December 28, 2021 • 50 mins
When oil is traded in US cash, the currency is called a petrodollar. It's a fundamental part of international trade -- but it's also a continual source of conspiratorial allegations. Join Matt and Ben as they explore the fact and fiction surrounding the petrodollar.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Well, well, well what is that, Gracie. Now our ears today, Matt,
this is our episode on the petro dollar, the petro
what the petro dollar. I really enjoyed this one because
it's something that gets wrapped up in the world of
conspiracy or conspiratorial allegations, but in many cases those allegations
(00:24):
are also true. Yeah, we're dealing with an actual cartel here, people,
a real cartel. It's maybe the first time I remember
learning what that word actually meant, what it was, and
saw the inner workings of of how, you know, different
different groups in an industry can work together to do
(00:45):
things like control prices, or how different state actors can
make their currency the main currency of business by requiring
certain things essentially allous boiling too much. Actually, uh, the
name petro dollar comes about because of some agreements that
(01:08):
oil should be mainly traded in US cash. So yeah,
you know, no paco's, no real or whatever, just the greenbacks.
And then what does that do, Like what kind of
ripple effects does that have on global politics, economies and uh,
where wars are fought and why Yeah, surely just great stuff.
(01:30):
There's a great effect. It's gonna be awesome. Let's dive in,
let's figure out, let's figure out this Petro dollar thing
from UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups, histories whippled
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. I just
(01:54):
got this memo today or yesterday from the office of
the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It's a five year plan.
We're gonna take down seven countries in five years. We're
gonna start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
and then we're gonna come back and get it wrong
in five years. And that is a quotation from a
(02:17):
gentleman named Wesley Clark, uh former NATO higher up, is
a Supreme Allied commander, and he is telling a story
about how in two thousand and one a general of
the Pentagon said this to him. And that comes as
reported via The Guardian with the journalist David Swanson. You
(02:37):
may have seen that clip before. I know, I had
seen it on in several places over the years of him.
He's on stage and he's discussing about how he got
this memo, and it seems to reflect what has happened
over the past several years. Oh right, and before we
get too far ahead of ourselves. Uh, you're Matt Been,
(02:58):
that's our super doucer. Uh null oil money Brown? Oh man,
Oh he's got oil money. Well some I'm sure at
some point, just the way the mixtape game goes, somebody's
going to call themselves oil money. It's all oil money.
But didn't didn't was it cash money records? Uh? Someone
(03:18):
try to start their own oil exploration. I think it
might have been Baby Williams, but don't quote me on
that anyhow. Yeah, Matt, you're here, I'm here, knows here, listeners.
Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Today, we are talking
a little something called the petro dollar. Now, this is
(03:41):
a term that refers to US dollars um and it's
something that they they earned that the US currency has
earned basically through the export of oil, through our relationship
with oil. Our country's a relationship, and essentially when countries
sell oil, they're doing so at least not always, but
(04:03):
it is kind of a handshake deal kind of thing
that when countries are trading in oil, they're trading in
US dollars. So that might sound like a weird abstract
economic thing. Price of t in China doesn't matter to me,
Ben and Matt and know only you might be saying, so,
think of the petro dollar as similar to the gold standard.
(04:26):
We did a video on the gold standard. We did
we did a whole series on why gold is not
the standard anymore? Right, yeah, and why and why does
it matter? So we'll talk a little bit about that today.
This this week, we've been working on a series on
the petro dollar, and our longtime listeners will be glad
to know this is a classic episode that we have
(04:47):
coming out. So yes, well it's not a classic, it's
a yeah, it's interesting, it's a it's got an intro
from when we were in d C because we were
outside a Ronald Ray the Ronald Reagan Link for International Trade,
right yeah, and we just started thinking, oh, we could
talk about the petrow dollar. And a lot of times
when we have a good idea, we received a great suggestion.
(05:09):
We we know it's a real it's a real good
one because we're kicking ourselves for not having covered it earlier.
So this is something that took us while to get to,
but it's something a lot of people should know about.
And I'm sure that some people might find this boring.
There are some dry parts to this h and sure
some other people wish we had covered it more in depth.
(05:33):
And I'm sure that many of many of our listeners
out there, myself included, are we just waiting for cryptids?
But yeah, I noticed on Twitter people are excited about that. Yeah, exactly,
and thanks to everybody who wrote in with those tweets.
I think was Gavin who made the initial suggestion, and
we are on it. But for now petro dollars. So
(05:56):
the reason you mentioned the gold currency is because this
in the same way is petroleum in this form functions
as a way to prop up a currency, right right, Yeah,
it's tying the concept of a currency to a tangible asset.
So when other countries are using dollars to export oil,
(06:18):
right and you you have to give you know, a
country a payment in dollars per barrel, then you have rubles.
They say, no rubles, you have yen or run by
and they say none of that, none of that. Swiss proner.
I don't know what are some other currencies. I don't
know too many. I know the the rand, the r oh,
(06:40):
I learned about Brixton dollars. Have you heard of this?
What are Brixton dollars? Man? This is a local currency
in a certain section of London. I think it's Brixton.
I hope, I hope that's the correct name. But it's
just a local currency that people have started using where
you can trade in your sterling and your your pounds
and everything, and then you get these local dollars and
you can use them at There are several places that
(07:03):
are accept them, so they kind of they keep the
money in the area. That's part of it. That makes sense.
And I guess you if you limit the area where
those things can be used, currencies are powerful things and
and currencies are, you know, articles of faith just as
much as any religious symbol might be, because for a
(07:23):
long time now they have not been based on a
tangible asset and whole I can we take a tangent
real quick, Okay, So you know, for a long time, Matt,
I have been talking about bend bucks. I think I
may haven't mentioned this on the show. Every time we
look into currency, I get a little closer to actually
(07:46):
just printing some and using them around the office. That's
where I'm that's where I'm stuck, because they don't need
to be back by anything. It could just be my
good name, can I can I give you here? Okay?
So there is there are these things called mountain bucks
(08:06):
or mountain Mountain time bucks or something like that. So
it's it's another local currency used by a couple of
small communities, and it's in half hour increments. So you
could trade someone half hour half hour of your manual
labor or whatever you need, Like do you need a
human being to assist you with something? Here is half
(08:26):
hour in currency. I see. Okay, that makes sense because
if you think about it, and you and I have
had this conversation before, with our debate over whether Batman
has a superpower? Do you remember that, Yes, and we
decided that he doesn't really have a superpower, but he
has the closest thing you can get to a human
(08:47):
having a superpower in the real world. I well, I
think that Batman does have a superpower, and I hate
it when people say that he doesn't. He has a superpower,
has a superpower because he is a billionaire, right, But
it goes deeper than that. This Mountain time conversation reminds
me because money is the concept of currencies really just
(09:08):
a concept of human labor over time, right, So you
can build a studio like when we're now, uh, and
fabricate everything, teach yourself how to do that, take those
hours and hours and hours of craftsmanship and skill and practice.
Or you can give somebody something that they will take
(09:31):
in exchange for their time. So currency as a marker
of time makes less sense to me, which means that
if you have a billion dollars, essentially your time traveling,
that's what That's what it was. You're not losing decades
teaching yourself how to build a frigging bat cave, you
know what I mean, or just a microphone. And I'm
(09:53):
not saying that Batman is not the world's greatest detective.
Clearly that is that is the case. And I'm a
huge Batman fan. Yeah he has skills, but you know
he what what would he be if he wasn't a billionaire?
You know, yeah, he'd be just alone, Nina. It would
be tough. Uh, it would be tough, I think, to
(10:15):
to have the same stuff. But anyway, we're digressing a
little bit this currency stuff. As you can tell, the
listeners were very interested in this and because everybody has
to use like the petro dollar is bigger than Mountain time,
the petro dollars bigger than bend bucks, the petro dollar
is bigger than the euro so far. In fact, because
(10:37):
everybody has to use dollars, where had to use dollars
to buy oil, all these other countries had to keep
a stash of cash, which is very good for the US,
and it's one of the reasons that the US is
referred to as the world's reserve currency. So we have
a couple of questions. The biggest one is how how
on earth did this happen? How do we get to
(10:59):
the point where the US dollar is the world's currency
when you're dealing with oil? Which which which will totally
tell you. By the way, We're not just gonna leave
that one hanging. We have other questions to write, like
how long can this situation last? Yeah, is there something
in the works right now that might be, I don't know,
(11:20):
causing a huge change with the state of the petro dollar.
