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Comment by elzbardico | Hacker News Reader

I would say that the freezing of Russian assets has changed this equation considerably for almost every non-western country.

People seem to think we are still living in the past, where the US alone accounted for more than 40% of the global GDP and was the single most important trade partner of every country outside the former communist block.

It is a different world now. The BRICS GDP in Purchase Power Parity terms has surpassed the G-7, their growth rate is also bigger.

Yeah. it is not the end of the world. Things won't change everyday, zero-hedge doomers are a bunch of crazy scammers shorted as fuck. But the situation is dynamic and requires attention.

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> BRICS GDP in Purchase Power Parity terms has surpassed the G-7, their growth rate is also bigger

Yes, random arrangement of countries beats another in a stat.

Two of the BRICS are increasing military tensions with each other. One just saw a massive change in government, and with it, possible geopolitical alignment. Another is in the shitter.

The dollar should wane in importance alongside China’s rise. But BRICS sure as hell won’t have anything to do with it.

>all the while believing all the FUD from the press that overvalues the disagreements between China and India.

Either I must have slept through the Indo-Sino (Sino-Indo?) Peace Treaty Negotiations & Signing Ceremony or "disagreements" is doing some heavy lifting in the above quote.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%...

Correct. For the avoidance of doubt, India and China have signed no peace treaty. They're increasingly militarising their disputed borders, which have never actually been agreed upon, and India is now joining mulitple U.S.-involved security arrangements.

America's superpower is in trade and diplomacy. Agreements. We don't win because we can blow stuff up bigger. (Though we can.) We win because we're uniquely competent at knitting together alliances. I believe that directly draws from our commercial culture--it encourages cutting deals over face-saving Pyrrhic victory.

This is the most laughable thing I have ever read. The United States are a bully that has proven time over time that are completely agreement incapable and that has resorted to force more than any other country in modern story. It is not loyal even to its friends, except for Israel.

Conduct between nations is sovereign, and outside of any enforceable jurisdiction or legal system. So there will always be the need for a a strong dominant nation to set and establish the rules of conduct and enFORCE them as has been the role of the US since WW2.

Its a dirty job keeping this world order in some semblance of functional, and the Dominant enforcer of that order will always take a cut for their imperfect pursuit of the same. All-volunteer police forces are less common than the compensated type. Perhaps CRINK (China, Russia, Iran and NoKo) will deal you and your peoples a better hand than the US has?

> United States are a bully

Yes, unlike Russia, China and Iran, our paragons of peace.

> has proven time over time that are completely agreement incapable

Yes, the Allies in WWI and WWII as well as NATO were ineffective. (As are AUKUS and the Quad to-day. I'll ignore the United Nations, IMF, World Bank, WTO, G-20, G-7, OECD, et cetera out of respect.)

> has resorted to force more than any other country in modern story

Superpowers be superpowering. News at 11.

Can't believe I took your other comments in good faith...

The C in BRICS is for China though.

> C in BRICS is for China

Sure. What's good for America isn't necessarily good for NATO, the OECD or WTO. Similarly, BRICS is a stupider Belt & Road pitch.

China is doing real work in becoming a superpower. That ascent has nothing to do with BRICS.

Yeah. You can see things like that and call the BRICS a random arragement of countries and ignore that it is evolving into a more formal and integrated coalition, all the while believing all the FUD from the press that overvalues the disagreements between China and India.

I also wouldn't call the government changes in India a masssive government change. Neither china is in the shitter. Stock and Financial market shenanigans are not as critical in China as they are in the US because they are heavily regulated, they are not as critical for capital financing as in the US, and chinese citizens wealth and retirement are not tied as strongly to stocks.

Or you can just see things in another way and realize that most former colonial countries have developed a lot, and that the US and Europe are no longer the former titans compared to what people sometimes call the global south.

> while believing all the FUD from the press that overvalues the disagreements between China and India

What's your information source? Mine includes family in the Indian military.

> wouldn't call the government changes in India a masssive government change

South Africa. (India's government didn't change.)

> Neither china is in the shitter

Russia.

> the US and Europe are no longer the former titans compared to what people sometimes call the global south.

Correct. Look at with whom India, Eastern Europe and South-east Asia are allying.

BRICS+ is all talk, no action. Russia, China, and India all have diametrically opposed interests on core issues and none will ever agree to a total realignment of the global financial system lest one of the other two gain an advantage. South Africa is a failed state with a crashing economy.

> BRICS GDP in Purchase Power Parity terms

I'm confused as to how this is a useful metric in the context of choice of currency in international trade.

You can't trade between countries in PPP currency.

The US has frozen national assets before, most notable Iran but the big difference this time is that the US is now openly considering confiscating those assets and giving them to another country just because it has the ability to do so. Even Iran, who for decades was considered part of the "Axis of Evil" had its frozen assets kept in reserve until they were eventually given back. It really feels like the powers that be are now people who have no consideration for anything they can't see past the horizon and have unwavering faith that "it'll all just work out in the end somehow". They're becoming reckless on so many levels and unfortunately the public, or at least the loudest voices, are happy to cheer them on.

Even if the US ultimately doesn't turn over Russian assets to Ukraine, just making the threat to do so is globally destructive to faith in the current system that greatly benefits the United States.

I disagree. If things had moved in the same trajectory as the last decades a decline of the current system seemed inevitable. So why not use that power while you still have it.

Also considering the state of most BRICS countries, it does not seem so certain that there will be viable alternatives to the current system.

Its not genocide when I say it isnt is not convincing anyone, all we see is the once mighty uncle sam groveling at the feet of some small country that just happens to control the entire us government.

People mistakenly think it is about Palestinans or Israelies.

Almost all small to medium countries started efforts to create or find alternatives to SWIFT should be a clue.

The efforts started after weaponizing dollar.

Pan-African Payment and Settlement System, ASEAN QR settlement, Direct currency settlement. Even mBridge for settlement between BRICS was launched just a couple days before the end of petrodollar agreement.

Current SWIFT settlement is not going anywhere but everyone is starting to wait and see.

[BRICS is comprised of] Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Iran, Egypt, Ethiopia, and the United Arab Emirates

Really, you only need RIC and you'd be making a much stronger argument. The idea that all these countries work in unison to some end is weak.

Excuse my ignorance but how are frozen assets relevant? Isn't the utility of the dollar and the unassailability of US held assets a different thing?

If we used gold or yuan and the US froze those assets how would it devalue those currencies?

Not sure how the US would freeze gold in a Moscow bank. It can freeze dollars because it controls SWIFT and how dollars move. The dollars it froze were not a huge pile of physical bills in Russia but electronic chits.

Well, exactly. Is the US's influence over swift tied to the dollar or to the fact it's a superpower and has forged these relationships? If we used other currencies wouldn't that be the same situation or are you saying that the dollar's stability is tied directly to swift?

Said another way, if there is a backlash to these frozen accounts, shouldn't it be against swift and for swift alternatives instead of against the dollar?

So what is the alternative to park your money? Rubles, Yuan, Rupees.....? So don't invade and annex your neighbors if you want your assets to be safe. Quite frankly I am not sure if that is a net positive or negative in the long run.

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