World Politics

Political discussion here. Any reasonable opinion is welcome, but due to the sensitive nature of the topic area, please be nice and respectful to others. No flaming or trolling, please. And please keep political commentary out of the other board areas and confine it to this area. Thanks!
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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Sea Breeze 21 begins in the Black Sea after Russia threatens to fire on ‘intruding’ warships
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... -warships/
Just days after Russia threatened to fire on “intruding” warships near the Crimean Peninsula in the Black Sea, the annual Sea Breeze exercise, which U.S. 6th Fleet is co-hosting with the Ukrainian Navy, kicked off Monday with the largest number ever of participating countries.

Sea Breeze 21, which continues through July 10 in the Black Sea region, focuses on amphibious warfare, land maneuver warfare, diving operations, maritime interdiction operations, air defense, special operations integration, anti-submarine warfare and search and rescue operations, according to a 6th Fleet news release.

Thirty-two countries from six continents are providing 5,000 troops, 32 ships, 40 aircraft, and 18 special operations and dive teams to the exercise.
“The United States is proud to partner with Ukraine in co-hosting the multinational maritime exercise Sea Breeze, which will help enhance interoperability and capabilities among participating nations,” said Chargé d’Affaires Kristina Kvien, U.S. Embassy in Ukraine. “We are committed to maintaining the safety and security of the Black Sea.”

The exercise gets underway just five days after Russia announced that one of its warships fired warning shots and a warplane dropped bombs in the path of British destroyer Defender to drive it away from waters near the Crimean city of Sevastopol, the main Russian naval base in Crimea. Britain denied that account, insisted there were no warning shots or bombs dropped near its ship and that it was sailing in Ukrainian waters.

The incident marked the first time since the Cold War that Moscow claimed tp have used live ammunition to deter a NATO warship, underlining the rising threat of military collisions amid Russia-West tensions.

The nations taking part include: Albania, Australia, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Egypt, Estonia, France, Georgia, Greece, Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Morocco, Norway, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Senegal, Spain, South Korea, Sweden, Tunisia, Turkey, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom and the United States.



Russia’s space chief threatens to leave International Space Station program unless U.S. lifts sanctions
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/06/07/russia- ... ogram.html
“Either we work together, in which case the sanctions are lifted immediately, or we will not work together and we will deploy our own station,” he added.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Over a Hundred Arrested For Setting a Billionaire’s Neighborhood on Fire
The arrested are mostly poor villagers who allege their land was grabbed to build the posh neighbourhood for Pakistan's rich.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/wx5xam/ ... illionaire
At 46,000 acres, the city-within-a-city under construction is more than three times the size of Manhattan, to be complete with posh apartments, parks, a zoo, schools, restaurants and the world’s third-largest mosque. Its developer has hailed it as a model city, designed to house one million people when finished.

Mahesar said that the police also registered an “open” criminal complaint against 50,000 protesters without naming anyone, a move he called a “threat strategy”. A volunteer legal team is currently challenging the police complaints.

But villagers who spoke with VICE World News said they were coerced into giving up land they had occupied for decades to house Pakistan’s rich. Land rights activists say Bahria Town is illegally occupied and amounts to a “modern form of colonisation.”

Jamaal Khan, a 46-year-old farmer, said that nine generations of his family lived on about 20 acres of land until it was grabbed in 2018.

In 2018, the Supreme Court deemed part of Bahria Town’s land occupation “illegal” and ordered an investigation, which ended after the developer offered to pay $6.5 billion as settlement for 16,896 acres of the prime suburban land, about a third of the total size of Bahria Town Karachi.

But the developer has so far paid only $360 million, a fraction of the settlement, and has requested delaying future payments, citing its losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. Many villagers, including Khan’s family, have demanded compensation for the land they lost and joined demonstrations for justice.

In 2019, an investigative report by Pakistan news outlet Dawn alleged that Riaz was “in connivance” with Pakistani government officials and thugs to seize land.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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CCP 100: Xi warns China will not be 'oppressed' in anniversary speech
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-5764823
On Thursday Mr Xi said China maintains an "unshakeable commitment" to unification with Taiwan.
"No one should underestimate the resolve, the will and ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.

In response, Taiwan said it was determined to defend its sovereignty and democracy.
"Beijing should introduce democratic reforms, such as party competition, and respect for human rights while behaving as a responsible regional player," the island's Mainland Affairs Council was quoted as saying by the Taiwan News website.

Mr Xi, who spoke for around an hour, reiterated the role of the party in modern China, saying that it has been central to the country's growth and that attempts to separate it from the people would fail.


"Only socialism can save China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China," he said, referring to the system under which the party embraced markets to reform the economy.
He added that "we will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China".
"Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," he said.