Will the US go to war to protect itself and
its petro dollar? And has it done so already? First,
let's take a let's take a trip back in history,
nor can we have the trip back in history? Sound cute? Great, well,
(11:48):
so I'll good to see you. Welcome back to the
nine and the Breton Woods Agreement, which officially gives the
U S a distinct financial advantage on the international sphere,
tying the dollar to a value of thirty five five
dollars per single ounce of gold, with other currencies in
the agreeing signatory countries pegged to the value of the dollar. Now,
(12:09):
that worked for a time, but the US essentially just
promised not to print a crapload of money. Yes, and
during the Vietnam conflict, all the countries began asking for
the gold the dollars represented, and the value of the
currency therefore decreased because you see, the U S didn't
have the gold. Then President Nixon eventually took the dollar
off the gold standard entirely and refused to convert US
(12:29):
currency to gold. Yes, well, in a way, defaulting quite true,
my good man. Let's head to the nineteen seventies, seventies, seventies,
seventies sevent So in the early seventies, under Nixon, Henry
Kissinger reportedly approached the House of Saud Saudi Arabia with
(12:50):
an intriguing proposition. He said, we'll safeguard and support your
rule over all of this, along with giving you military supplies, bullets, tanks,
anything you need in return. When you sell that sweet
sweet crude oil, you sell it in US dollars. And
this deal, for a time worked quite well. Other OPEC
(13:13):
countries made similar deals. You can tell we're getting closer
to the modern day because our voices are changing back.
So here's a side note. What is OPEC. You've heard
about it before, right. OPECK stands for the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries. And by all of these countries
had some form of agreement with the US. The US
(13:36):
will do something for you, whether by hook or by crook.
They convinced the other countries to sell oil in US dollars.
So I one of my old professors said, uh, said
a very blunt thing about OPEC. He said, OPEQ exists
(13:57):
to stop the flow of oil and make as much
money as possible from it. So it's kind of an
oil damn where it's it's able to control the release
like a faucet pipe. And and the reason, well, without
going into too much of the history here, which is fascinating,
you know, the reason OPEQ forms is because of the
(14:20):
domination of Western oil companies like Anglo American oil companies
in UH in the area. So so it's not as
if OPEC came out of the blue anyway. Once you
get OPEC on your side, right, if you're the US,
then this transaction method becomes the international standard. We talked
(14:40):
a little bit about why it matters because it immediately
makes every oil importing country UH thirsty for a constant
supply of US dollars. And then here's the biting and
here's the base switch. So you want those US dollars
even though they're essentially coupons on paper. Right, So for
these for these UH coupons, what people will do is
(15:03):
or what countries will do, is supply actual tangible goods, right, Appliances, microwaves, minerals,
food sometimes yeah, food, food importing food or something like that,
all all of these things manufactured goods, et cetera, or
exchange for these coupons. And then this boost the this
(15:26):
boost the value of the dollar, right, and it allows
people to it allows people to print more and the
FED to print more UH. And this cycle here of
printing money, trading for tangible assets and then also like
every time a barrel of oil is sold under this system,
(15:47):
it's a little bit better for the US. And that's
that's a vast oversimplification that I mean that that is
a vast over simplification. Uh, and it is. Though it
is good for the US at least, it's not particularly
great for other countries, especially other countries that don't want
to trade in what some have called, you know, uh,
(16:10):
monetary hegemony. Yes, now, Ben, Yes, I'm going to say
it this time. Here's where it gets crazy. How far
would the US go to protect this petro dollar regime? Now,
from what Ben and I have found, according to numerous sources,
(16:31):
the actual cause of many of the conflicts occurring right
now in the Middle East and historically that have been
happening there have hinged on the price of oil and
the trading of oil with the US dollar. And we
say numerous sources. Of course, what we are talking about
our theories. So they call them conspiracy theories. But I
(16:53):
want to be very careful and very fair with this
when we point out that this is not at all
the accepted party lie for for a lot of reasons.
So we're gonna tell you some of the things that
other that officials have said, or analysts and not just
French people, also folks like Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of
(17:16):
the Federal Reserved. But before we do that, we're going
to pause for a word from our sponsor. The first
(17:38):
of these conflicts we would like to delve into is Iraq. Now.
According to a couple of researchers, f William Ingdole and
William Clark have both of them have written books or
is this joint book? Sure yet? The the book by
William R. Clark is called Petro Dollar Warfare, Air and
(18:00):
the one of the that's the book we're referencing here.
And Ingall wrote a book called The Century of War,
Anglo American Oil Politics and the New World Order. These
guys are on the same page about the same page
about two thousand three lead invasion of Iraq. Yeah, they
don't believe that, at least according to the original party
(18:21):
line that was that was, you know, saying, well, we've
had these attacks on September eleven, two one, we're going
to go into rock because they have connections to the
terrorists that caused these attacks. They also don't believe um
that it was just for the overall safety of the
American public because they feel that we weren't, at least
(18:41):
on the mainland threatened by Iraq's forces. Uh. They feel
and they don't even think that it was you know,
to go in and save the Iraqi people from this dictator,
Saddam Hussein. They have another idea, right, They both claim
that the invasion was predominantly inspired by Iraq's defiance of
(19:04):
the petro dollar regime or petro dollar system. So here's
a quote from the Petro Dollar Warfare book. On September
two thousand, Saddam Hussein allegedly emerged from a meeting of
his government and proclaimed that Iraq would soon transition its
oil export transactions to the euro currency, so selling oil
(19:24):
in euros not in dollars. And I know this sounds
um fairly conspiratorial, right, and you haven't. You'll hear at
times contradicting statements from US officials regarding UH regarding the
degree to which oil as a resource influenced h instability
(19:46):
or invasions in the Middle East. So with with this
in mind, um, we we see that Saddam Hussein actually
did get ready to make the switch from you s
dollars to euro and by two thousand two we have
fully converted to a petro euro instead of a petro dollar.
(20:10):
You can speak in contradictory statements. You can also read
things by a former analyst or even officials saying that
before the events of two thousand and one, before nine eleven,
the Bush administration had already been planning to evade invade Iraq,
(20:31):
and that in the aftermath of UH September eleven, these
um these administration officials continually pushed other government agencies like
the CIA et cetera, to find a connection between the
Hussain government or the Hussain administration and terrorist acts in
(20:52):
UH September of that year, or at least make it
look as though it is threatening enough to the US populace.
Right there, there's a reason to go in, right And
on March nineteenth, two thousand three, they announced the commitment
of an invasion of a rock. You've heard a lot
of controversy about this. If you were around during that
(21:13):
time or listening to the news, or if you served
in the military during this time. Was the fight against
al Qaeda? Fighting terrorism? Were their weapons of mass destruction?
Wasn't promoting democracy? So for the for the people like
Clark Ken ng Doll and another guy, Jerry Robinson we'll
(21:33):
talk about in a little bit. This was and and
the the other people that we quote in our video.
H this was all secondary at best to a to
a mission to secure the existence of the petro dollar.
Well yeah, and also to slap the hand, right, I
(21:55):
mean you, And that's kind of a horrible thing to say,
but to punish the regime that would say, would stand
up to the petro dollar system. And it's got to
look strange from the outside because at different times in
recent history, the US was supporting Saddam Hussein. Washington, for
(22:16):
the record, denies any accusations that the Iraq War was
motivated by something other than disarming Iraq and liberating its
belieguered people. And I know that this can be a
sense of subject for folks, especially if you are related
to someone who served in the Armed forces, or if
you yourself went with the armed forces to the Middle East,
(22:39):
whether in Afghanistan, whether in Iraq, whether in another country
or the Gulf War, even yes Um, or even as
far back, you know, as far back as Vietnam. The
thing is, what what I think is important here is
that we be able to ask the question about the
motive aation, and we're showing you these different arguments for this.
(23:04):
But in my opinion, now, I know this can be
a sensitive subject. Right. War is a very political thing,
and especially if you have served in the armed forces
of your country, or if you are related to someone
or close to someone, it can seem like like a
(23:27):
highly again I'm going back to somewhere, a highly politicized thing.
But this is not about some sort of false dichotomy
between the left and the right. This is this is
about a question that should be asked, which is why
people were there. So I want to preemptively say if
you would like to write in and let let us
(23:49):
know about your experiences and what you think the motivating
factors were for the war in Iraq or for other
global conflicts, then we would like to hear it, because
one thing is for sure, the entire story hasn't been
told in an acknowledged way. And sorry for the sorry
for the tangent, Matt, no worries, man, just I just
(24:09):
wanna agree with pretty much everything you just said. It's
it's easy for Ben and I to sit in this
room and talk about these things. Um, but you know,
neither of us have ever served. Right. That being said,
you also hear accusations about the motivations for going to
warn the conflicts in other places, specifically in Libya in
(24:31):
the fall of Gaddaffi. We covered that in a couple
of videos we did. And Gadaffi is an interesting character,
I mean definitely a dictator sure, But before the NATO
operations in two thousand eleven, the Libyan Investment Authority had
like something to the tune a sixty billion dollars worth
(24:52):
of petro dollars Petro bucks Bucks. And since the nineteen
seventy three crisis, these these petro dollars have been recycled
through New York investment banks. So uh. We know, according
to a book by a guy named David Harvey and
(25:14):
A Brief History of Neoliberalism. We know from British intelligence
reports of the US was actively preparing to invade countries
to restore the flow of oil and bring down oil prices.
