Editor’s Note: There has been a lot of talk in recent weeks about this topic. Invariably, any time I talk about economic collapse or post articles such as the one below by Michael Snyder, I get called a “fearmonger” who’s just trying to sell gold or prepper food. The funny part that many do not realize is that I was the one calling others fearmongers for the same reasons just three years ago and for two decades prior. I wasn’t issuing warnings during the first year of the Plandemic. I wasn’t screaming for people to head for the hills or buy gold during the rise of Obamacare or the 2009 economic downturn. I didn’t promote prepper food ahead of Y2K. I’ve always been against fearmongering. It wasn’t until the last couple of years that I’ve started issuing warnings because now, unlike “emergencies” in the past, I’m truly concerned. With that said, here’s Michael’s article…
Is the global dominance of the U.S. dollar in danger? In recent weeks, there has been lots of speculation about the introduction of a new BRICS currency that would be backed by gold. In this article, my goal is to sort through what is true and what is not true.
From August 22nd to August 24th, the 15th BRICS summit will be held in Johannesburg, South Africa. Back on July 5th, RT sparked a firestorm of rumors when it reported that a decision to introduce a new BRICS currency that would be backed by gold would be made prior to the upcoming summit in Johannesburg…
BRICS is set to introduce a new currency backed by gold, in contrast to the credit-backed US dollar, with the decision coming a month ahead of the bloc’s summit in Johannesburg. With the growing initiative, more and more countries are lining-up to join the group.
In the aftermath of that report, many prominent voices were warning that the U.S. dollar was in big trouble.
For example, author Robert Kiyosaki boldly declared that the U.S. dollar “will die”…
The end of the U.S. dollar is near, said the best-selling author of ‘Rich Dad Poor Dad’ Robert Kiyosaki, citing an upcoming BRICS summit in South Africa as a trigger.
Kiyosaki is projecting that the BRICS group, comprised of Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa, will announce their new gold-backed digital currency during its summit on August 22-24, and it will have dire consequences for the U.S. dollar.
“August 22, 2023, in Johannesburg, South Africa, BRICS nations announce gold backed crypto. US $ will die,” Kiyosaki tweeted last week. “Trillions of US $ rush home. Inflation through the roof.”
Without a doubt, the dominance of the U.S. dollar is under threat from multiple directions.
But a new BRICS currency will not be introduced during this upcoming summit.
During an interview with Bloomberg, one of the top executives at The New Development Bank publicly admitted that the creation of a new BRICS currency is “a medium to long term ambition”, but he also confirmed that such a currency will not be introduced right now…
The New Development Bank, a financial institution created by the BRICS bloc of emerging markets, doesn’t have any immediate plans for the group to create a common currency, its vice president and chief financial officer said.
While the members of BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa – are pushing to conduct more trade between each other in local currencies, they aren’t ready to challenge the global dominance of the dollar, Leslie Maasdorp said in an interview on Wednesday with Bloomberg TV’s Haslinda Amin.
“The development of anything alternative is more a medium to long term ambition,” he said. “There is no suggestion right now to creates a BRICS currency.”
But that doesn’t mean that really big things aren’t happening.
In addition to the core BRICS nations, Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates and Uruguay are apparently getting very close to joining The New Development Bank.
Those are relatively minor players on the global scene, but if Saudi Arabia also joins, that could change everything.
There is lots of chatter that this could happen soon, and during a recent interview Lobo Tiggre said that such a move would be “a watershed event”…
Saudi Arabia joining BRICS would be “a watershed event,” he said. “I think if we wake up and Saudi Arabia joins the BRICS alliance, the world would be a different world in a meaningful and significant way.”
I agree. If Saudi Arabia joins BRICS, it would represent an enormous shift.
And that would probably greatly accelerate the transition to trading Middle Eastern oil in currencies other than the U.S. dollar.
Even without a new currency, it appears to be inevitable that BRICS is going to continue to accumulate more power and more influence.
According to South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, over 40 different nations “have indicated an interest in joining the bloc”…
Anil Sooklal, South Africa’s ambassador to BRICS, told reporters on Thursday that more than 40 countries have indicated an interest in joining the bloc of major developing economies, but there is no gold-backed currency announcement planned for next month’s summit.
And Sooklal also told reporters that a whopping 69 global leaders have been invited to attend the BRICS summit next month…
Sooklal said that “Argentina, all the major Global South countries,” have applied for membership, and that other economically significant countries have expressed an interest in joining, including Bangladesh, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and Saudi Arabia, and even some European countries. “They are quite weighty countries,” he said.
He added that South Africa has invited 69 global leaders to attend the BRICS summit, demonstrating the bloc’s interest in increasing its global influence.
When BRICS was formed in 2009, many western leaders didn’t take it very seriously.
But now it has become a powerhouse.
And during this upcoming summit, finding more ways for BRICS countries to settle trades “in their own national currencies” is something that will be on the agenda…
Sooklal says BRICS, which is made up of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, is looking to strengthen economic ties among member nations by settling trades in their own national currencies.
“What we have said and we continue to deepen is trading in local currencies and settlement in local currencies.”
Sooklal adds that the decision of the US and its allies to impose financial and economic sanctions against Russia for the war in Ukraine has catalyzed the move of the economic bloc to shift away from the dollar.
They really do intend to move away from using the U.S. dollar. This is a process that will take time, but the dominance of the U.S. dollar in global trade is definitely starting to erode.
So whether the BRICS countries choose to establish a new currency or not, the truth is that things are changing. The U.S. dollar will never again be as dominant as it once was, and great economic chaos is ahead of us.
The western elite had dreamed of uniting the entire globe under one economic and financial regime, but right now the very deep divisions between east and west continue to grow with each passing day.
Leave a comment about this post on my Economic Collapse Substack.
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Article cross-posted from The Economic Collapse Blog.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
China and Russia will cheat every chance they get. South Africa is in it for the diamonds they own and lease. The Russia have a massive storage of diamonds. India and Brazil will end up on the short end of the stick. Saudi Arabia may enter and will cheat and steal as well.
BRICS can be a force for good. If the USA gov’t wasn’t so corrupt, we could get rid of the Federal Reserve central bank and stop the printing of fiat funny money. Then, go back to the gold standard and silver too,