PUTIN TO GO AFTER ISRAELI OIL.GODS HOOK IN PUTINS JAW.AND A CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL WORLD CURRENCY?

PUTIN TO GO AFTER ISRAELI OIL.GODS HOOK IN PUTINS JAW.AND A CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL WORLD CURRENCY?

DISEASES-ANIMAL TO HUMAN

REVELATION 6:7-8 (500 MILLION DEAD EACH FROM THE 4 JUDGEMENTS)(2 BILLION TOT DEAD HERE)
7 And when he had opened the fourth seal, I heard the voice of the fourth beast say, Come and see.
8 And I looked, and behold a pale horse:(CHLORES GREEN) and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth,(2 billion) of (8 billion) to kill with sword,(WEAPONS)(500 million) and with hunger,(FAMINE)(500 million) and with death,(INCURABLE DISEASES)(500 million) and with the beasts of the earth.(ANIMAL TO HUMAN DISEASE)(500 million).

THE COVID-19 TOTALS.
WORLD OVER ALL CASES 440,947,352 - DEAD 5,995,271 - AS OF MON MAR 07,2022

EZEKIEL 38:12-15
12 (RUSSIA) To take a spoil,(OIL IS IN SPOIL) and to take a prey; to turn thine hand upon the desolate places that are now inhabited, and upon the people that are gathered out of the nations, which have gotten cattle and goods, that dwell in the midst of the land.
13  Sheba, and Dedan,(SAUDI-ARABIA) and the merchants of Tarshish,(SPAIN) with all the young lions thereof,(ENGLAND,AND ALL ITS ASSOCIATES-CANADA,AUSTRALIA-NEW ZEALAND, USA, AND WESTERN ENGLISH SPEAKING NATIONS) shall say unto thee, Art thou come to take a spoil? hast thou gathered thy company to take a prey? to carry away silver and gold, to take away cattle and goods, to take a great spoil?(OIL IS IN SPOIL-I BELIEVE THATS WHY RUSSIA,ARAB/MUSLIMS MARCH TO ISRAEL)
14  Therefore, son of man, prophesy and say unto Gog, Thus saith the Lord GOD; In that day when my people of Israel dwelleth safely, shalt thou not know it?
15  And thou shalt come from thy place out of the north parts, thou, and many people with thee, all of them riding upon horses, a great company, and a mighty army:

EZEKIEL 38 2-9
2 Son of man, set thy face against Gog,(RULER) the land of Magog,(RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech (MOSCOW) and Tubal,(TOBOLSK) and prophesy against him,
3 And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog,(LEADER OF RUSSIA) the chief prince of Meshech(MOSCOW) and Tubal:TOBOLSK)
4 And I (GOD) will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws,(GOD FORCES THE RUSSIA-MUSLIMS TO MARCH) and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:
5 Persia,(IRAN,IRAQ) Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:
6 Gomer,(GERMANY) and all his bands; the house of Togarmah (TURKEY) of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.(AFRICAN MUSLIMS,SUDAN,TUNESIA ETC)
7 Be thou prepared, and prepare for thyself, thou, and all thy company that are assembled unto thee, and be thou a guard unto them.
8 After many days thou shalt be visited: in the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back from the sword, and is gathered out of many people, against the mountains of Israel, which have been always waste: but it is brought forth out of the nations, and they shall dwell safely all of them.
9 Thou shalt ascend and come like a storm, thou shalt be like a cloud to cover the land, thou, and all thy bands, and many people with thee.(RUSSIA-EGYPT AND MUSLIMS)

OIL IN ISRAEL

JOB 29:6
6  When I washed my steps with butter, and the rock poured me out rivers of oil;

GENESIS 12:3
3  And I will bless them that bless thee,(ISRAEL) and curse (DESTROY) him that curseth thee:(DESTROY THEM) and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.

GENESIS 14:10
10  And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits;(CRUDE OIL) and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain

DEUTERONOMY 33:19,24
19  They (ISRAEL) shall call the people unto the mountain; there they shall offer sacrifices of righteousness: for they shall suck of the abundance of the seas, and of treasures hid in the sand.
24  And of Asher he said, Let Asher be blessed with children; let him be acceptable to his brethren, and let him dip his foot in oil.