We also know that the Saudis agreed at the time,
presumably under military pressure, if not open threat from the US,
to recycle all of their petro dollars through New York
(25:34):
investment banks. Now Gadafi tried this before and didn't apparently
didn't like the experience, so this there became this. Um,
I don't know. Like the weirdest thing about the h
the civil war and Libya and um the NATO involvement
is that when the rebels won the city, when they
(25:58):
when they controlled Libya, and the first things they did
was open a central bank. Yeah, I remember that. It's
a it's a strange thing and that you know, I've
never toppled a country that I'm aware of, so I
don't know the order of operations or how it does,
how it works. But we also have a quote from
the Guardian about this. Uh, the Libyan government controls more
(26:21):
of its oil than any other nation on Earth, type
of oil that Europe at least finds easiest through refine.
But there's something else here that that's weird. Right, Yes,
Libya also controls its finances, right or it did well, yeah, okay,
it did. It didn't have a central bank in the
(26:42):
way that a lot of other countries did. That is
kind of a a system that functions inside the country
but on its own. Um. Yeah, that that right there
is one of the reasons I remember hearing about that
a long time ago about Libya and a couple other
countries that were some of the only only left on
the planet that did not have a central bank that
(27:03):
was just a private institution, right. And this this naming
of these countries that we quoted in the earlier thing
again that's Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sterdan Iran. In
five years this uh, these seven countries aren't listed as
member banks for the Bank for International Settlements and were
(27:25):
out getting into the IMF, the World Bank and the
b I s UH, we can say that they're a
huge part of the financial global order, right, So that's
the idea. The idea here is that these analysts, clark
Ing Doll and others are saying that US invasions in
(27:49):
these areas were motivated by protecting the status of the
petro dollar. And for a lot of people that sounds
like either absolute bunk, right, or someone will say, well,
how can you even ask this question? It's so disrespectful.
I completely disagree with that that second statement, because I
don't think there's anything inherently disrespectful about asking questions. But
(28:13):
with that being said, and side note, do check out
our our video on the fall of Gaddafi. It's some
interesting stuff there, and the locker B bombing I think
we haven't and the locker B bombing as well. Yeah,
So this leads me to one question for you, Matt.
Do you think any of this stuff could be true? Well,
(28:37):
it could be, sure, I mean it's possible, right, it's
absolutely possible, But it's probably not as cut and dry
on one like one way or the other. Right, It's
probably very very gray, and it's probably got hints of
of both sides. Both are When I say both sides,
I mean people who would argue that, yes, absolutely, the
(29:00):
atro dollar in the maintaining of its power is a
reason to invade these countries. But then also there are
probably other reasons, right, as we've learned in any kind
of UH strategy at that level, there are so many
different aspects, right, Yeah, Are you getting into a conflict
because your allies, your regional partners asked you to do so?
(29:20):
You know that's another part of it too. Is it
just helpful that they asked for you to do it? Right? Right?
So here's here's the thing that we have to do
some mythbusting and misconceptions. I think this is more well
known now, but for a long time people thought mistakenly
that the Middle East was the primary source for US
(29:42):
oil imports. Oh yeah, I think that. I don't know
if it was from movies why that got into my head,
but that was that was a belief that I held true.
It's not even the top source of foreign oil entering
the US is not Saudi Arabia, although Saudi Arabia is
number two, and it is not a run and it
(30:03):
is not a rock. It's not even in the Middle East. Listeners,
can you guess, I know some of you already know this.
Maybe we should do the top five countries. Okay, So
here are the top five countries in reverse order. So
number five with four Russia. That's four percent of the
(30:23):
amount supplied. Number four, Venezuela with nine, Number three, Mexico
with nine, Saudi Arabia. As we said, number two with
and number one. Could we have a drum roll please? Canada,
(30:48):
ladies and gentlemen. Canada is the source of the largest
amount of foreign oil or petillia imported into the US.
So foreign, yes, the distant exotic land of Canada. Many
legends have been said about the mysterious ways of this remote,
(31:08):
unaccessible place and the yeties that gather the oil together
in vast vats, and of the people who traveled to
the distant north only to be burned hideously by the
horrific glowing lights of the Aurora borealis. Shudder to think. So,
I hope you guys can tell that we're joking. But
(31:29):
it is a weird misconception because you know, Canada and
the US hardly look at one another as these um
unknown menaces, you know, like that, that is the majority
of the foreign oil at this time. Shale oil technology
(31:51):
which we also did a or excuse me, just shale technology,
which we also did a piece on with fracking. Uh,
that has chained the nature of the game for the
US with the oil. And here's another point. So when
we look at the statistics, what we see is that
people do, at least in the States overestimate the amount
(32:14):
of oil coming from the Middle East to the US.
And you know this, this could change in the future,
these these percentages and prices could fluctuate. But there's another
there's a counterpoint here. Yes, so if the point of
this whole petro dollar system that we've been discussing this
entire time if the point of that is to prop
(32:35):
up the dollar and make it stronger, then it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter at all. Actually, whether the oil is
sent to the US wherever it's it's created and sold,
it just matters that it is it is sold, right
because yeah, okay, so it just matters if the dollar
is the medium of exchange. Yeah. Yeah, And if it is,
(32:58):
then hey, we're good to Oh you can sell it
to whoever you need to. I know Canada needs even more.
They're probably producing a lot if they're selling us or
supplying us with that's and you know that's an if, right,
that's big. But this leads us to the next question.
Supposing now the petro dollar itself is real, right, the
(33:20):
situation is the big question is what role it plays
in global conflict. So our next question for the petro dollars,
how long can this system last? Well, I mean it
could last for a little longer, but ben these times
they're changing, right, Yeah, we often hear about the end
(33:43):
of the petro dollars. Who follow these sorts of stories,
then for years, for more than a decade, people have
been saying it's the end of the world tomorrow. And
you know, I just have to put this in here,
just as a Caveat a lot of times you will
hear that the end of the petro dollars coming from
a group that may be selling precious metals or at
(34:06):
least investment in precious medals. I just have to say
it because I've seen it in a lot of places
where you know your dollars are gonna be useless very
soon this silver or this gold, and you know, strangely
like the if you look at the prices and what retains.
I'm not I'm not sitting here in hawking precious metals
that you I'm just saying there to it. But at
(34:29):
the same time, there is a profit incentive there to
get you to dump your dollars. I see, I see.
So I think that's really I think that's a really
good point. You do have to be kind of suspicious
if someone wants you to panic about a financial system
and then attempts you to sell your gold at the
same time. I disagree bent. You always have to be suspicious. Okay.
(34:53):
So another thing that's happening in this future, this uncertain
future of in g politics, It's essentially what this is, right, uh,
is that there are increasingly viable forms of alternative energy.
They're nowhere near replacing fossil fuels yet, nowhere near, but
(35:14):
there is assiduous around the clock research going on, and
it's it's neck and neck in some ways. I think
right now China is leading the charge with solar panels.
It used to be the US, but now it's China.
And another thing, Russia is a force to be reckoned
with in this situation. If petro dollars matter, if petro
(35:37):
dollars do cause nations to experience instability, invasions, and war,
then China offers an alternative to countries that are not
on friendly terms with the US, whether in terms of
business negotiations or aid development loans that would be like
I M F loans and stuff. Russia also, surprise, there's
(35:58):
no need for a petro dollar. Well yeah, and they've
been taking steps the bricks nations right right, I mean
they're trying to set up their own currency, essentially with
a central bank, and then to be able to say, well, hey,
you can trade dollars with us, or you can trade
oil with us with our currency. Right. The brick is
an acronym b R I C. It stands for Brazil, Russia, India,
(36:20):
and China emerging emerging economic forces with a lot of heft.
That's correct. Additionally, a few years back, Iran also shifted
away from the dollar to trading in a basket of currencies,
and that actually happens, and that, you know, that's one
of the things that people said about Gaddafi too. They
would say, you know, the real reason that he's getting
(36:41):
based because he was trying to start his own currency system,
not gonna sell oil in dollars anymore. But while that's
the general gist of the theory, we know that whether
or not that belief about petro dollars in war is true,
we know the petrol dollar actually exists. So what happens
(37:02):
in a world without a petro dollar? We uh, We
had a nice little list here of possible things that
come from a writer named Jerry Robinson, and first things
first says feign nations will begin sending a flood of
US dollars back to the States in exchange for whatever
the new currency is needed for oil. So whether it's
(37:25):
Mountain time dollars or ben bucks or Colarie shells, it
doesn't matter. It's just what it represents, which is the
ability to obtain oil. Can I give you this and
you will give me oil? That's all you need? The
Federal Reserve could lose the ability to print more money,
(37:47):
which is historically in one of the solutions to America's
economic woes. The Treasury and the Fed would meet to determine,
like the best case scenario, what do we do? This would,
in Robinson's opinion, result in an immediate increase in interest
rates to reduce the money supply. This would trigger hyper inflation.
