Any replacement of Bretton woods must begin with a systematic repudiation of Odious Debt, much of which emanated from the IMF, World bank and other Bretton Woods institutions after their capture by Wall St (and, for traditionalists The City).
Any new system has to start out with a clean ethical slate. The entire edifice of neo-colonialism and imperialism has to be dismantled in order to prevent further looting of non G7 countries and the capitalist metropole itself.
Much of the famous US debt of so many billions (mistakenly called 'trillions') is odious in that it is levied on the basis of a taxation system which is retrogressive to the point of absurdity.
"You should essentially think of the IMF as a small office in the basement of the Pentagon, deciding what countries to support, and what countries are following policies that the United States do not want and therefore wants to wreck".
obviously the financial system as it presently stands, is not working! 2008 was a clear case of highlighting how capitalism as it is presently practiced is designed to bailout the speculators, all in order to 'save' capitalism from itself... getting rid of any kinds of oversight has succeeded in highlighting how fragile and corrupt our present financial system is...
apparently understanding what exactly money is would be a basic requirement of any economist, but you'd be wrong to think that!!! this doesn't help and economists can not be consulted, unless you want to be misdirected!!
so yes to yaroufakis idea of a new bretton woods, or some international institution that is not designed to favour the usa, or any currency in particular.. the problem was when the usa went off the gold standard in 1971 or 72 - the us$ became the defacto world currency, with nothing to back it up.. this did work well for funding all of the usa's foreign wars, but overall it hasn't worked well for the rest of the world..
as i see it the problem is much bigger.. can capitalism exist alongside democracy?? it doesn't seem to... globalization has really shone a light on this where there are no rules in the international community, or very little to create an equal playing field.. instead we have the 'rules based order' and other such bullying tactics, like sanctions and etc. etc. - to push for an ongoing winner takes all approach.. it might have worked fine in a unipolar world, but we don't have that anymore, although the usa is slow to acknowledge this and europe is even more confused and lost without it's papa warbucks to tell it what to do..
i find the whole area of finance especially fascinating and relevant to what is happening today.. it is likely as yaroufakis suggests, the financial crisis of 2008 will be a walk in the park, compared to where we might be headed here.. china will definitely need to step up to the plate as the usa is either incapable, or unwilling to even consider the idea of creating a balanced system of world finance..
You raise a good question about the compatibility of democracy and capitalism. IMO, the key resides in how the political/governance system is structured. At some point. I’ll write about that since I have some ideas.
the problem is we don't have a political governance system for the world.. even the UN which might be thought of as such doesn't function when countries want to ignore it.. there is nothing overseeing the madness and in fact, capitalism without any restraint is a good definition for madness... the issue of climate change? talk is cheap... all the countries have been paying for expensive conferences, but what has come of it?? aside from a lot of bureacracy - nothing... and it will remain this way if capitalism is allowed to continue as it presently does... democracy is mostly viewed as an impediment to capitalism, which might explain why we have next to none of it..
The problem is the lack of moral and ethical grounding. Recall what Wolff said last Thursday about the relationship dichotomy. Equity never enters the picture. Contrast with the Asian goal of harmony. Lu Feng has coined the term Industrial Socialism to describe China’s system.
talk of morals and ethics only goes so far with capitalism.. the folks with the least about of both, do the best in this system.. it ain't working, and at present the chinese system may indeed be better.. maybe the world will find out in the next 50 years.. i have no idea... it is easy to be idealistic about something i know nothing about.. it is more difficult with things i have direct experience with..
Yeah. The wife and I got into a discussion about why that lack, where I got onto culture forged by geography and competition over scarce resources dating back 50-100K years where that culture was welded into DNA. An untestable hypothesis but explanatory.
Barcelona City Council severs institutional ties with Israel over the genocide in Gaza. Authorities in the Spanish city take a firm step in support of the Palestinian people and sever all institutional ties with the Israeli regime.
It is high time that Keynes' intelligent and constructive proposals were given a try in practice. In 1944, although he seems not fully to have understood what was going on, the US government was absolutely determined to gain and keep financial supremacy over the rest of the world.
