| Both Russia and China have been pushing to do their oil settlements in a basket of currencies and not just the dollar. This should tell you all you need to know why KSA has the US right where it wants them. The British Pound is a powerful currency backed by an industrial base and a consumer led economy everyone wants to sell into. EUR is the same way. But neither of them are superpowers because no other country needs the GBP or EUR like they need the USD. Countries all around the world keep USD in their current account balance even if they barely import stuff from the US because every country needs oil and oil can only be bought with dollars. Say your high school bully demanded 10 SchruteBucks every day to leave you alone at lunch. And the only supplier of SchruteBucks in the whole world was this paper salesman called Dwight Schrute. Quite evidently, your entire life would revolve around making sure Dwight was still willing to give you SchruteBucks just so that your bully would stay off your back for one more day. That bully is KSA. Dwight is the US. The kid sucking up to Dwight is all the other countries in the world. When Putin rants about a unipolar world, this is what he is talking about. It’s an unjust world where we can’t afford to antagonise the US without also running the risk of not being able to buy petrol to run our economy. |