeat by oppressed native Syrian rebels. For the most part, one must go to foreign news sources to arrive at something closer to the truth, an invasion of Syria instigated and supplied by the U.S., the U.K., Turkey, the Sunni Arab states of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, and Israel. Syria, a member of a small bloc of nations supportive of Iran, is being used in a surrogate war against Iran, which dares to require payment for its oil exports in gold, silver, or currencies more stable that the U.S. dollar.   

The follies of an empire in decline that still imagines itself the master of the planet. 

Highlighted statements are scattered and buried deep in an article mostly about new accusations against Russia. Coup government President Poroshenko's statement that he is working toward a peace roadmap represents an abrupt departure from that government's stance since it began its invasion of separatist-held territory in eastern Ukraine, that only the unconditional surrender of the separatists could halt the coup government's attack. Lying behind that statement (from other reports) is the fact that the tide of battle has turned sharply; the coup government's mostly-conscript army forces are variously surrounded or retreating as the separatists gain the upper hand. Moreover, nearly all of the coup government attack airplanes and helicopters have been destroyed by separatist MANPAD shoulder-fired ground-to-air missiles.  On coup government Prime Minister Yatseniuk's expressed need for "'practical help' and 'momentous decisions' from NATO at an alliance summit next month," I'd love to be a fly on wall during that meeting if the coup government's military situation continues to deteriorate. The U.S. is the only NATO member that wants further confrontation in Ukraine. Notwithstanding U.S. rhetoric threatening military action against Russia, it's doubtful that any military officers holding the rank needed to attend that NATO meeting would support NATO action against Russia so close to its own backyard. Russia has nukes aplenty, so it comes down to the ability to win a conventional war against Russia in Russia and the Ukraine. Far easier said than done, as both Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolph Hitler learned the hard way. Russia remains the nation with the second post powerful military in the world and would be playing on the home court with the ferocity of the Russian Bear. The U.S. would bring the most powerful force, both augmented and semi-crippled by taking the lead among reluctant NATO nation military forces. All to protect the U.S. dollar's dwindling purchasing powe

I give a lot of credibility to this article's author when it comes to matters involving the oil market. Remember when reading that the only thing propping up the U.S. dollar is the Saudi (later extended to all OPEC nations) insistence that they be paid for their oil and natural gas in U.S. dollars, which creates artificial demand for the dollar globally. If the Gulf Coast States begin accepting payment in rubles or yuan, it is curtains for the U.S. dollar in global markets.  

Exodus from the dollar continues.