As George Kennan wrote in a famous State Department memo in 1948:
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction".
Keynes had been dead for two years by then, but the memo would have helped him to understand the cynical refusal of the US authorities to take his recommendations seriously. At Bretton Woods Keynes - already seriously ill as a result of the immense stresses of his work - had proposed the solution he believed best for everyone. But the US government, with the whip hand, made sure that everything was done to confirm its own supremacy.
It's a clever idea, which Yannis is known for, but an idea for saving the Capitalist system and all of its contradictions, something he's also known for, despite the left cred around him.
Ultimately, as our friend psycho from MOA points out, it's simply a question of eliminating, by politics and/or force, private finance. Or as they used to say: nationalizing the banks. Although that is the critical first step in the process, ultimately all production must be nationalized and run for common human benefit. Once that macro issue is resolved and defended with military force, there will suddenly appear the freedom to change the rest of our social organization.
Finally, China would be unable to carry out a Bretton Woods 2 without winning a war first. One that definitively neutralizes the western ruling class. In the end, it's a question of (class) power first and economic philosophy second.
Sadly, the world is not organized according to reason (yet!) but rather according to the interests of a tiny, increasingly desperate and perverted, western ruling class. For reason and humanity to flourish, this ruling class and the system that facilitated their existence must be annihilated.
I wrote a comment at his Patreon regarding his closing critique of the BRICS: “Looks like someone needs to write a "How to Properly Develop Your Economy for Dummies" book, and that needs to begin with the structure of government and the financial system.”
Taking Rosa Parks as a metaphor, the time will come when China takes a preferential seat on the "bus" of the monetary system. The dollar will have no choice but to adapt to the new reality. All those values that empires proclaim as eternal only prove one thing: that eternity actually lasts very little. I suggest that the new generations start learning Chinese.
So we implement a new financial system beneficial to ALL, even US Murder Inc.
Should US Murder Inc sign up to Coin, or any other country for that matter, Wars-Regime Change, Colour Revolutions, interference in another sovereigns' affairs would have to end, punishments doled out.
For example could a country benefit through trade in the new system while committing genocide in another?
IMO, the Empire will keep its system and shun the new one out of spite and hubris; plus, it doesn’t need to be allowed entry. IMO, to attain entry, a nation would need to agree to and sign China’s Global Security Initiative that bans hegemony. However, the key to BRICS development is organizing their government and financial system so the former has firm control of the latter that’s in the form of a public utility. IMO, that’s the key.
The good news is that African countries are nationalising their gold reserves.
For example the newly formed AES countries Mali, Burkina and Niger produce around 250 Metric Tonnes per annum combined, however, around the time France was evicted last year these countries didn't hold 15 M/T in their vaults while France has the 4th highest gold reserves, 2400 M/T and produces zero in France. Russia is only 5th 2300 M/T despite being the 2nd largest producer with an annual production of 320 M/T. China is the largest producer with 370 M/T per annum.
You can understand why France has the hump, especially with Russia, as these figures will reverse over the next decade, France and AES that is.
Still France will be even more concerned that their 70 year monopoly of Niger's uranium is also over.
Dr Keen would likely be using his accounting approach where credits/debits work their way across the ledger. The current system is opaque so that fiddles can be performed by the powerful and obfuscation used to confuse the "uninitiated". The US will refuse, but we'll see how long it's various satellite/client regimes last when existing financial system is displaced, which it will be in a general financial crisis - think of the west as the village of Blatten.
The current system does not work, we need massive changes. We need a much fairer more balanced system. It will take huge changes to occur for the current system to be got rid of. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. I know I'd trust the Chinese long before any Western countries to implement a better system.
I almost stopped reading when it said system would be based on "Keynes". Basing a system on Keyne's idea, having "global" reserves all can draw on and use system to advance a "green" revolution is are recipe for disaster as all three are failed experiments we must we must avoid at all costs.