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virtual9mm
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Re: World Politics

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Nodack wrote:
Thu Jul 01, 2021 9:43 pm
CCP 100: Xi warns China will not be 'oppressed' in anniversary speech
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-5764823
On Thursday Mr Xi said China maintains an "unshakeable commitment" to unification with Taiwan.
"No one should underestimate the resolve, the will and ability of the Chinese people to defend their national sovereignty and territorial integrity," he said.

In response, Taiwan said it was determined to defend its sovereignty and democracy.
"Beijing should introduce democratic reforms, such as party competition, and respect for human rights while behaving as a responsible regional player," the island's Mainland Affairs Council was quoted as saying by the Taiwan News website.

Mr Xi, who spoke for around an hour, reiterated the role of the party in modern China, saying that it has been central to the country's growth and that attempts to separate it from the people would fail.


"Only socialism can save China, and only socialism with Chinese characteristics can develop China," he said, referring to the system under which the party embraced markets to reform the economy.
He added that "we will never allow anyone to bully, oppress or subjugate China".
"Anyone who dares try to do that will have their heads bashed bloody against the Great Wall of Steel forged by over 1.4 billion Chinese people," he said.
Oh, the Century of Humiliation was very real for the Chinese. It would be like the U.S. going from global dominance in the 1990s to having New York City being ceded to the British, Texas to the Mexicans, Alaska to the Russians -- and having Germans having extraterritorial enclaves in Chicago, Phoenix, and San Francisco where Americans were not allowed inside -- for the next century. Your men are little better than slaves overseas, your women the playthings of wealthy foreigners, your children starving to death while the adults are lazing away smoking opium forced upon you by the foreign powers. Imagine how Americans would feel, especially after massive revolutions fail to push the foreign invaders out.

China remembers its humiliation and is determined never to let it happen to it again. I don't blame the Chinese and Xi Jinping for being so belligerent in these regards. The only problem is that they have a national inferiority complex and now that they're strong again -- they're turning into bullies.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Not as big an inferiority complex as Russia seems to be having. They have been downright belligerent lately. Sometimes I wonder how much China and Russia coordinate their plans. I do think they sense America’s weakening and are trying to capitalize on it as much as possible and are testing our resolve at every turn. With America completely divided and destroying itself from within, it is the perfect time for Russia and China.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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China's Xi throws down gauntlet to US
https://thehill.com/opinion/internation ... king-china

Xi’s speech, while fiery, did not indicate personal weakness or fear. It needs to be seen as part of an ongoing messaging campaign that China will no longer play a subordinate role. Xi’s China will not submit to foreign lectures and pressure. Insofar as the West wants China to conform to the rules of a rules-based international order, Xi and the CCP are indicating that those rules must be ones that China has forged.

Napoleon is said to have warned, “Let China sleep, for when she wakes, she will shake the world.” Xi Jinping’s speech suggests that China is, indeed, roused and ready to start that shaking.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Does China make a deal with Afghanistan and what does the Taliban think of that deal?

China makes its move on Afghanistan: Beijing prepares to fill the vacuum left by Biden's premature military exit from the nation with $62B investment plan for its 'Belt and Road' program
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/articl ... ogram.html
American troops have finally departed their main military base in Afghanistan
China has been waiting in the wings in order to do a deal with Kabul
The country wants to extend its 'Belt and Road' program to Afghanistan
Program would see a direct land corridor between Afghanistan and China through northwest Pakistan constructed
Deal could give China strategic foothold in the region for trade with the country acting as a central hub connecting the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe
But there remains the air of unpredictability with lasting peace uncertain with Taliban likely to make a resurgence in the region

America departs Afghanistan as China arrives
https://thehill.com/opinion/internation ... na-arrives
China would send in its troops to prevent any security situation from overflowing into its South Western province of Xinjiang and to protect its investments in the flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). The BRI is a connectivity and development initiative of Chinese government to increase commerce and trade along the historical silk trade route. The belt refers to the overland routes for road and rail transportation and the road refers to ports and maritime infrastructure projects.

As part of the initiative, China has agreed to inject from $280 billion to over $400 billion in Iran’s oil, gas, petrochemical and other industries over the course of 25 years in exchange for cheaper oil. Furthermore, through the signing of a strategic pact in 2020, China can now deploy up to 5,000 military and security personnel in Iran. Similarly, Pakistan has been one of the largest recipients of Chinese aid and investments that fall under the BRI label. The China-Pakistan economic corridor (CPEC) is already valued at over $62 billion and to protect those assets, both private and national security personnel work around the clock.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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War with Russia is not hypothetical and our lumbering bureaucracy is unprepared for it
https://thehill.com/opinion/national-se ... ureaucracy
In his recent annual “town hall,” Russian President Vladimir Putin signaled his resolve to take Moscow’s confrontation with Washington to the next level — an outright war that, in his view, the United States is unable to win.

