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Malaysia to Join BRICS

(www.aljazeera.com)
79 points eatonphil | 2 comments | | HN request time: 0s | source
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whatever1 ◴[] No.40716387[source]
checks USD exchange rates

Yep it's still the only currency that matters.

Checks Indian-Chinese relations

Yep they still have effective visa bans against each other.

So what is this BRICS club exactly? A dictionary club?

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krmboya ◴[] No.40716428[source]
> Yep it's still the only currency that matters.

That's what the US govt thought when it sanctioned Russia. It only resulted in Russia falling back to their local currency without any significant problems, while making the rest of the world wary of reliance on the US dollar

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chipdart ◴[] No.40716620[source]
> That's what the US govt thought when it sanctioned Russia. It only resulted in Russia falling back to their local currency without any significant problems, while making the rest of the world wary of reliance on the US dollar

I think you're trying to spin reality into a far rosier picture.

Russia is now bounded to do international trade with any currency other than the ruble, and it is famously piling on a huge trade deficit with India while stockpiling rupees without any way of exchanging them for anything. You're talking about a scenario that not even Russia is able to use Russia's currency in direct trades with other BRICS members.

What does this tell you about "significant problems"?

> while making the rest of the world wary of reliance on the US dollar

You're commenting as if no one in the world was aware of the US dolar hegemony, and even if it was anything new. That's not what's happening in reality. Even the eurozone has been trying to leverage the euro as an alternative to the US dolar in markets like oil, and hasn't been that successful. If a trading block and economic powerhouse like the eurozone isn't able to shake that off, what tells you that Russia, whose economy barely matches Italy's, is an exception?

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boffinAudio ◴[] No.40716675[source]
>stockpiling rupees without any way of exchanging them for anything

But .. that's nothing less than a huge opportunity for India to start building things the Russians need and want.

The same thing occurred with the Euro, which was doing fine until the energy sources feeding its growth were attacked, recently ..

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chipdart ◴[] No.40718017{3}[source]
> But .. that's nothing less than a huge opportunity for India to start building things the Russians need and want.

OP asserted that Russia switching away from US dollars to rubles had no significant impact.

The fact is that Russia cannot even use rubles in international commerce. That is a major impact. They cannot buy stuff.

Nevertheless, you are commenting on hypothetical advantages for India. Not Russia, but India. And merely hypothetical in the sense that hypothetical indian companies might have a potential market now that Russia cannot use rupees. How's that a real advantage?

Everyone just points out major blockages and barriers when switching away from the US dolar accompanied with absolutely no upside at all, and we are expected to believe this change should not have any significant impact?

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boffinAudio ◴[] No.40725727{4}[source]
>The fact is that Russia cannot even use rubles in international commerce.

This is false. They can't buy things from American-dominated states, but that is also changing.

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1. chipdart ◴[] No.40729803{5}[source]
> This is false. They can't buy things from American-dominated states, but that is also changing.

It has nothing about domination. This is a matter of having an international currency, and using it to do international trade.

Think about it for a second. Nothing stopped Russia from dealing with India, and Russia is selling Russia's oil to India in exchange for ruppees. That's fine for India, but Russia found itself with a massive volume of rupees without any way to exchange them for stuff it needs.

With an international currency such as the US dolar, Russia would be able to exchange them for anything at all, because that's the whole point of money. As barely anyone in the world deals with rupees, Russia either buys anything at all from India, which so far has been a no, or scratches off it's oil deals as a loss because not being able to buy anything with rupees is as good as giving their oil away for free.

I mean, a currency that no one uses is like buying arcade tokens: sure, you can play video games in the only store that accepts them, or you're stuck with a useless token thatyl you can't do anything about it as it is worth nothing.

And the brain-dead idea of complaining about arcade-dominated stores because you can't buy shit with arcade tokens is simply absurd. You're the one unilaterally trying to trade with a medium of exchange that no one uses. How is this anyone's fault other than yours?

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2. boffinAudio ◴[] No.40735978[source]
>It has nothing about domination.

I think you better explain that to the politicians in Washington who have long since weaponized the petrodollar.

>You're the one unilaterally trying to trade with a medium of exchange that no one uses.

The assumption that there aren't alternatives to the petrodollar actively being used today is entirely false. You may not see it - perhaps because of your own investments in the petrodollar - but it is definitely happening.

And then, there is Bitcoin. You might want to see which weapons manufacturers accept bitcoin in payment, and which only prefer the blood-stained petrodollar.

That might give you a clue as to your own myopia.

>Russia either buys anything at all from India, which so far has been a no,

You are aware that there is a rail line from Moscow to India, right, and that it operates entirely outside the scope of Western control?