The U.S. Empire Would Have Collapsed Decades Ago If It Didn’t Abandon The Gold Standard

by Steve St. Angelo, SRSRocco Report:

The U.S. will never go back on a gold standard. The notion that a U.S. Dollar backed by gold would solve our financial problems is pure folly. Why? Because, if the U.S. Empire didn’t abandon the gold standard in 1971, it would have collapsed decades ago.

Unfortunately, some of the top experts in the precious metals community continue to suggest that revaluing gold much higher, to say…. $15,000-$50,000 an ounce, would bring confidence back into the Dollar. Not only will this not happen, it wouldn’t save the Dollar even if it did.

Why? Well, that is the $10.5 trillion question, isn’t it? I provided that exact $10.5 trillion figure for good reason… which I will get to shortly, but the innate value of the U.S. Dollar died decades ago and will never come back. Basically, it is a DEAD MAN WALKING.

However, the market hasn’t figured that out yet, but it will. It is just a matter of time, and time is running out.

Hugo Salinas Price Was The Motivation For Writing This Article

As I mentioned in prior articles, Hugo Salinas Price has been keeping an eye on International Reserves for many years. In his recent article, A Reversal In The Trend Of International Reserves, he stated the following:

International Reserves peaked on August 1, 2014, at $12.032 Trillion dollars, and as of October 28, 2016 they stood at $11.066 Trillion dollars.

When a trend has been firmly in place in the world for 45 years, a reversal of that trend must be the result of a profound change which will produce a new trend that will not be easily altered, just as the previous trend was unalterable for 45 years. The new trend is deflation, contraction of credit.

According to my analysis in a recent article, The Implosion Of The Global Markets Has Started & Can’t Be Stopped, the reason the International Reserves peaked and declined, was due to the price of oil falling below $100 in August 2014 and then crashing to $30 by the beginning of 2016:

As we can see in the chart, when the price of oil fell below $100, it gutted the oil and goods producing countries economies. Thus, these countries had to sell off their Reserves (U.S. Treasuries and etc) to offset the losses from a collapsing oil price. Indeed, this was the very DEFLATION Hugo Salinas Price stated in his article.

Since that article, Hugo and I have had several email exchanges. In one of our exchanges, he brought to my attention the amount of gold the U.S. would have had to liquidate just to import one million barrels of oil per day. Looking at his calculations, it turned out to be one hell of a lot of gold.

So, I decided to look into this in more detail to get a better idea of HOW MUCH GOLD would have been liquidated and sold into the market to support the U.S. Empire’s insatiable oil consumption.

Let me tell you, it’s a great deal more than I ever imagined.

The Total Dollar Amount Of U.S. Net Oil Imports Was Quite Large

If we totaled the Dollar amount of U.S. net oil imports since 1973, the figure is staggering to say the least. According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency (EIA) data on U.S. net oil imports, the United States spent a stunning $4.8 trillion on its net oil imports from 1973 to 2015. I wanted to provide data going back until 1971, but the EIA’s data for U.S. net oil imports only went back until 1973:

The figures in this chart were calculated by taking the annual average daily net oil imports, multiplying it by the average Brent Crude oil price and then by 365 days per year. For example, the U.S. spent a record $394 billion on its net oil imports in 2008:

2008 = 11,114,000 barrels per day (x) $97.26 (x) 365 days = $394 billion

While this may not seem like a lot when we compare it to our highly inflated Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of $14.2 trillion in 2008, it turns out to be one heck of a lot of gold when we consider it in respect to our balance of trade deficits.

Read More @ SRSRoccoReport.com