Treasury bonds

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has proposed that governments around the world require payment of at least a uniform “global minimum corporate tax.

Michael Hudson and Pepe Escobar resume their conversation about a global monetary system that appears headed for divorce. 

Some have queried how it could be that President Putin would co-operate with President Trump to have OPEC+ push oil prices higher – when those higher prices precisely would only help sustain U.S. oil production. In effect, President Putin was being asked to underwrite a subsidy to the U.S. economy – at the expense of Russia’s own oil and gas sales – since U.S. shale production simply is not economic at these prices. In other words, Russia seemed to be shooting itself in the foot.

Michael HUDSON

US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin seems to think that nations under the hammer of American sanctions should be thanking Washington for not attacking them militarily instead. How generous, how virtuous of Uncle Sam!
Speaking at the Doha Forum in Qatar last week, Mnuchin made a virtue of the US imposing economic sanctions on countries it dislikes because such measures, he claimed, were a way to avoid the worse alternative of war.

The United States government authorizes itself to be the dictator of the world, and this couldn’t happen if it didn’t have allies who accept this type of humiliating treatment. An insatiable US military is essential in order for such a regime to be able to have any success at all.

A Step Backward by Nancy OhanianRussia isn't one of the biggest holders of U.S. Treasury bonds-- and they became a much smaller holder recently. The Treasury report for April has published about a week ago and it showed that Russia sold about half it's holdings-- $47.4 billion out of the $96.1 it held. Russia had already sold off $9.3 billion in February and another $1.6 billion in March.