LETTER: Real reason for Putin’s actions

I thought it important to place in their proper context the recent remarks made by FirstRand CEO Alan Pullinger regarding the catastrophic consequences that could materialise for SA “given our dalliance with Russia” (“SA’s Russia dalliance poses ‘catastrophic risk’, says FirstRand CEO”, March 2).  

The opening part of British stockbroker Alasdair Macleod’s brilliant recent article, “A tale of two worlds”, encapsulates what is really going on and provides, in my view, a rational and informed context to what is unfolding geopolitically and, more importantly, geo-economically (italics in brackets my words):  

“In the war between the Western alliance and the Asian axis, the media (mainstream) focus is on the Ukrainian battlefield. The real war is in currencies, (which the mainstream media does not cover) with Russia being capable of destroying the dollar. So far, Putin’s actions have been relatively passive. But already both China and Russia have accumulated enough gold to implement gold standards. It is now overwhelmingly in their favour to do so.

“To understand the consequences the comparison is made between the Western alliance’s fiat currency and deficit spending regime and the Russia-China axis’s (Brics+) planned industrial revolution for some 3.8-billion people. America’s finance and (debt based) currency hegemony has outlasted its benefit to the world order. We must recognise that a new order has been emerging since the Russian counterrevolution of 1989. For over 30 years there has been the prospect of a new economic liberation for not just Russia and China, but almost the entire underdeveloped world. 

“The tale of two worlds is about the governments of the established 1.2-billion souls, in the so-called advanced economies (what Pullinger calls the progressive world), determined to contain (with tanks and banks) the other 6.7-billion from challenging it. It’s a clash between production-based economies (industrial capitalism) and economies increasingly based on finance (financial capitalism). It is a clash between real values and ethereal values. It is evolving into a clash between fiat currencies and sound money.” 

Macleod concludes his piece with this: “In short, by his response to Nato aggression (the real reason for Russia’s “military operation” and in stark contrast to Pullinger’s uninformed view that Russia invaded Ukraine unprovoked), Putin (with the help of Brics+) has the power to destroy the alliance’s (the progressive West’s) currency and financial systems. And given that Russia and China, and the entire SCO (Brics+) membership would benefit from a gold standard, there is every reason for him to take the nuclear option, not of the warhead variety, but the financial.”

Johan Verster 
Greenside 

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