This new system is either a gift to the WEF and Soros crowd, or was designed by them and being distributed by useful idiots.
«A trade imbalance tax is levied annually in proportion to the current account deficit or surplus of the Cosmocoin account held by central banks and deposited in the Common Development Fund (CDF), which is managed by multilateral institutions. Fees: Private financial institutions pay "peak" fees to mutual funds in proportion to capital outflows, just as ride-hailing companies give customers a price increase during rush hour.»
Varoufakis is the buffoon who claimed when Finance Minister of Greece that the ECB should give his government an unlimited zero interest overdraft, never to be repaid because that would solve the fiscal problems that Greece had without increasing taxation or cutting spending. Hey, I would like an unlimited overdraft at the ECB too!
His latest proposal is ridiculously unrealistic: he is proposing that sovereign government volunteer to pay large amounts of taxes to some bank whose spending they do not control and that issues large amounts of money according to policies that they do not control. Basically he is proposing that the governments of China, EU, Russia, USA, India, etc. be overruled by a world government of "technocrats".
Any replacement of Bretton woods must begin with a systematic repudiation of Odious Debt, much of which emanated from the IMF, World bank and other Bretton Woods institutions after their capture by Wall St (and, for traditionalists The City).
Any new system has to start out with a clean ethical slate. The entire edifice of neo-colonialism and imperialism has to be dismantled in order to prevent further looting of non G7 countries and the capitalist metropole itself.
Much of the famous US debt of so many billions (mistakenly called 'trillions') is odious in that it is levied on the basis of a taxation system which is retrogressive to the point of absurdity.
One of Dr Hudson's best bons mots is this:
"You should essentially think of the IMF as a small office in the basement of the Pentagon, deciding what countries to support, and what countries are following policies that the United States do not want and therefore wants to wreck".
- Michael Hudson https://www.unz.com/mhudson/changes-in-superimperialism/
obviously the financial system as it presently stands, is not working! 2008 was a clear case of highlighting how capitalism as it is presently practiced is designed to bailout the speculators, all in order to 'save' capitalism from itself... getting rid of any kinds of oversight has succeeded in highlighting how fragile and corrupt our present financial system is...
apparently understanding what exactly money is would be a basic requirement of any economist, but you'd be wrong to think that!!! this doesn't help and economists can not be consulted, unless you want to be misdirected!!
so yes to yaroufakis idea of a new bretton woods, or some international institution that is not designed to favour the usa, or any currency in particular.. the problem was when the usa went off the gold standard in 1971 or 72 - the us$ became the defacto world currency, with nothing to back it up.. this did work well for funding all of the usa's foreign wars, but overall it hasn't worked well for the rest of the world..
as i see it the problem is much bigger.. can capitalism exist alongside democracy?? it doesn't seem to... globalization has really shone a light on this where there are no rules in the international community, or very little to create an equal playing field.. instead we have the 'rules based order' and other such bullying tactics, like sanctions and etc. etc. - to push for an ongoing winner takes all approach.. it might have worked fine in a unipolar world, but we don't have that anymore, although the usa is slow to acknowledge this and europe is even more confused and lost without it's papa warbucks to tell it what to do..
i find the whole area of finance especially fascinating and relevant to what is happening today.. it is likely as yaroufakis suggests, the financial crisis of 2008 will be a walk in the park, compared to where we might be headed here.. china will definitely need to step up to the plate as the usa is either incapable, or unwilling to even consider the idea of creating a balanced system of world finance..
You raise a good question about the compatibility of democracy and capitalism. IMO, the key resides in how the political/governance system is structured. At some point. I’ll write about that since I have some ideas.
the problem is we don't have a political governance system for the world.. even the UN which might be thought of as such doesn't function when countries want to ignore it.. there is nothing overseeing the madness and in fact, capitalism without any restraint is a good definition for madness... the issue of climate change? talk is cheap... all the countries have been paying for expensive conferences, but what has come of it?? aside from a lot of bureacracy - nothing... and it will remain this way if capitalism is allowed to continue as it presently does... democracy is mostly viewed as an impediment to capitalism, which might explain why we have next to none of it..
