Free Republic

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller on Friday played down the functionality of cryptocurrencies while again expressing his skepticism about adopting a central bank digital currency when consumers already have access to fast payment systems. “These things aren’t payment instruments at all,” Waller said of cryptocurrencies during a virtual panel on central bank digital currencies. “My view is these things are just electronic gold. They're forms of storage carrying wealth across time. Look at art, look at baseball cards. Look at all of this stuff that's intrinsically useless that people pay a lot of money and hold on to because they...

It’s been rightly said that “he who holds the gold makes the rules.”After World War 2, the US had the largest gold reserves in the world, by far. Along with winning the war, this let the US reconstruct the global monetary system around the dollar.The new system, created at the Bretton Woods Conference in 1944, tied the currencies of virtually every country in the world to the US dollar through a fixed exchange rate. It also tied the US dollar to gold at a fixed rate of $35 per ounce.The dollar was said to be “as good as gold.”The Bretton...

Russia this week stopped the flow of natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria. The two former Soviet satellite states have defied the Kremlin by supporting Ukraine in its efforts to repel the Russian assault. And in some places, the effects of the gas shut-off are already being felt. Wilson Dizard has more in this report. ...

Mapping Interest RateS AROUND THE WORLDIN2022 MARKETS INA MINUTE The global economy is facing complex struggles, including inflation and the war in Ukraine. Against this backdrop, many countries are projected to rise interest rates over the course of 2022. Here's an early snapshot of global interest rates this year. Short-Term

On Sunday, Russia entered the third month of its invasion of Ukraine, with no sign of an end in sight. Despite severe pushback in the shape of the toughest economic sanctions ever imposed on a country, the ruble, the Russian currency, appears to be strengthening.What’s become evident is that, despite an enormously broad package of sanctions on Russia’s government and oligarchs, as well as an exodus of foreign enterprises, the moves are mostly ineffectual if foreign nationals continue to consume Russian oil and natural gas, which supports the ruble.On Feb. 24, the first day of the invasion, the ruble traded...

Israel has now moved to add the Chinese yuan to its reserve currency portfolio, which will create a natural hedge against the risk of insanity pushing for war by the United States and Europe. Adding the yuan to the reserve portfolio will automatically reduce the exposure to the dollar and especially to the euro, thereby creating a natural hedge, whereas a decline in the dollar and euro would imply a rise in the yuan and even the ruble. The Middle East is divided and Zelensky pretends to be the Jewish hero, yet before the war, at the United Nations, Zelensky...

Germany has said it will halt imports of Russian oil by the end of this year. "We will halve oil by the summer and will be at zero by the end of the year, and then gas will follow," said German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock. Germany currently buys a quarter of its oil and 40% of its gas from Russia... About 60% of Russia's oil exports go to Europe, and another 20% go to China.

The US and its allies have slapped a grand total of over 9,600 sanctions against Russian officials, the state, companies, tycoons and other entities in connection with the crisis in Ukraine. Moscow now has more restrictions against it than Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar combined. Russia has successfully withstood unprecedented sanctions pressure from the West, President Vladimir Putin has said. "The calculation was to quickly undermine the financial and economic situation in our country, to provoke panic in the markets, the collapse of the banking system, and a large-scale shortage of goods in stores," Putin said, speaking at...

On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that while there is inflation taking place everywhere in the world, America’s inflation numbers are “significantly higher” than the numbers in most of the other comparable countries and this is due to both Federal Reserve policy and “our extremely expansionary fiscal policy, federal spending.”

Since the West has declared a hybrid war against Russia, Moscow has to search for opportunities in other regions, the diplomat said. The BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) will be at the heart of a new world order, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said. "In all respects ... these countries will become the basis of a new world order," the deputy foreign minister told RT when asked whether the BRICS countries would take a more important role in the world. Russia is working to establish contacts with any country that is interested in cooperation, he...

WASHINGTON, April 13 (Reuters) - U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Wednesday appealed to China to take action to help end Russia's war in Ukraine, warning in a landmark speech that Beijing's standing in the world would suffer if it fails to do so.In remarks prepared for delivery at the Atlantic Council in Washington, Yellen said she "fervently" hoped that China would make something positive out of its "special relationship" with Russia and help end the war.