(38:11):
And we've we've covered hyper inflation, what it is, what
the effects could be, and uh, kind of the fear
mongering that happens with hyperinflation, but also the reality of
just what it can do. We looked at the Wimar
Republic thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, it's really bad when your
currency is valueless because there's just too much of it.
(38:32):
It's no good when you have to rush to spend
to buy everything you can in the morning, because by
the afternoon the money will be worthless, or at least
much more worthless than it currently already is worthless. And
that leads us, you know, that it leaks us down
a path that some might say is absurdity. Sure, and
(38:52):
it's definitely surreal. So what else would happen? Apparently there
would be another second even hiring these in interest rates
because the amount of money in the system would have
to be slashed. People don't need petro dollars anymore, so
demand has plummeted. Uh. Both political parties would blame each
(39:15):
other right first, and then also blame the FEDS. Sure,
because you know it's hey, this isn't a government institution.
Who are these guys? What are they doing? Oh? That's
so weird? And ma'n when you hate to be president
under that one. When that happens, Uh, people with adjustable
rate debts would have would have a terrible time, and
(39:38):
predictively layoffs would occur. Companies would close, people would get fired.
And the worst thing is that pretty much anything that
you own just devalues so badly, your home, your car,
everything that vote, especially that boat. Way to go guys,
(40:00):
really good investment. So could this happen, would it happen?
Should it happen? What do you what do you think?
Because this is one of those things where whether it's
good or bad depends upon where you live, your personal situation.
You know, we we know that one person's vision of
(40:21):
paradise is not often someone else's, right, Ben, I just
want to say here that I sometimes when we're in
this room together discussing a topic, or when I'm over
there editing something we're looking at, I forget how how privileged, uh,
the life of an American is because of a lot
(40:41):
of these systems that are set up, and this one
in particular, the whole Petro dollar system, the way it
it makes us all a little just that much more
wealthy by having a strong currency in this way. Um,
I take I realized. I take that, along with a
whole host of other things for granted us being an
American citizen. Did you ever see there was a comic
(41:05):
strip that I I loved for some very gallows humorous reasons.
But there's one panel strip I saw from from somewhere,
and listeners, maybe you remember this too. Uh. It was
a scene where there were three people who had jobs
walking past a homeless person right holding out a cup
for change, and above their heads they had the amount
(41:28):
of debt they have. You know this is familiar. You've
seen this, and you know there's like a student loan
or a series of student loans, and then credit cards
and like mortgage or whatever, and they're all in the negative,
all these people walking by, and then the homeless guy's
up like six dollars and forty two cents, And it
really affects your perspective, you know. Um, so what you're
(41:54):
saying though about about privilege and about how isolated people
can be. The weird just things seem normal if you
do them long enough. You know. Wow, Okay, well, out
of context, that quote is going to come back to
haunt me. Speaking of haunting, do you hear that? Whoa Okay,
(42:16):
all right, now I'm hearing you. Oh hey, oh, ladies
and gentlemen, it's our super producer. No, no, you know
the ghost. I was just being a spooky ghost. It's
trying to be a spooky guest. You got no worries? Yeah,
you got me. I cried a little gonna lie, yeah,
(42:41):
super spook. So what do you what do you think
about this whole thing? Man? Do you think that wars
are wars for oil? I mean I've always kind of
had a sense that that was the case. Um, but
it's kind of just been one of those sort of
gut feeling things from watching the news and just seeing
the white politics plays out now it's all about he's
got the resources and stuff. So I guess I can't
(43:02):
really back it up with any data. Well there are
there are statements though, where people mention uh, Like various
government officials on the left and the right mentioned uh
stuff about resources for oil. There was one I think
it was a senator, um, a senator from somewhere, and
he said something I loved when he said uh. Someone
(43:25):
asked him, like, what do you have to see so
that the blah blah blah and blah blah blah country
is ultimately about oil? And he said, of course, what
do you think national interest means national branded? That's one guy, Yeah,
secure that oil, right right? So like, what what do
you think do you think it would be? The world
(43:46):
would be a better place if this wasn't around, or
if the patronage system didn't exist. I mean it would
be I think the world would be a better place
if other people didn't have things that that other people
want and everyone could just get along and power from
magic just out of here, solar power, oh goodness of
(44:10):
our hearts, heart power, like like a care bear powered
everything industry with the care Bear stair, we'd be in
good shape. But we would be enslaving bears. We would
have care bears under the hood. This is ridiculous. Yeah, okay, okay, really,
do you guys think we there will be a small
(44:32):
number of humans at least that will someday have ubiquitous
energy that isn't causing emissions. Absolutely. I don't know if
they'll still be humans by that point, but yeah, sure,
if if everybody, if we managed to keep this crazy
ride called Homo sapiens going, then eventually, whether it's Homo
(44:53):
sapiens or whatever comes after us will have some sort
of some some sort of technology that will be interstinct,
wishable from magic to us. They will look like they're
care bear staring, and then all of a sudden, the
moon moves. Yeah, I mean, I guess the moon is
always moving. I'm trying to imagine the reason that you
(45:15):
need to we need you know, we need to change
I don't know the way the water is currently over here.
Let's change the tide. Okay, good, Maybe that's maybe that's
the future. That's how you get all your energy. You
have an oscillating moon and then you can just capture
the energy through turbines. I don't know if the science
is there yet. But I like that you're thinking big
(45:36):
and no. I'm sorry, man, I was excited about this.
I was being I was being so rude. What have
what have you been thinking about? This is the moment
with you. We want to hear from you. You know,
I just try to throw in my two cents. Ben.
You know I'm a I'm a blank slate on a
sunny day. Huh open sunny day altered it a little bit?
(45:59):
What am I thinking? Um? Well, the pea key on
my laptop doesn't work anymore, so I've got the virtual
keyboard up and every time I have to hit a P,
I gotta click the mouse on the P on the
virtual keyboard. So that's good. Is this episode entitled the
etro Dollar and it went No, I've had that's what
the virtual keyboards for him? Oh, man, I feel bad.
We should lay off things that require you to type P. Well,
you know what it is. It is the word podcast.
(46:21):
You know, just you couldn't handle it anymore. Just as
a reminder of everyone listening, Nol produces from where he's
sitting all of the house to works podcasts. He's one
man machine or one man army. You're one man army.
That is correct. It's very kind of you guys. It's true.
(46:43):
All right, So, uh, really quickly before we wrap this
thing up, I just wanted to make a quick announcement.
There is a big life change occurring in my one
of those my life. Uh, I'm just gonna go out
and say it. My wife and I are having our
first baby. I'm not doing anything. She's doing all the
work and I'm just kind of standing there, going, hey,
(47:06):
can I get you some water? That's pretty much what
I what I've been doing for the past few months here,
and I'm going to be away. That is happening imminently,
so I will be away from the studio for a bit.
I might swing in when I get a chance. Um.
You will notice on our YouTube page they're going to
be several classic videos. It's actually I think our last
(47:29):
batch of classic episodes that we are going to produce,
and not classic as in the style, but as in
videos from the original House Stuff Works channel, which we've
been slowly moving to. This will be the last bit
that we need to get over there. And by the way,
I think we hit three hundred and fifty thousand subscribers
(47:50):
on YouTube and that's huge. Thank you so seriously, thank you.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I just want to say thank
you guys so much because this is your show, and
we've said it before, it's a free show. A lot
of stuff is free on the internet, so this, this
support means a hell of a lot to us. And
(48:12):
uh it's also you know, no offense, like it's cool
the show stuff is cool. But congratulations, Matt, thank you
very much. So if you well, thank you man. So
if you want to talk to us about the Petro dollar,
about anything we've talked about in past episodes, or if
you want to give me some parenting advice, I could
(48:32):
take it because I am lost right now. But you
know what will make it work, the whole bottle situation.
Just you know, I just have to gripe really fast
putting things together for babies, all of the all of
the different uh, I don't even know what most of
them are called, like the gliders and the other things.
Everything Greako makes no offense. Greako just very difficult to
(48:54):
put together. So anyway, I can't wait to have a
kid and then really worry about him falling off of
one of these great co machines that I put together
hopefully correctly. So anyway, you can write to us about
any of that stuff. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Twitter. We are conspiracy stuff
on both of those. You can let's see, you can
go to stuff they don't want you to know dot com.
(49:16):
You can listen to all of these. Hopefully you're listening
to this on stuff they don't want you to know
dot com. If you are, you are awesome. You're awesome
either way for having this in your ears. But thank you.
Uh and there's one last thing, ben Ah. Yes, if
you have an idea and you'd like to email us,
if you have a story about your time abroad or
(49:37):
something relates to Petro Dollar, we'd like to hear it.
