You touch on a key issue today --the weakening dominion of the dollar -- and pose the question of who pays the transaction costs in a financial system. I think these issues are going to be more closely watched in the near future as we continue to move away from the Bretton Woods economic order. The Ming example of silver as the single currency is instructive. Thanks for describing and explaining it.
I believe it's already happening, or at least the foundations are being laid. A while back, Kevin Walmsley (sp?) put up a Substack piece describing how China is already concentrating gold and assets in markets other than the US and is engineering an alternative to SWIFT payments that will undercut and essentially make SWIFT an overpriced dinosaur for international currency transactions. Someone was going to kneecap SWIFT sooner or later, and who else but China has the heft to do so?
Wow. This is brilliant. My wife (Chinese) teaches history (Ming, Qing) at a national university in Wuhan. I'm going to forward it to her and her grad students. It's such a timely well considered piece. Thanks much.
You touch on a key issue today --the weakening dominion of the dollar -- and pose the question of who pays the transaction costs in a financial system. I think these issues are going to be more closely watched in the near future as we continue to move away from the Bretton Woods economic order. The Ming example of silver as the single currency is instructive. Thanks for describing and explaining it.
I believe it's already happening, or at least the foundations are being laid. A while back, Kevin Walmsley (sp?) put up a Substack piece describing how China is already concentrating gold and assets in markets other than the US and is engineering an alternative to SWIFT payments that will undercut and essentially make SWIFT an overpriced dinosaur for international currency transactions. Someone was going to kneecap SWIFT sooner or later, and who else but China has the heft to do so?
Wow. This is brilliant. My wife (Chinese) teaches history (Ming, Qing) at a national university in Wuhan. I'm going to forward it to her and her grad students. It's such a timely well considered piece. Thanks much.
fantastic account of Ming silver and currency, and how it is relevant to today's world.
Incredible work. Monetary policy made interesting, quite the trick! 😉