The problem is the lack of moral and ethical grounding. Recall what Wolff said last Thursday about the relationship dichotomy. Equity never enters the picture. Contrast with the Asian goal of harmony. Lu Feng has coined the term Industrial Socialism to describe China’s system.
talk of morals and ethics only goes so far with capitalism.. the folks with the least about of both, do the best in this system.. it ain't working, and at present the chinese system may indeed be better.. maybe the world will find out in the next 50 years.. i have no idea... it is easy to be idealistic about something i know nothing about.. it is more difficult with things i have direct experience with..
Yeah. The wife and I got into a discussion about why that lack, where I got onto culture forged by geography and competition over scarce resources dating back 50-100K years where that culture was welded into DNA. An untestable hypothesis but explanatory.
you have to also account for psycho and sociopaths who seem especially attracted to positions of power, which often revolve around money...
Barcelona City Council severs institutional ties with Israel over the genocide in Gaza. Authorities in the Spanish city take a firm step in support of the Palestinian people and sever all institutional ties with the Israeli regime.
https://www.telesurtv.net/barcelona-rompe-lazos-institucionales-israel-genocidio-gaza/?utm_source=planisys&utm_medium=NewsletterEspa%C3%B1ol&utm_campaign=NewsletterEspa%C3%B1ol&utm_content=16
At risk of seeming pedantic:
" Authorities in the Catalan city take a firm step in support of the Palestinian people..."
At the risk of being misunderstood:
I am in favor of the independence of peoples, not of their bourgeoisie or ruling class (which, by the way, maintains good relations with Zionism):
https://arrezafe.blogspot.com/2018/05/informe-derechos-humanos-las-relaciones.html
It is high time that Keynes' intelligent and constructive proposals were given a try in practice. In 1944, although he seems not fully to have understood what was going on, the US government was absolutely determined to gain and keep financial supremacy over the rest of the world.
As George Kennan wrote in a famous State Department memo in 1948:
"We have about 50% of the world's wealth but only 6.3% of its population. This disparity is particularly great as between ourselves and the peoples of Asia. In this situation, we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity without positive detriment to our national security. To do so, we will have to dispense with all sentimentality and day-dreaming; and our attention will have to be concentrated everywhere on our immediate national objectives. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world-benefaction".
Keynes had been dead for two years by then, but the memo would have helped him to understand the cynical refusal of the US authorities to take his recommendations seriously. At Bretton Woods Keynes - already seriously ill as a result of the immense stresses of his work - had proposed the solution he believed best for everyone. But the US government, with the whip hand, made sure that everything was done to confirm its own supremacy.
It's a clever idea, which Yannis is known for, but an idea for saving the Capitalist system and all of its contradictions, something he's also known for, despite the left cred around him.
Ultimately, as our friend psycho from MOA points out, it's simply a question of eliminating, by politics and/or force, private finance. Or as they used to say: nationalizing the banks. Although that is the critical first step in the process, ultimately all production must be nationalized and run for common human benefit. Once that macro issue is resolved and defended with military force, there will suddenly appear the freedom to change the rest of our social organization.
Finally, China would be unable to carry out a Bretton Woods 2 without winning a war first. One that definitively neutralizes the western ruling class. In the end, it's a question of (class) power first and economic philosophy second.
Sadly, the world is not organized according to reason (yet!) but rather according to the interests of a tiny, increasingly desperate and perverted, western ruling class. For reason and humanity to flourish, this ruling class and the system that facilitated their existence must be annihilated.
Don’t need to include the West initially. Michael’s got a new transcription team working which has his latest talk with Glen Diesen already on his site, https://michael-hudson.com/2025/05/the-price-of-allegiance/
I wrote a comment at his Patreon regarding his closing critique of the BRICS: “Looks like someone needs to write a "How to Properly Develop Your Economy for Dummies" book, and that needs to begin with the structure of government and the financial system.”