We want to hear more about this situation. We want
to hear whether it's true, whether it's utter bunk, and
we want to hear from you. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
(49:59):
us in a number of from ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std w y t K. If
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Is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts
(50:19):
from my heart Radio, visit the i heart radio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Well, well, well what is that, Gracie. Now our ears today, Matt,
this is our episode on the petro dollar, the petro
what the petro dollar. I really enjoyed this one because
it's something that gets wrapped up in the world of
conspiracy or conspiratorial allegations, but in many cases those allegations
(00:24):
are also true. Yeah, we're dealing with an actual cartel here, people,
a real cartel. It's maybe the first time I remember
learning what that word actually meant, what it was, and
saw the inner workings of of how, you know, different
different groups in an industry can work together to do
(00:45):
things like control prices, or how different state actors can
make their currency the main currency of business by requiring
certain things essentially allous boiling too much. Actually, uh, the
name petro dollar comes about because of some agreements that
(01:08):
oil should be mainly traded in US cash. So yeah,
you know, no paco's, no real or whatever, just the greenbacks.
And then what does that do, Like what kind of
ripple effects does that have on global politics, economies and uh,
where wars are fought and why Yeah, surely just great stuff.
(01:30):
There's a great effect. It's gonna be awesome. Let's dive in,
let's figure out, let's figure out this Petro dollar thing
from UFOs two ghosts and government cover ups, histories whippled
with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn
the stuff they don't want you to now. I just
(01:54):
got this memo today or yesterday from the office of
the Secretary of Defense upstairs. It's a five year plan.
We're gonna take down seven countries in five years. We're
gonna start with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, then Libya, Somalia, Sudan,
and then we're gonna come back and get it wrong
in five years. And that is a quotation from a
(02:17):
gentleman named Wesley Clark, uh former NATO higher up, is
a Supreme Allied commander, and he is telling a story
about how in two thousand and one a general of
the Pentagon said this to him. And that comes as
reported via The Guardian with the journalist David Swanson. You
(02:37):
may have seen that clip before. I know, I had
seen it on in several places over the years of him.
He's on stage and he's discussing about how he got
this memo, and it seems to reflect what has happened
over the past several years. Oh right, and before we
get too far ahead of ourselves. Uh, you're Matt Been,
(02:58):
that's our super doucer. Uh null oil money Brown? Oh man,
Oh he's got oil money. Well some I'm sure at
some point, just the way the mixtape game goes, somebody's
going to call themselves oil money. It's all oil money.
But didn't didn't was it cash money records? Uh? Someone
(03:18):
try to start their own oil exploration. I think it
might have been Baby Williams, but don't quote me on
that anyhow. Yeah, Matt, you're here, I'm here, knows here, listeners.
Most importantly, you are here, and that makes this stuff
they don't want you to know. Today, we are talking
a little something called the petro dollar. Now, this is
(03:41):
a term that refers to US dollars um and it's
something that they they earned that the US currency has
earned basically through the export of oil, through our relationship
with oil. Our country's a relationship, and essentially when countries
sell oil, they're doing so at least not always, but
(04:03):
it is kind of a handshake deal kind of thing
that when countries are trading in oil, they're trading in
US dollars. So that might sound like a weird abstract
economic thing. Price of t in China doesn't matter to me,
Ben and Matt and know only you might be saying, so,
think of the petro dollar as similar to the gold standard.
(04:26):
We did a video on the gold standard. We did
we did a whole series on why gold is not
the standard anymore? Right, yeah, and why and why does
it matter? So we'll talk a little bit about that today.
This this week, we've been working on a series on
the petro dollar, and our longtime listeners will be glad
to know this is a classic episode that we have
(04:47):
coming out. So yes, well it's not a classic, it's
a yeah, it's interesting, it's a it's got an intro
from when we were in d C because we were
outside a Ronald Ray the Ronald Reagan Link for International Trade,
right yeah, and we just started thinking, oh, we could
talk about the petrow dollar. And a lot of times
when we have a good idea, we received a great suggestion.
(05:09):
We we know it's a real it's a real good
one because we're kicking ourselves for not having covered it earlier.
So this is something that took us while to get to,
but it's something a lot of people should know about.
And I'm sure that some people might find this boring.
There are some dry parts to this h and sure
some other people wish we had covered it more in depth.
(05:33):
And I'm sure that many of many of our listeners
out there, myself included, are we just waiting for cryptids?
But yeah, I noticed on Twitter people are excited about that. Yeah, exactly,
and thanks to everybody who wrote in with those tweets.
I think was Gavin who made the initial suggestion, and
we are on it. But for now petro dollars. So
(05:56):
the reason you mentioned the gold currency is because this
in the same way is petroleum in this form functions
as a way to prop up a currency, right right, Yeah,
it's tying the concept of a currency to a tangible asset.
So when other countries are using dollars to export oil,
(06:18):
right and you you have to give you know, a
country a payment in dollars per barrel, then you have rubles.
They say, no rubles, you have yen or run by
and they say none of that, none of that. Swiss proner.
I don't know what are some other currencies. I don't
know too many. I know the the rand, the r oh,
(06:40):
I learned about Brixton dollars. Have you heard of this?
What are Brixton dollars? Man? This is a local currency
in a certain section of London. I think it's Brixton.
I hope, I hope that's the correct name. But it's
just a local currency that people have started using where
you can trade in your sterling and your your pounds
and everything, and then you get these local dollars and
you can use them at There are several places that
(07:03):
are accept them, so they kind of they keep the
money in the area. That's part of it. That makes sense.
And I guess you if you limit the area where
those things can be used, currencies are powerful things and
and currencies are, you know, articles of faith just as
much as any religious symbol might be, because for a
(07:23):
long time now they have not been based on a
tangible asset and whole I can we take a tangent
real quick, Okay, So you know, for a long time, Matt,
I have been talking about bend bucks. I think I
may haven't mentioned this on the show. Every time we
look into currency, I get a little closer to actually
(07:46):
just printing some and using them around the office. That's
where I'm that's where I'm stuck, because they don't need
to be back by anything. It could just be my
good name, can I can I give you here? Okay?
So there is there are these things called mountain bucks
(08:06):
or mountain Mountain time bucks or something like that. So
it's it's another local currency used by a couple of
small communities, and it's in half hour increments. So you
could trade someone half hour half hour of your manual
labor or whatever you need, Like do you need a
human being to assist you with something? Here is half
(08:26):
hour in currency. I see. Okay, that makes sense because
if you think about it, and you and I have
had this conversation before, with our debate over whether Batman
has a superpower? Do you remember that, Yes, and we
decided that he doesn't really have a superpower, but he
has the closest thing you can get to a human
(08:47):
having a superpower in the real world. I well, I
think that Batman does have a superpower, and I hate
it when people say that he doesn't. He has a superpower,
has a superpower because he is a billionaire, right, But
it goes deeper than that. This Mountain time conversation reminds
me because money is the concept of currencies really just
(09:08):
a concept of human labor over time, right, So you
can build a studio like when we're now, uh, and
fabricate everything, teach yourself how to do that, take those
hours and hours and hours of craftsmanship and skill and practice.
Or you can give somebody something that they will take
(09:31):
in exchange for their time. So currency as a marker
of time makes less sense to me, which means that
if you have a billion dollars, essentially your time traveling,
that's what That's what it was. You're not losing decades
teaching yourself how to build a frigging bat cave, you
know what I mean, or just a microphone. And I'm
(09:53):
not saying that Batman is not the world's greatest detective.
Clearly that is that is the case. And I'm a
huge Batman fan. Yeah he has skills, but you know
he what what would he be if he wasn't a billionaire?
You know, yeah, he'd be just alone, Nina. It would
be tough. Uh, it would be tough, I think, to
(10:15):
to have the same stuff. But anyway, we're digressing a
little bit this currency stuff. As you can tell, the
listeners were very interested in this and because everybody has
to use like the petro dollar is bigger than Mountain time,
the petro dollars bigger than bend bucks, the petro dollar
is bigger than the euro so far. In fact, because
(10:37):
everybody has to use dollars, where had to use dollars
to buy oil, all these other countries had to keep
a stash of cash, which is very good for the US,
and it's one of the reasons that the US is
referred to as the world's reserve currency. So we have
a couple of questions. The biggest one is how how
on earth did this happen? How do we get to
(10:59):
the point where the US dollar is the world's currency
when you're dealing with oil? Which which which will totally
tell you. By the way, We're not just gonna leave
that one hanging. We have other questions to write, like
how long can this situation last? Yeah, is there something
in the works right now that might be, I don't know,
(11:20):
causing a huge change with the state of the petro dollar.
Will the US go to war to protect itself and
its petro dollar? And has it done so already? First,
let's take a let's take a trip back in history,
nor can we have the trip back in history? Sound cute? Great, well,
(11:48):
so I'll good to see you. Welcome back to the
nine and the Breton Woods Agreement, which officially gives the
U S a distinct financial advantage on the international sphere,
tying the dollar to a value of thirty five five
dollars per single ounce of gold, with other currencies in
the agreeing signatory countries pegged to the value of the dollar. Now,
(12:09):
that worked for a time, but the US essentially just
promised not to print a crapload of money. Yes, and
during the Vietnam conflict, all the countries began asking for
the gold the dollars represented, and the value of the
currency therefore decreased because you see, the U S didn't
have the gold. Then President Nixon eventually took the dollar
off the gold standard entirely and refused to convert US
(12:29):
currency to gold. Yes, well, in a way, defaulting quite true,
my good man. Let's head to the nineteen seventies, seventies, seventies,
seventies sevent So in the early seventies, under Nixon, Henry
Kissinger reportedly approached the House of Saud Saudi Arabia with
(12:50):
an intriguing proposition. He said, we'll safeguard and support your
rule over all of this, along with giving you military supplies, bullets, tanks,
anything you need in return. When you sell that sweet
sweet crude oil, you sell it in US dollars. And
this deal, for a time worked quite well. Other OPEC
(13:13):
countries made similar deals. You can tell we're getting closer
to the modern day because our voices are changing back.
