According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the U.S. dollar share of global foreign exchange reserves declined from roughly 73% in 2000 to about 56% in 2022 despite the dollar’s continued appreciation during that period. Particularly noteworthy is the slope of the decline beginning in 2014, the year of the … Continue reading
Category Archives: Economy
Hydrogen Economy
This diagram shows how green hydrogen produced by electrolysis of seawater using solar energy on rooftops could be used to generate electricity and steam in new plants on suitable mountaintops. The water would be collected, condensed, and fed to cascading turbines on the mountain slopes to generate still more electricity … Continue reading
Water, Hydrogen, Real Estate & the Dollar
Background It is indeed remarkable the propensity of our esteemed decision makers to ignore scientists’ warnings. Case in point, the March 1912 issue of Popular Mechanics correctly predicted that coal burning would accumulate carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and cause a greenhouse effect. Did the industrialized countries heed? The answer … Continue reading
The Real Estate Connection
The federal government directly buttresses the mortgage industry through insurance and guarantee programs: FHA has an insured portfolio in excess of $1.2 trillion, Ginnie Mae guarantees over $2 trillion in securities backed by mortgages with FHA or other federal agencies, and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac –government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) … Continue reading
Poverty, Inequality, and Hydrogen
“Unlike some other calculations, those relating to poverty have no intrinsic value of their own. They exist only in order to help us make them disappear from the scene…. With imagination, faith and hope, we might succeed in wiping out the scourge of poverty even if we don’t agree on … Continue reading
The Players
The combined GDP of BRICS members on this list (China, India, Russia and Brazil) amounts to $58,096,000,000,000. The combined GDP of the “Western” allies (the United States, Japan, Germany, France, and the United Kingdom is $44,006,000,000,000, a difference of $14,090,000,000,000. The United States The outstanding debt of the United … Continue reading
Historical Record
Breton Woods Roots In 1944, with the approaching defeat of Germany all but certain, representatives of forty-four nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to create a new international monetary system. This Bretton Woods System, which became fully operational in 1958, was essentially a mechanism to settle international accounts in … Continue reading