Putin’s confidence stems from Moscow’s belief that it can fight and win the war with Washington on Russia’s terms. Russia has taken note of U.S. reliance on technology even in conflicts with low-tech adversaries such as terrorists in Afghanistan and Iraq. Putin’s master plan, which he often calls “asymmetric,” exploits America’s perceived vulnerabilities. Cyber and space are the new domains that Russia has designated as fair-game battlefields. Russia has demonstrated the will to use cyber in peacetime to attack our food and gasoline supplies, and more — including last Friday’s attack on IT company Kaseya and corporations using its software. In wartime, the Kremlin will wage unrestricted cyberwarfare.

We haven’t seen much in terms of Putin’s space warfare targeting our homeland yet, but this is coming. While the U.S. doesn’t recognize them as a separate category of weaponry, what the Russians call “space weapons” can strike our orbiting space-based system of defenses.

The U.S. government and corporations were caught off-guard by America’s adversaries’ willingness to attack our unsecured IT networks and their success in doing so. Our satellites are similarly defenseless.

Ex-CIA Director Gen. Michael Hayden said that Russia’s intelligence operation targeting the 2016 presidential election was the “most successful covert influence operation in history.” Former Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates stated in 2018 that the warning system was “blinking red,” referring to the Russian threat. In May, following Russia’s hacking of our meat and gas, FBI Director Christopher Wray again drew parallels between Russia’s cyber strikes and terrorist attacks of 9/11.

With Putin confident that Washington hasn’t figured how to handle him, and that he can win such a war, the problem may be even worse than it looks.

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Pentagon Sees China’s Offensive Space Technology ‘On the March’
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolo ... ar-AALZOHh
China is pushing to develop antisatellite weapons with capabilities from “dazzling to jamming, to kinetic kill-from-the-ground, from space -- all that, they’re on the march,” Rear Admiral Michael Studeman said this week during an intelligence-security trade group’s webinar.

It has “already fielded ground-based ASAT missiles intended to destroy satellites in low-earth orbit and ground-based ASAT lasers probably intended to blind or damage sensitive space-based optical sensors” on low-earth orbit satellites, according to the report.

A top U.S. counterspace weapon designed to temporarily jam but not destroy Chinese and Russian satellites is known as the Meadowlands system. The U.S. Space Force is building an arsenal of as many as 48 of these ground-based weapons over the next seven years and declared the first one operational in March 2020.

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Re: World Politics

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What the impending rubber ‘apocalypse’ means for the U.S. economy
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/07/09/what-th ... onomy.html
Rubber producers are facing climate change, the Covid-19 pandemic, a destructive fungus and the fight for shipping containers.

The global economy remains dependent on Asia for 90% of the natural rubber supply. For example, the U.S. imported $140 million worth of natural rubber in March 2021 alone, according to Census data.

The global natural rubber market was valued at nearly $40 billion in 2020, and demand for rubber is expected to increase. One analysis predicts the natural rubber market could be worth nearly $68.5 billion by 2026. One reason for the increased demand? Car tires.

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virtual9mm
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Re: World Politics

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All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.

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Indy
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Re: World Politics

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virtual9mm wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:00 pm
All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.
What should I sell and what should I buy, v9?

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Nodack
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Re: World Politics

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Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation-state is the dominant world power, or hegemon.

The question is, who is the dominant world power? Normally I would say the US. China is starting to think they are the dominant world power. Russia always seems to be claiming they are the worlds dominant military power.

I have a friend that says our economies are so tied together war is unthinkable with China. I just post these stories as info and don’t claim to believe everything said in them. I mostly want peolle to be aware it’s a dangerous world and world powers are always playing chess with each other.

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Re: World Politics

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Russia isn't going to start a literal war against us. We have far superior military capabilities, and they're too smart to start a war they cannot win. They will definitely continue the stuff they're already doing to us, though, which includes cyber attacks, spying on us, spreading propaganda, corrupting our politicians and celebrities, blackmail, and other such lovely things. They're having quite a bit of success with that, all at fairly low cost to themselves.

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Re: World Politics

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I agree they are doing all that stuff and I’m pretty sure we do some sneaky stuff back. I worry aboit when America becomes so divided we become weak and countries like Russia feel embolden to invade the Ukraine while China takes Taiwan by force.

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virtual9mm
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Re: World Politics

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Nodack wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 11:44 pm
Hegemonic stability theory (HST) is a theory of international relations, rooted in research from the fields of political science, economics, and history. HST indicates that the international system is more likely to remain stable when a single nation-state is the dominant world power, or hegemon.

