Putin outsmarted all the dumba** blowhards in the West. While they had their eye on the Ukraine ball, Putin tied the ruble to gold and energy.
This is a TOTAL game changer. It will reinforce the value of the ruble, and likely drive it up. As other oil producing countries will note, the beginning of the end of US$ hegemony is well under way. The BRICs have most certainly noticed, and are well on their way to establishing a rival trading block to the US/European block. Buh-bye petrodollar.
Once the global US$ payment system for oil is broken, all those $billions or, likely $trillions of $US sloshing around the global system and in foreign bank reserves will be set free, and will return to the US.
Can you guess what will be the result of all those $US returning to the US will be? Way way too many dollars floating around the system, driving down the value of the $US and making EVERYTHING much more expensive in the US. Can you spell m-a-s-s-i-v-e i-n-f-l-a-t-i-o-n? This is going to be REALLY ugly.
And do you know how this all started? The dumba** blowhards in the West confiscated Russia’s foreign exchange reserves and tried to confiscate Russian gold.
But, I suspect Putin was way ahead of the game.
The really funny part is Gazprom was funding the “green” activists in the EU, who were then pressing their governments to decommission nuclear plants and fossil fuel-based powerplants. Alternative energy = good. Fossil-based energy = bad. So Germany and much of Europe shut down their power generating capacity and willingly, enthusiastically became dependent on Russian energy, and are now totally under the control of Putin. They put the little green gnome from Sweden on a pedestal, and she was, in reality, just a dumb, useful idiot shilling for Putin. Now all the European governments are bracing their citizens for literally dark, cold and hungry days ahead.
What a hilarious joke this all is. Putin pranked them all.
“How dare you!” Hahahahaha.
4D chess, indeed.