So here's a side note. What is OPEC. You've heard
about it before, right. OPECK stands for the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries. And by all of these countries
had some form of agreement with the US. The US
(13:36):
will do something for you, whether by hook or by crook.
They convinced the other countries to sell oil in US dollars.
So I one of my old professors said, uh, said
a very blunt thing about OPEC. He said, OPEQ exists
(13:57):
to stop the flow of oil and make as much
money as possible from it. So it's kind of an
oil damn where it's it's able to control the release
like a faucet pipe. And and the reason, well, without
going into too much of the history here, which is fascinating,
you know, the reason OPEQ forms is because of the
(14:20):
domination of Western oil companies like Anglo American oil companies
in UH in the area. So so it's not as
if OPEC came out of the blue anyway. Once you
get OPEC on your side, right, if you're the US,
then this transaction method becomes the international standard. We talked
(14:40):
a little bit about why it matters because it immediately
makes every oil importing country UH thirsty for a constant
supply of US dollars. And then here's the biting and
here's the base switch. So you want those US dollars
even though they're essentially coupons on paper. Right, So for
these for these UH coupons, what people will do is
(15:03):
or what countries will do, is supply actual tangible goods, right, Appliances, microwaves, minerals,
food sometimes yeah, food, food importing food or something like that,
all all of these things manufactured goods, et cetera, or
exchange for these coupons. And then this boost the this
(15:26):
boost the value of the dollar, right, and it allows
people to it allows people to print more and the
FED to print more UH. And this cycle here of
printing money, trading for tangible assets and then also like
every time a barrel of oil is sold under this system,
(15:47):
it's a little bit better for the US. And that's
that's a vast oversimplification that I mean that that is
a vast over simplification. Uh, and it is. Though it
is good for the US at least, it's not particularly
great for other countries, especially other countries that don't want
to trade in what some have called, you know, uh,
(16:10):
monetary hegemony. Yes, now, Ben, Yes, I'm going to say
it this time. Here's where it gets crazy. How far
would the US go to protect this petro dollar regime? Now,
from what Ben and I have found, according to numerous sources,
(16:31):
the actual cause of many of the conflicts occurring right
now in the Middle East and historically that have been
happening there have hinged on the price of oil and
the trading of oil with the US dollar. And we
say numerous sources. Of course, what we are talking about
our theories. So they call them conspiracy theories. But I
(16:53):
want to be very careful and very fair with this
when we point out that this is not at all
the accepted party lie for for a lot of reasons.
So we're gonna tell you some of the things that
other that officials have said, or analysts and not just
French people, also folks like Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of
(17:16):
the Federal Reserved. But before we do that, we're going
to pause for a word from our sponsor. The first
(17:38):
of these conflicts we would like to delve into is Iraq. Now.
According to a couple of researchers, f William Ingdole and
William Clark have both of them have written books or
is this joint book? Sure yet? The the book by
William R. Clark is called Petro Dollar Warfare, Air and
(18:00):
the one of the that's the book we're referencing here.
And Ingall wrote a book called The Century of War,
Anglo American Oil Politics and the New World Order. These
guys are on the same page about the same page
about two thousand three lead invasion of Iraq. Yeah, they
don't believe that, at least according to the original party
(18:21):
line that was that was, you know, saying, well, we've
had these attacks on September eleven, two one, we're going
to go into rock because they have connections to the
terrorists that caused these attacks. They also don't believe um
that it was just for the overall safety of the
American public because they feel that we weren't, at least
(18:41):
on the mainland threatened by Iraq's forces. Uh. They feel
and they don't even think that it was you know,
to go in and save the Iraqi people from this dictator,
Saddam Hussein. They have another idea, right, They both claim
that the invasion was predominantly inspired by Iraq's defiance of
(19:04):
the petro dollar regime or petro dollar system. So here's
a quote from the Petro Dollar Warfare book. On September
two thousand, Saddam Hussein allegedly emerged from a meeting of
his government and proclaimed that Iraq would soon transition its
oil export transactions to the euro currency, so selling oil
(19:24):
in euros not in dollars. And I know this sounds
um fairly conspiratorial, right, and you haven't. You'll hear at
times contradicting statements from US officials regarding UH regarding the
degree to which oil as a resource influenced h instability
(19:46):
or invasions in the Middle East. So with with this
in mind, um, we we see that Saddam Hussein actually
did get ready to make the switch from you s
dollars to euro and by two thousand two we have
fully converted to a petro euro instead of a petro dollar.
(20:10):
You can speak in contradictory statements. You can also read
things by a former analyst or even officials saying that
before the events of two thousand and one, before nine eleven,
the Bush administration had already been planning to evade invade Iraq,
(20:31):
and that in the aftermath of UH September eleven, these
um these administration officials continually pushed other government agencies like
the CIA et cetera, to find a connection between the
Hussain government or the Hussain administration and terrorist acts in
(20:52):
UH September of that year, or at least make it
look as though it is threatening enough to the US populace.
Right there, there's a reason to go in, right And
on March nineteenth, two thousand three, they announced the commitment
of an invasion of a rock. You've heard a lot
of controversy about this. If you were around during that
(21:13):
time or listening to the news, or if you served
in the military during this time. Was the fight against
al Qaeda? Fighting terrorism? Were their weapons of mass destruction?
Wasn't promoting democracy? So for the for the people like
Clark Ken ng Doll and another guy, Jerry Robinson we'll
(21:33):
talk about in a little bit. This was and and
the the other people that we quote in our video.
H this was all secondary at best to a to
a mission to secure the existence of the petro dollar.
Well yeah, and also to slap the hand, right, I
(21:55):
mean you, And that's kind of a horrible thing to say,
but to punish the regime that would say, would stand
up to the petro dollar system. And it's got to
look strange from the outside because at different times in
recent history, the US was supporting Saddam Hussein. Washington, for
(22:16):
the record, denies any accusations that the Iraq War was
motivated by something other than disarming Iraq and liberating its
belieguered people. And I know that this can be a
sense of subject for folks, especially if you are related
to someone who served in the Armed forces, or if
you yourself went with the armed forces to the Middle East,
(22:39):
whether in Afghanistan, whether in Iraq, whether in another country
or the Gulf War, even yes Um, or even as
far back, you know, as far back as Vietnam. The
thing is, what what I think is important here is
that we be able to ask the question about the
motive aation, and we're showing you these different arguments for this.
(23:04):
But in my opinion, now, I know this can be
a sensitive subject. Right. War is a very political thing,
and especially if you have served in the armed forces
of your country, or if you are related to someone
or close to someone, it can seem like like a
(23:27):
highly again I'm going back to somewhere, a highly politicized thing.
But this is not about some sort of false dichotomy
between the left and the right. This is this is
about a question that should be asked, which is why
people were there. So I want to preemptively say if
you would like to write in and let let us
(23:49):
know about your experiences and what you think the motivating
factors were for the war in Iraq or for other
global conflicts, then we would like to hear it, because
one thing is for sure, the entire story hasn't been
told in an acknowledged way. And sorry for the sorry
for the tangent, Matt, no worries, man, just I just
(24:09):
wanna agree with pretty much everything you just said. It's
it's easy for Ben and I to sit in this
room and talk about these things. Um, but you know,
neither of us have ever served. Right. That being said,
you also hear accusations about the motivations for going to
warn the conflicts in other places, specifically in Libya in
(24:31):
the fall of Gaddaffi. We covered that in a couple
of videos we did. And Gadaffi is an interesting character,
I mean definitely a dictator sure, But before the NATO
operations in two thousand eleven, the Libyan Investment Authority had
like something to the tune a sixty billion dollars worth
(24:52):
of petro dollars Petro bucks Bucks. And since the nineteen
seventy three crisis, these these petro dollars have been recycled
through New York investment banks. So uh. We know, according
to a book by a guy named David Harvey and
(25:14):
A Brief History of Neoliberalism. We know from British intelligence
reports of the US was actively preparing to invade countries
to restore the flow of oil and bring down oil prices.
