Nice post.
And as the SDR is 'trumps', when the next crisis hits, all governments have a ready made diversion / excuse, as the IMF controls its flow. All are happy, especially China, who reduce their exposure to USD (their trillions in foreign reserves swapped out)
The collusion is something Rickards writes about at length in Death of Money; the big boys try to get their gold reserves up to equal / equivalent ratios to GDP before the crisis hits, so its a level playing field when the reset happens.
And as the SDR is 'trumps', when the next crisis hits, all governments have a ready made diversion / excuse, as the IMF controls its flow. All are happy, especially China, who reduce their exposure to USD (their trillions in foreign reserves swapped out)
The collusion is something Rickards writes about at length in Death of Money; the big boys try to get their gold reserves up to equal / equivalent ratios to GDP before the crisis hits, so its a level playing field when the reset happens.
The "excuse" is dead on. When a peon country gets into trouble, the IMF will require austerity in exchange for bailouts. (As opposed to a heavy-weight like the US, where policy will be aimed at soothing the pain.)
The poor country's leader can say "the IMF made me do it." Focus public anger on a faceless, unelected bureaucracy, and it will go nowhere. What an ingenious invention.
The different treatment for different countries is based on how best to protect the reputation of the global system of state-driven asset inflation. Austerity and economic pain in a big, democratic country runs the risk of making people see the light about the system. So they have to have as much comfort as possible. For small, poor, or undemocratic countries, let them fight the bust by instituting austerity. If they succeed, great. If not, they are the only ones in pain and the world will see the crisis as their problem. This is much better than accommodative policies which tend to bow to market forces, devalue, and inflate, because when investors see that promises are not being kept, they might realize the same promises from other countries are really not all that different in nature.
Greece is a good example of being on the receiving end of this system.