"One that definitively neutralizes the western ruling class. In the end, it's a question of (class) power first and economic philosophy second."
The western ruling class is currently doing everything that it can to neutralize itself. They will succeed at this task with or without a war.
Taking Rosa Parks as a metaphor, the time will come when China takes a preferential seat on the "bus" of the monetary system. The dollar will have no choice but to adapt to the new reality. All those values that empires proclaim as eternal only prove one thing: that eternity actually lasts very little. I suggest that the new generations start learning Chinese.
The wheels on the bus go round and round, all day long.
“My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland
But how can Trump talk if he hasn't got a brain?
Wizard of Oz
So we implement a new financial system beneficial to ALL, even US Murder Inc.
Should US Murder Inc sign up to Coin, or any other country for that matter, Wars-Regime Change, Colour Revolutions, interference in another sovereigns' affairs would have to end, punishments doled out.
For example could a country benefit through trade in the new system while committing genocide in another?
IMO, the Empire will keep its system and shun the new one out of spite and hubris; plus, it doesn’t need to be allowed entry. IMO, to attain entry, a nation would need to agree to and sign China’s Global Security Initiative that bans hegemony. However, the key to BRICS development is organizing their government and financial system so the former has firm control of the latter that’s in the form of a public utility. IMO, that’s the key.
The Empire's current system is unravelling like an old hooker's pantyhose.
I also hope the Central Bank mentioned is not Rothschild & JP Morgan affiliated.
The central clearing bank would be new created and governed multilaterally. The key is the control and regulation of Capital.
The good news is that African countries are nationalising their gold reserves.
For example the newly formed AES countries Mali, Burkina and Niger produce around 250 Metric Tonnes per annum combined, however, around the time France was evicted last year these countries didn't hold 15 M/T in their vaults while France has the 4th highest gold reserves, 2400 M/T and produces zero in France. Russia is only 5th 2300 M/T despite being the 2nd largest producer with an annual production of 320 M/T. China is the largest producer with 370 M/T per annum.
You can understand why France has the hump, especially with Russia, as these figures will reverse over the next decade, France and AES that is.
Still France will be even more concerned that their 70 year monopoly of Niger's uranium is also over.
Dr Keen would likely be using his accounting approach where credits/debits work their way across the ledger. The current system is opaque so that fiddles can be performed by the powerful and obfuscation used to confuse the "uninitiated". The US will refuse, but we'll see how long it's various satellite/client regimes last when existing financial system is displaced, which it will be in a general financial crisis - think of the west as the village of Blatten.
The current system does not work, we need massive changes. We need a much fairer more balanced system. It will take huge changes to occur for the current system to be got rid of. The sooner the better as far as I'm concerned. I know I'd trust the Chinese long before any Western countries to implement a better system.
I almost stopped reading when it said system would be based on "Keynes". Basing a system on Keyne's idea, having "global" reserves all can draw on and use system to advance a "green" revolution is are recipe for disaster as all three are failed experiments we must we must avoid at all costs.
This new system is either a gift to the WEF and Soros crowd, or was designed by them and being distributed by useful idiots.
«A trade imbalance tax is levied annually in proportion to the current account deficit or surplus of the Cosmocoin account held by central banks and deposited in the Common Development Fund (CDF), which is managed by multilateral institutions. Fees: Private financial institutions pay "peak" fees to mutual funds in proportion to capital outflows, just as ride-hailing companies give customers a price increase during rush hour.»
Varoufakis is the buffoon who claimed when Finance Minister of Greece that the ECB should give his government an unlimited zero interest overdraft, never to be repaid because that would solve the fiscal problems that Greece had without increasing taxation or cutting spending. Hey, I would like an unlimited overdraft at the ECB too!
His latest proposal is ridiculously unrealistic: he is proposing that sovereign government volunteer to pay large amounts of taxes to some bank whose spending they do not control and that issues large amounts of money according to policies that they do not control. Basically he is proposing that the governments of China, EU, Russia, USA, India, etc. be overruled by a world government of "technocrats".