We also know that the Saudis agreed at the time,
presumably under military pressure, if not open threat from the US,
to recycle all of their petro dollars through New York
(25:34):
investment banks. Now Gadafi tried this before and didn't apparently
didn't like the experience, so this there became this. Um,
I don't know. Like the weirdest thing about the h
the civil war and Libya and um the NATO involvement
is that when the rebels won the city, when they
(25:58):
when they controlled Libya, and the first things they did
was open a central bank. Yeah, I remember that. It's
a it's a strange thing and that you know, I've
never toppled a country that I'm aware of, so I
don't know the order of operations or how it does,
how it works. But we also have a quote from
the Guardian about this. Uh, the Libyan government controls more
(26:21):
of its oil than any other nation on Earth, type
of oil that Europe at least finds easiest through refine.
But there's something else here that that's weird. Right, Yes,
Libya also controls its finances, right or it did well, yeah, okay,
it did. It didn't have a central bank in the
(26:42):
way that a lot of other countries did. That is
kind of a a system that functions inside the country
but on its own. Um. Yeah, that that right there
is one of the reasons I remember hearing about that
a long time ago about Libya and a couple other
countries that were some of the only only left on
the planet that did not have a central bank that
(27:03):
was just a private institution, right. And this this naming
of these countries that we quoted in the earlier thing
again that's Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sterdan Iran. In
five years this uh, these seven countries aren't listed as
member banks for the Bank for International Settlements and were
(27:25):
out getting into the IMF, the World Bank and the
b I s UH, we can say that they're a
huge part of the financial global order, right, So that's
the idea. The idea here is that these analysts, clark
Ing Doll and others are saying that US invasions in
(27:49):
these areas were motivated by protecting the status of the
petro dollar. And for a lot of people that sounds
like either absolute bunk, right, or someone will say, well,
how can you even ask this question? It's so disrespectful.
I completely disagree with that that second statement, because I
don't think there's anything inherently disrespectful about asking questions. But
(28:13):
with that being said, and side note, do check out
our our video on the fall of Gaddafi. It's some
interesting stuff there, and the locker B bombing I think
we haven't and the locker B bombing as well. Yeah,
So this leads me to one question for you, Matt.
Do you think any of this stuff could be true? Well,
(28:37):
it could be, sure, I mean it's possible, right, it's
absolutely possible, But it's probably not as cut and dry
on one like one way or the other. Right, It's
probably very very gray, and it's probably got hints of
of both sides. Both are When I say both sides,
I mean people who would argue that, yes, absolutely, the
(29:00):
atro dollar in the maintaining of its power is a
reason to invade these countries. But then also there are
probably other reasons, right, as we've learned in any kind
of UH strategy at that level, there are so many
different aspects, right, Yeah, Are you getting into a conflict
because your allies, your regional partners asked you to do so?
(29:20):
You know that's another part of it too. Is it
just helpful that they asked for you to do it? Right? Right?
So here's here's the thing that we have to do
some mythbusting and misconceptions. I think this is more well
known now, but for a long time people thought mistakenly
that the Middle East was the primary source for US
(29:42):
oil imports. Oh yeah, I think that. I don't know
if it was from movies why that got into my head,
but that was that was a belief that I held true.
It's not even the top source of foreign oil entering
the US is not Saudi Arabia, although Saudi Arabia is
number two, and it is not a run and it
(30:03):
is not a rock. It's not even in the Middle East. Listeners,
can you guess, I know some of you already know this.
Maybe we should do the top five countries. Okay, So
here are the top five countries in reverse order. So
number five with four Russia. That's four percent of the
(30:23):
amount supplied. Number four, Venezuela with nine, Number three, Mexico
with nine, Saudi Arabia. As we said, number two with
and number one. Could we have a drum roll please? Canada,
(30:48):
ladies and gentlemen. Canada is the source of the largest
amount of foreign oil or petillia imported into the US.
So foreign, yes, the distant exotic land of Canada. Many
legends have been said about the mysterious ways of this remote,
(31:08):
unaccessible place and the yeties that gather the oil together
in vast vats, and of the people who traveled to
the distant north only to be burned hideously by the
horrific glowing lights of the Aurora borealis. Shudder to think. So,
I hope you guys can tell that we're joking. But
(31:29):
it is a weird misconception because you know, Canada and
the US hardly look at one another as these um
unknown menaces, you know, like that, that is the majority
of the foreign oil at this time. Shale oil technology
(31:51):
which we also did a or excuse me, just shale technology,
which we also did a piece on with fracking. Uh,
that has chained the nature of the game for the
US with the oil. And here's another point. So when
we look at the statistics, what we see is that
people do, at least in the States overestimate the amount
(32:14):
of oil coming from the Middle East to the US.
And you know this, this could change in the future,
these these percentages and prices could fluctuate. But there's another
there's a counterpoint here. Yes, so if the point of
this whole petro dollar system that we've been discussing this
entire time if the point of that is to prop
(32:35):
up the dollar and make it stronger, then it doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter at all. Actually, whether the oil is
sent to the US wherever it's it's created and sold,
it just matters that it is it is sold, right
because yeah, okay, so it just matters if the dollar
is the medium of exchange. Yeah. Yeah, And if it is,
(32:58):
then hey, we're good to Oh you can sell it
to whoever you need to. I know Canada needs even more.
They're probably producing a lot if they're selling us or
supplying us with that's and you know that's an if, right,
that's big. But this leads us to the next question.
Supposing now the petro dollar itself is real, right, the
(33:20):
situation is the big question is what role it plays
in global conflict. So our next question for the petro dollars,
how long can this system last? Well, I mean it
could last for a little longer, but ben these times
they're changing, right, Yeah, we often hear about the end
(33:43):
of the petro dollars. Who follow these sorts of stories,
then for years, for more than a decade, people have
been saying it's the end of the world tomorrow. And
you know, I just have to put this in here,
just as a Caveat a lot of times you will
hear that the end of the petro dollars coming from
a group that may be selling precious metals or at
(34:06):
least investment in precious medals. I just have to say
it because I've seen it in a lot of places
where you know your dollars are gonna be useless very
soon this silver or this gold, and you know, strangely
like the if you look at the prices and what retains.
I'm not I'm not sitting here in hawking precious metals
that you I'm just saying there to it. But at
(34:29):
the same time, there is a profit incentive there to
get you to dump your dollars. I see, I see.
So I think that's really I think that's a really
good point. You do have to be kind of suspicious
if someone wants you to panic about a financial system
and then attempts you to sell your gold at the
same time. I disagree bent. You always have to be suspicious. Okay.
(34:53):
So another thing that's happening in this future, this uncertain
future of in g politics, It's essentially what this is, right, uh,
is that there are increasingly viable forms of alternative energy.
They're nowhere near replacing fossil fuels yet, nowhere near, but
(35:14):
there is assiduous around the clock research going on, and
it's it's neck and neck in some ways. I think
right now China is leading the charge with solar panels.
It used to be the US, but now it's China.
And another thing, Russia is a force to be reckoned
with in this situation. If petro dollars matter, if petro
(35:37):
dollars do cause nations to experience instability, invasions, and war,
then China offers an alternative to countries that are not
on friendly terms with the US, whether in terms of
business negotiations or aid development loans that would be like
I M F loans and stuff. Russia also, surprise, there's
(35:58):
no need for a petro dollar. Well yeah, and they've
been taking steps the bricks nations right right, I mean
they're trying to set up their own currency, essentially with
a central bank, and then to be able to say, well, hey,
you can trade dollars with us, or you can trade
oil with us with our currency. Right. The brick is
an acronym b R I C. It stands for Brazil, Russia, India,
(36:20):
and China emerging emerging economic forces with a lot of heft.
That's correct. Additionally, a few years back, Iran also shifted
away from the dollar to trading in a basket of currencies,
and that actually happens, and that, you know, that's one
of the things that people said about Gaddafi too. They
would say, you know, the real reason that he's getting
(36:41):
based because he was trying to start his own currency system,
not gonna sell oil in dollars anymore. But while that's
the general gist of the theory, we know that whether
or not that belief about petro dollars in war is true,
we know the petrol dollar actually exists. So what happens
(37:02):
in a world without a petro dollar? We uh, We
had a nice little list here of possible things that
come from a writer named Jerry Robinson, and first things
first says feign nations will begin sending a flood of
US dollars back to the States in exchange for whatever
the new currency is needed for oil. So whether it's
(37:25):
Mountain time dollars or ben bucks or Colarie shells, it
doesn't matter. It's just what it represents, which is the
ability to obtain oil. Can I give you this and
you will give me oil? That's all you need? The
Federal Reserve could lose the ability to print more money,
(37:47):
which is historically in one of the solutions to America's
economic woes. The Treasury and the Fed would meet to determine,
like the best case scenario, what do we do? This would,
in Robinson's opinion, result in an immediate increase in interest
rates to reduce the money supply. This would trigger hyper inflation.
(38:11):
And we've we've covered hyper inflation, what it is, what
the effects could be, and uh, kind of the fear
mongering that happens with hyperinflation, but also the reality of
just what it can do. We looked at the Wimar
Republic thinking, oh, yeah, yeah, it's really bad when your
currency is valueless because there's just too much of it.
