by Megas Alexandros

Peoples perpetually subjugated by elitist ‘Powers’, constantly live with the need to ‘fall in love’ with those who provide them with the imminent hope of the arrival of events that will make their lives better.

Since information, like the rest of the instruments to control the masses, is in the hands of ‘Power’, often, if not always, such hope vanishes in the face of the falsity of certain perspectives.

There are many builders of ‘false hope’ operating in the world of national information. But if by now this is clear to most, what should make us reflect and worry at the same time is that such characters are finding more and more space even in what calls itself free and independent information.

This is the case of the Brazilian journalist and geopolitical analyst, correspondent for Asia Times and The Real News, known to the chronicles as Pepe Escobar.

Lately, at the mere mention of Pepe Escobar’s name in the air, I have seen even the minds I thought most lucid take a knee. A devout and inexplicable admiration for a journalist who, in my humble opinion, has always said little or nothing compared to what is necessary.

Certainly, as the writer of this article, I have every right not to be attracted by ‘God Pepe’, at the same time I have no evidence to judge the real purpose of his actions. Nor in which part of the camp this character, who presents himself as an ‘Anointed by the Lord’ as the ‘first fruits’ of his information sources, really stands.

That said, on the contrary, I consider myself fully capable and knowledgeable on the subject to point out how much his thinking – on the subject of the ‘single currency of the BRICS’ – is totally aligned with the neo-liberal dogmas of that globalist world that makes us suffer so much.

It is becoming a habit; for some time now, and consistently, Pepe Escobar has been delighting us with articles in which he announces the imminent arrival of phantom agreements between the BRICS countries for the birth and use of a common currency. A prospectus clearly and technically defined by the journalist would bring their national currencies into what is clearly a fixed exchange rate system. Putin was crystal clear when he said he did not want to repeat the Euro experience.

Now, if the international ‘Pepe’ would simply report the news (which, moreover, to date has always been denied by Putin and many other representatives of the countries’ institutions), there would be nothing to oppose the good journalist’s faithful mission to predict what might happen.

But the Brazilian journalist, I am sorry to say, goes much further!

In his articles, Escobar makes no secret of being a strong supporter of the creation of a common currency to unite this part of the world. Even, in total alignment with the mainstream narrative, he even presents it as ‘manna from heaven’ for people eternally oppressed by the dollar and the euro. As if it is the currencies that oppress people and not the actions of the people who have the power to do so.

‘Will the Bretton Woods of the BRICS take place in Kazan?’ It is with this question that Pepe Escobar a few days ago launched to the world his thoughts – shared with the Russian governmental news agency Sputnik – on the prospects of the BRICS financial system.

A question, however, that for some time now has not seen the response that Escobar strongly desires from governments to give substance to his divine anticipations.

But Pepe does not give up. A few days ago, as he did last May, he even went so far as to give a very precise shape to what, according to his sources, will soon be the structure of the monetary system that will catapult the BRICS countries directly into the drama of fixed exchange rates.

The analyst highlighted several key infrastructure projects, including:

• the Unity (a private project),
• the BRICS Bridge (a platform for multilateral payments and settlements in BRICS digital currencies, the only real one on the table!),
• BRICS Pay (a blockchain-based payment system that completely bypasses the U.S. dollar. an old project from 2018, which is still stuck in the early stages),
• and the BRICS rating agency.

Although Escobar makes no mention (due to incompetence or otherwise, it is not known, ed.) of the important difference between a currency and a payment system, the situation seems clear enough for him to address the issue of cross-border payments properly.

The best mechanism,’ adds Escobar, whose sources also include the suggestions of Prof. Michael Hudson, ’should be based on the New Development Bank (NDB).

‘A centralized BRICS payment system would require a new institution, a central bank, authorized to issue credit to finance the trade and payment deficits of some countries, with an artificial bancor-type SDR [Special Drawing Rights],’

So there you have it: Bancor, Special Drawing Rights like those issued by the International Monetary Fund (IMF), credit to finance trade deficits – these are all part of the same narrative of a gold-linked currency that JM Keynes was also a prisoner of when he crafted the proposal he presented at Bretton Woods.

A proposal, that of the British economist, totally in line in terms of the need for a fixed exchange rate between the respective currencies, with that of his antagonist at the Bretton Woods tables, the American Harry Dexter White.

The mix of the two proposals in the process gave rise to what we all know as the gold exchange standard era. An international monetary system based on fixed exchange ratios between currencies, all pegged to the dollar, which in turn was pegged to gold.

It was there, in the state of New Hampshire, inside the rooms of the Mount Washington Hotel, that the myth of the dollar as the world’s reserve currency was born in July 1944. A fable that we continue to tell ourselves to this day, every night before we fall asleep, despite the fact that since 1971 it has even been written that the dollar, and therefore other currencies, are not convertible into anything.

A fairy tale precisely because even after Bretton Woods, currency continued to be as scarce as gold only for the people. While for the elites it was fully fiat and abundant.

Let us try to understand this clearly. To simplify the matter even further, a common currency, at best for the people, can be another unnecessary means of payment and at worst, as already mentioned, fixed exchange rate hell.

Having understood this, and still with the deep wounds on our skin resulting from the umpteenth disastrous experience of another monetary union with fixed exchange rates, well known to us Italians, which is precisely the eurozone with its Euro currency – Pepe Escobar and his followers, apparently not satisfied with the suffering endured by the peoples, propose to overthrow the geopolitical dominance of the dollar born on the lies told at Bretton Woods, with a new currency also to be managed and made to believe if necessary with fixed exchange rates.

A currency that would once again divide countries into debtors and creditors. A division that internally we know translates into the constant feature that sees the majority increasingly enslaved and indebted and a small elite instead accumulating savings with no end in sight.

Dear friends who read me, be wary of Pepe Escobar, because on the most important issue that affects our lives, namely money, his fantastic geopolitical analyses are still affected by the dogma of the ‘golden penny’ and a currency that must necessarily be scarce for the people to satisfy ‘Lords’ desires for power and accumulation.