Monday, January 31, 2011

Fall of Saudi Arabia to End Dollar Reserve System?

here is a social media revolution in Saudi Arabia ... Ten million Saudis are online, 3 million belong to Facebook, and Twitter feeds are up more than 400 percent. Recently, many tweets and posts have been focused on the uprising in Tunisia. In fact, Saudi's social media activists spread videos and news updates at the peak of the street protests — and the interest has stayed high ever since. And, now, Saudi bloggers have added the unrest in Cairo to the topics receiving much attention. Will the Saudi government clamp down on this free-wheeling speech after Tunisia's social media movement helped to bring down a government? It's one of the big questions ahead for Saudi Arabia. How this authoritarian regime will live with the freedom and chaos that the Internet represents. ... The Internet poses a challenge for this conservative, mostly religious society. – National Public Radio

Dominant Social Theme: The Jasmine revolution spread unexpectedly.

Free-Market Analysis: The civil unrest in Egypt is growing fiercer. Electronic communications have been shut down throughout Egypt and massive demonstrations have been planned for today. A changing of the guard in Egypt would be a massive political shift indeed, but what if the disturbances don't stop there? What if they ultimately spread to Saudi Arabia and end up bringing down the dollar reserve system?

We suggest this possibility because we believe there are larger forces at work in the Middle East. Could it be that the power elite itself is inciting these disturbances? Is the idea, eventually, to crash the dollar and set up a global currency in its place?

The dollar reserve system is propped up by Saudi Arabia's willingness to restrict the purchase of oil to dollars, a system that has been in place since US President Richard Nixon abrogated what remained of the gold standard in 1971. But the PE is notoriously unsentimental. The Saudi elite has grown enormously wealthy from its relationship with the US and now, perhaps, for the good of a new world order, it is time for them to go. (more)

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