(38:32):
It's no good when you have to rush to spend
to buy everything you can in the morning, because by
the afternoon the money will be worthless, or at least
much more worthless than it currently already is worthless. And
that leads us, you know, that it leaks us down
a path that some might say is absurdity. Sure, and
(38:52):
it's definitely surreal. So what else would happen? Apparently there
would be another second even hiring these in interest rates
because the amount of money in the system would have
to be slashed. People don't need petro dollars anymore, so
demand has plummeted. Uh. Both political parties would blame each
(39:15):
other right first, and then also blame the FEDS. Sure,
because you know it's hey, this isn't a government institution.
Who are these guys? What are they doing? Oh? That's
so weird? And ma'n when you hate to be president
under that one. When that happens, Uh, people with adjustable
rate debts would have would have a terrible time, and
(39:38):
predictively layoffs would occur. Companies would close, people would get fired.
And the worst thing is that pretty much anything that
you own just devalues so badly, your home, your car,
everything that vote, especially that boat. Way to go guys,
(40:00):
really good investment. So could this happen, would it happen?
Should it happen? What do you what do you think?
Because this is one of those things where whether it's
good or bad depends upon where you live, your personal situation.
You know, we we know that one person's vision of
(40:21):
paradise is not often someone else's, right, Ben, I just
want to say here that I sometimes when we're in
this room together discussing a topic, or when I'm over
there editing something we're looking at, I forget how how privileged, uh,
the life of an American is because of a lot
(40:41):
of these systems that are set up, and this one
in particular, the whole Petro dollar system, the way it
it makes us all a little just that much more
wealthy by having a strong currency in this way. Um,
I take I realized. I take that, along with a
whole host of other things for granted us being an
American citizen. Did you ever see there was a comic
(41:05):
strip that I I loved for some very gallows humorous reasons.
But there's one panel strip I saw from from somewhere,
and listeners, maybe you remember this too. Uh. It was
a scene where there were three people who had jobs
walking past a homeless person right holding out a cup
for change, and above their heads they had the amount
(41:28):
of debt they have. You know this is familiar. You've
seen this, and you know there's like a student loan
or a series of student loans, and then credit cards
and like mortgage or whatever, and they're all in the negative,
all these people walking by, and then the homeless guy's
up like six dollars and forty two cents, And it
really affects your perspective, you know. Um, so what you're
(41:54):
saying though about about privilege and about how isolated people
can be. The weird just things seem normal if you
do them long enough. You know. Wow, Okay, well, out
of context, that quote is going to come back to
haunt me. Speaking of haunting, do you hear that? Whoa Okay,
(42:16):
all right, now I'm hearing you. Oh hey, oh, ladies
and gentlemen, it's our super producer. No, no, you know
the ghost. I was just being a spooky ghost. It's
trying to be a spooky guest. You got no worries? Yeah,
you got me. I cried a little gonna lie, yeah,
(42:41):
super spook. So what do you what do you think
about this whole thing? Man? Do you think that wars
are wars for oil? I mean I've always kind of
had a sense that that was the case. Um, but
it's kind of just been one of those sort of
gut feeling things from watching the news and just seeing
the white politics plays out now it's all about he's
got the resources and stuff. So I guess I can't
(43:02):
really back it up with any data. Well there are
there are statements though, where people mention uh, Like various
government officials on the left and the right mentioned uh
stuff about resources for oil. There was one I think
it was a senator, um, a senator from somewhere, and
he said something I loved when he said uh. Someone
(43:25):
asked him, like, what do you have to see so
that the blah blah blah and blah blah blah country
is ultimately about oil? And he said, of course, what
do you think national interest means national branded? That's one guy, Yeah,
secure that oil, right right? So like, what what do
you think do you think it would be? The world
(43:46):
would be a better place if this wasn't around, or
if the patronage system didn't exist. I mean it would
be I think the world would be a better place
if other people didn't have things that that other people
want and everyone could just get along and power from
magic just out of here, solar power, oh goodness of
(44:10):
our hearts, heart power, like like a care bear powered
everything industry with the care Bear stair, we'd be in
good shape. But we would be enslaving bears. We would
have care bears under the hood. This is ridiculous. Yeah, okay, okay, really,
do you guys think we there will be a small
(44:32):
number of humans at least that will someday have ubiquitous
energy that isn't causing emissions. Absolutely. I don't know if
they'll still be humans by that point, but yeah, sure,
if if everybody, if we managed to keep this crazy
ride called Homo sapiens going, then eventually, whether it's Homo
(44:53):
sapiens or whatever comes after us will have some sort
of some some sort of technology that will be interstinct,
wishable from magic to us. They will look like they're
care bear staring, and then all of a sudden, the
moon moves. Yeah, I mean, I guess the moon is
always moving. I'm trying to imagine the reason that you
(45:15):
need to we need you know, we need to change
I don't know the way the water is currently over here.
Let's change the tide. Okay, good, Maybe that's maybe that's
the future. That's how you get all your energy. You
have an oscillating moon and then you can just capture
the energy through turbines. I don't know if the science
is there yet. But I like that you're thinking big
(45:36):
and no. I'm sorry, man, I was excited about this.
I was being I was being so rude. What have
what have you been thinking about? This is the moment
with you. We want to hear from you. You know,
I just try to throw in my two cents. Ben.
You know I'm a I'm a blank slate on a
sunny day. Huh open sunny day altered it a little bit?
(45:59):
What am I thinking? Um? Well, the pea key on
my laptop doesn't work anymore, so I've got the virtual
keyboard up and every time I have to hit a P,
I gotta click the mouse on the P on the
virtual keyboard. So that's good. Is this episode entitled the
etro Dollar and it went No, I've had that's what
the virtual keyboards for him? Oh, man, I feel bad.
We should lay off things that require you to type P. Well,
you know what it is. It is the word podcast.
(46:21):
You know, just you couldn't handle it anymore. Just as
a reminder of everyone listening, Nol produces from where he's
sitting all of the house to works podcasts. He's one
man machine or one man army. You're one man army.
That is correct. It's very kind of you guys. It's true.
(46:43):
All right, So, uh, really quickly before we wrap this
thing up, I just wanted to make a quick announcement.
There is a big life change occurring in my one
of those my life. Uh, I'm just gonna go out
and say it. My wife and I are having our
first baby. I'm not doing anything. She's doing all the
work and I'm just kind of standing there, going, hey,
(47:06):
can I get you some water? That's pretty much what
I what I've been doing for the past few months here,
and I'm going to be away. That is happening imminently,
so I will be away from the studio for a bit.
I might swing in when I get a chance. Um.
You will notice on our YouTube page they're going to
be several classic videos. It's actually I think our last
(47:29):
batch of classic episodes that we are going to produce,
and not classic as in the style, but as in
videos from the original House Stuff Works channel, which we've
been slowly moving to. This will be the last bit
that we need to get over there. And by the way,
I think we hit three hundred and fifty thousand subscribers
(47:50):
on YouTube and that's huge. Thank you so seriously, thank you.
Oh my goodness. Yeah, I just want to say thank
you guys so much because this is your show, and
we've said it before, it's a free show. A lot
of stuff is free on the internet, so this, this
support means a hell of a lot to us. And
(48:12):
uh it's also you know, no offense, like it's cool
the show stuff is cool. But congratulations, Matt, thank you
very much. So if you well, thank you man. So
if you want to talk to us about the Petro dollar,
about anything we've talked about in past episodes, or if
you want to give me some parenting advice, I could
(48:32):
take it because I am lost right now. But you
know what will make it work, the whole bottle situation.
Just you know, I just have to gripe really fast
putting things together for babies, all of the all of
the different uh, I don't even know what most of
them are called, like the gliders and the other things.
Everything Greako makes no offense. Greako just very difficult to
(48:54):
put together. So anyway, I can't wait to have a
kid and then really worry about him falling off of
one of these great co machines that I put together
hopefully correctly. So anyway, you can write to us about
any of that stuff. You can find us on Facebook,
you can find us on Twitter. We are conspiracy stuff
on both of those. You can let's see, you can
go to stuff they don't want you to know dot com.
(49:16):
You can listen to all of these. Hopefully you're listening
to this on stuff they don't want you to know
dot com. If you are, you are awesome. You're awesome
either way for having this in your ears. But thank you.
Uh and there's one last thing, ben Ah. Yes, if
you have an idea and you'd like to email us,
if you have a story about your time abroad or
(49:37):
something relates to Petro Dollar, we'd like to hear it.
We want to hear more about this situation. We want
to hear whether it's true, whether it's utter bunk, and
we want to hear from you. And that's the end
of this classic episode. If you have any thoughts or
questions about this episode, you can get into contact with
(49:59):
us in a number of from ways. One of the
best is to give us a call. Our number is
one eight three three std w y t K. If
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(50:19):
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Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
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United States of Kennedy
United States of Kennedy is a podcast about our cultural fascination with the Kennedy dynasty. Every week, hosts Lyra Smith and George Civeris go into one aspect of the Kennedy story.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com