The question is, who is the dominant world power? Normally I would say the US. China is starting to think they are the dominant world power. Russia always seems to be claiming they are the worlds dominant military power.

I have a friend that says our economies are so tied together war is unthinkable with China. I just post these stories as info and don’t claim to believe everything said in them. I mostly want peolle to be aware it’s a dangerous world and world powers are always playing chess with each other.
Hegemonic Stability Theory (HST) proposes that a dominant world power underwrites a stable world order, creating a system that benefits all -- especially the dominant power. When the dominant power loses that status and is challenged by a rising power, the world order becomes fragile and international trade falls apart. This often sets the scene for a great power war.

The best book to read on HST is Kindleberger's book on the Great Depression. His argument is that the Depression should have remained a recession but that a cycle of retaliatory tariffs starting with Smoot-Hawley in the US tore apart the international trading regime and created massive economic retrenchment worldwide. If this sounds a bit too familiar and perhaps a bit too scary, you're reading the implications correctly.

HST has had an outsized influence on US policy over the past 70 years. For instance, Krasner at Stanford headed the State Department's Policy Planning Staff under GW Bush.

Here in Asia, I am seeing China starting to dismantle the "International" (i.e., American) system and replacing it with its own -- something more tolerant of authoritarianism and kleptocracy although so much of what the World Bank and IMF has done in the past has ended up self-serving (although the folks running these organizations really did believe that they were doing the right thing -- hence, the dangers of ideology).

The most extreme versions of HST have the rising power eventually challenging the declining dominant power on the field of battle. Notably, a rising Germany challenged a declining UK in both 1914 and 1939. The transition of dominance from the UK to the US after WWII is cited as one of the very few instances of a peaceful transfer.

Regarding economic interdependence preventing war, this was decisively disproven in 1914. The European economies at the time were nearly as integrated as the global economy today. It didn't stop WWI.

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Re: World Politics

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Indy wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:29 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:00 pm
All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.
What should I sell and what should I buy, v9?
If I knew, I wouldn't have lost 5% of my portfolio over the past 6 weeks based on Delta wreaking havoc on the potential for the tourism industry's return!

But if HST is correct, the US dollar cannot continue to stand. US diplomats have been concerned about the USD maintaining reserve currency status for nearly a decade now. If the USD loses reserve currency status, the US ceases to be able to finance imports by borrowing money overseas. At that point, you're looking at a 15% decline in the US standard of living effective immediately.

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Re: World Politics

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Nodack wrote:
Sun Jul 11, 2021 11:48 pm
I agree they are doing all that stuff and I’m pretty sure we do some sneaky stuff back. I worry aboit when America becomes so divided we become weak and countries like Russia feel embolden to invade the Ukraine while China takes Taiwan by force.
I agree. The system that the US created to reinforce its own dominance and ensure that other world powers (e.g., Germany, Japan) play along is falling apart and you're seeing challengers such as Russia and China actively probing for weak spots.

The existence of a significant block of Americans who would vote for someone like Trump is evidence of the American century slowly but surely crumbling into pieces. Once the American system is gone, we'll miss it. We're already missing it in Asia. Had the US been what it used to be, what is going down in Hong Kong would never have been allowed to happen.

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virtual9mm
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Re: World Politics

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Mori Chu wrote:
Sun Jul 11, 2021 6:15 am
Russia isn't going to start a literal war against us. We have far superior military capabilities, and they're too smart to start a war they cannot win. They will definitely continue the stuff they're already doing to us, though, which includes cyber attacks, spying on us, spreading propaganda, corrupting our politicians and celebrities, blackmail, and other such lovely things. They're having quite a bit of success with that, all at fairly low cost to themselves.
The real danger is economic collapse and international isolation, a decline into irrelevance while our people get busy conducting a shadow or even an open civil war against each other. Meanwhile, the world literally burns (from the heat) and starving refugees from Central America, the Middle East, and especially Africa attempt to force their way into the relative safety of North America and Europe. What could possibly go wrong in this scenario?

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Re: World Politics

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virtual9mm wrote:
Mon Jul 12, 2021 8:16 am
Indy wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:29 pm
virtual9mm wrote:
Sat Jul 10, 2021 10:00 pm
All sorts of stuff is going go go down. Take a look at hegemonic stability theory.
What should I sell and what should I buy, v9?
If I knew, I wouldn't have lost 5% of my portfolio over the past 6 weeks based on Delta wreaking havoc on the potential for the tourism industry's return!

But if HST is correct, the US dollar cannot continue to stand. US diplomats have been concerned about the USD maintaining reserve currency status for nearly a decade now. If the USD loses reserve currency status, the US ceases to be able to finance imports by borrowing money overseas. At that point, you're looking at a 15% decline in the US standard of living effective immediately.
Wait, what did Delta do?

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