[wheelerof4te]

"Had the South survived I would suspect it would be much poorer today than the North as its economy would probably get stuck in extraction and labor exploitation"

You do know how the US economy works today? You know why everyone accepts the US dollar, a literal piece of paper, in exchange for real, tangible goods?

Because they will be sanctioned and bombed to oblivion if they don't. Now, tell me how this is not a "wealth extraction" economy.

[inglor_cz]

Whoa. You are overestimating the American military capacity by a lot.

There are regionally used strong currencies like the Euro. Us Euros mostly do our internal trade in, well, Euros, without being bombed or even sanctioned. That is quite a lot of trade.

Aside from the Euro, there isn't much of a competition in the international arena. China wants to control the renminbi tightly, which precludes its wider adoption as a reserve currency. UK is a shadow of its former imperial self, and so is the pound. The Japanese economy is too weak for the yen to be a serious competitor.

And with currencies like the rupee, you will find that few people outside India are willing to trust them. Russians now sell a lot of oil to India for rupees (and note that there does not seem to be any initiative to bomb India for engaging in this trade), but then are basically forced to use those same rupees to buy stuff from India again, and Indian exports aren't a great match for Russian economic needs.

[inglor_cz]

"That is how the world economy used to work, before the petrodollar."

The petrodollar is about 50 years old, and international trade grew IDK, fivefold? in that period. No surprise that the previous patterns don't hold any more. There is a difference between a market of three villages and a market of fifteen villages. If the # of connections between corporations and nations grows quadratically, it becomes infeasible to juggle around dozens of different currencies. The market will trend towards dominance of one.

"Euro is irrelevant outside of Europe."

But Europe is fairly relevant in the world. About 20 per cent of forex reserves worldwide are kept in Euro, it is the only serious, though not peer, competitor to the USD in this regard.

[wheelerof4te]

"Russians now sell a lot of oil to India for rupees (and note that there does not seem to be any initiative to bomb India for engaging in this trade), but then are basically forced to use those same rupees to buy stuff from India again".

That is how the world economy used to work, before the petrodollar.

Now, Saudis or Qatar or pick your favorite Middle eastern monarch sell oil to US and everyone else in exchange for $USD. Since oil is used in nearly every other product line, either for transport or actual product, now world trade depends on how much $USD you have to buy said oil.

Euro is irrelevant outside of Europe.

[nec4b]

>>Because they will be sanctioned and bombed to oblivion if they don't. Now, tell me how this is not a "wealth extraction" economy.

TIL, people buy iphones and use facebook, because they are afraid to be bombed otherwise. You know there is a good reason why even rich and powerfull people from Russia or China don't want to keep their wealth in their home currencies. And it's not because they are afraid to be bombed by Americans.