A majority of Americans believe that oil companies, in addition to Russian President Vladimir Putin, should be blamed for the recent spike in oil and gas prices, according to an ABC News poll. The poll found that 71 percent of those surveyed blame Putin for the spike in gas prices amid his country’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine while 68 percent said they blame oil and gas companies for the recent high gas prices.

People who speak out openly with concern about the potential death of the U.S. dollar have been written off as conspiracy theorists for the better part of the last few decades. But looking back, unfortunately, I’m sure history is going to be kind to these people and their prognostications. They will have been the ones who sounded the alarm in a relatively short amount of time before ultimately being proven right. I don’t say this to brag or boast in advance in any way, I say it because I truly believe we are at the “beginning of the end” of...

(Reuters) -- Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that he had signed a decree saying foreign buyers must pay in rubles for Russian gas from April 1, and contracts would be halted if these payments were not made. "In order to purchase Russian natural gas, they must open ruble accounts in Russian banks. It is from these accounts that payments will be made for gas delivered starting from tomorrow," Putin said in televised remarks. "If such payments are not made, we will consider this a default on the part of buyers, with all the ensuing consequences. Nobody sells us...

So what was the world’s best performing currency of the past month? You guessed it: the Russian ruble. After plunging to 139 rubles to the dollar on March 7, the ruble staged a dramatic comeback to around 80 rubles to the dollar. That’s only slightly weaker than where it was for almost all of last year. The recovery is equally impressive when compared with the euro. At the end of February, it took 89 rubles to buy a euro. In early March, that climbed to around 145 rubles. Now it is down to 87.32. On Friday, the joke among foreign...

Looks like ol’ Vlady Putin has outwitted us again!Or has he?First, watch this typically effective new bit of Ukrainian propaganda, which I’d call half-true.Купуючи російську нафту та газ, ви фінансуєте вбивства українців. Дійте рішучіше. Досить годувати російську військову машину.Польща, Литва, Латвія та Естонія вже відмовились від фінансування геноциду. pic.twitter.com/AhNB8LBgNP— Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) April 8, 2022Is it true that Europe’s ongoing purchases of Russian energy are buoying up the ruble and stabilizing Russia’s economy? Alas, yes.Is it true that those purchases are funding Russia’s war machine in Ukraine? Not exactly.The ruble crashed after the U.S. and other NATO allies slapped Russia...

he Russian central bank sharply cut its key rate to 17% on Friday and said future cuts were possible, as emergency steps had contained the risk to financial stability, brought deposits back to banks and helped limit the threat of inflation, it said. -snip- Annual inflation in Russia accelerated to 16.70% as of April 1, its highest since March 2015 and up from 15.66% a week earlier, as the volatile rouble sent prices soaring amid unprecedented Western sanctions which cut Russia off the global financial markets and limited its trade with the outside world. External conditions for the Russian economy...

Russia on Wednesday said it had transferred $650 million worth of bond payments in rubles, raising fresh questions about whether the country is heading for an official default. The move came after the US on Monday banned Russia from making dollar debt payments from accounts at American financial institutions. Russia's Finance Ministry on Wednesday confirmed foreign banks had refused to process the $649.2 million payment in dollars, which were due Monday. It said it had instead sent the money to the country's National Settlement Depository in rubles. The Ministry said it believes its obligations "have been fulfilled in full." However,...

Late last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin warned if gas buyers from "unfriendly" states refuse to pay for fuel in rubles, Moscow would consider it a breach of contract. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said that a ruble payment scheme that Russia currently uses with gas would be extended to new groups of goods in the future. In an interview with the broadcaster Rossiya 1, Peskov said that Russia's European counterparts will pay for gas in the same currency that is indicated in their contracts, but that the final payment will go to the Russian energy giant Gazprom in rubles....

With Russia’s central bank having just profoundly altered the international trade and monetary system by linking the Russian ruble to both gold and commodities, journalists in Moscow asked me to write a Q and A article on what these developments mean, and the ramifications of these changes on the Russian ruble, the US dollar, the gold price and the global system of currencies. This article has been published on the RT.com website here.Since RT.com is now blocked and censored in many Western locations such as the EU, UK, US and Canada, and since many readers may not be able to...