DEUTERONOMY 12:3
13  He made him ride on the high places of the earth, that he might eat the increase of the fields;(OIL) and he made him to suck honey out of the rock, and oil out of the flinty rock;

And here are the bounderies of the land that Israel will inherit either through war or peace or God in the future. God says its Israels land and only Israels land. They will have every inch God promised them of this land in the future.
Egypt east of the Nile River, Saudi Arabia, Israel, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, The southern part of Turkey and the Western Half of Iraq west of the Euphrates. Gen 13:14-15, Psm 105:9,11, Gen 15:18, Exe 23:31, Num 34:1-12, Josh 1:4.ALL THIS LAND ISRAEL WILL DEFINATELY OWN IN THE FUTURE, ITS ISRAELS NOT ISHMAELS LAND.12 TRIBES INHERIT LAND IN THE FUTURE.

To reduce Putin’s power, ditch oil and gas-In response to Putin's invasion of Ukraine, the U.S. needs to pivot to renewables.By Bill McKibben - March 7, 2022-YES! Magazine

The pictures of Russian tanks rolling across the Ukrainian countryside seem both surreal—a flashback to a Europe that we’ve seen only in newsreels—and inevitable. It’s been clear for years that Vladimir Putin was both evil and driven and that eventually we might come to a moment like this.One of the worst parts of facing today’s reality is our impotence in its face. Yes, America is imposing sanctions, and yes, that may eventually hamper Putin. But the Russian leader made his move knowing we could not actually fight him in Ukraine—and indeed knowing that his hinted willingness to use nuclear weapons will make it hard to fight him anywhere, though one supposes we will have no choice if he attacks a NATO member.But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to dramatically reduce Putin’s power. One way, in particular: to get off oil and gas.This is not a “war for oil and gas” in the sense that too many of America’s Middle East misadventures might plausibly be described. But it is a war underwritten by oil and gas, a war whose most crucial weapon may be oil and gas, a war we can’t fully engage because we remain dependent on oil and gas. If you want to stand with the brave people of Ukraine, you need to find a way to stand against oil and gas.Russia has a pathetic economy—you can verify that for yourself by looking around your house and seeing how many of the things you use were made within its borders. Today, 60% of its exports are oil and gas; it supplies the money that powers the country’s military machine.And, alongside that military machine, control of oil and gas supplies is Russia’s main weapon. It has, time and again, threatened to turn off the flow of hydrocarbons to western Europe. When the Germans finally this week stopped the planned Nord Stream 2 pipeline, Putin’s predecessor, Dmitry Medvedev, said, “Welcome to the new world where Europeans will soon have to pay 2,000 euros [$2,270] per thousand cubic meters!” His not very subtle notion: If the price of keeping houses warm doubles, Europe will have no choice but to fold.Today, 60% of Russia’s exports are oil and gas. Control of oil and gas supplies is Russia’s main weapon.Finally, even the Biden administration—which has been playing its hand wisely in the lead-up to the invasion—is constrained by oil and gas. As we impose sanctions, everyone’s looking for an out: The Italians want to exempt high-end luxury goods and the Belgians diamonds, but the U.S. has made it clear that it doesn’t want to seriously interrupt the flow of Russian oil for fear of driving up gas prices and thus weakening American resolve.As one “senior state department official” told The Wall Street Journal this week, “Doing anything that affects … or halts energy transactions would have a great impact on the United States, American citizens and our allies. So our intention here is to impose the hardest sanctions we can while trying to safeguard the American public and the rest of the world from those measures.” It’s obviously not an idle fear: As of this morning, Tucker Carlson was attacking Russia hawk Lindsey Graham for supporting a conflict that will bring “higher gas prices” while he has a “generous Congressional pension.” If you’re an apologist for fascism, high gas prices are your first go-to move.So now is the moment to remind ourselves that, in the last decade, scientists and engineers have dropped the cost of solar and wind power by an order of magnitude, to the point where it is some of the cheapest power on Earth. The best reason to deploy it immediately is to ward off the existential crisis that is climate change, and the second best is to stop the killing of 9 million people annually who die from breathing in the particulates that fossil fuel combustion produces. But the third best reason—and perhaps the most plausible for rousing our leaders to action—is that it dramatically reduces the power of autocrats, dictators, and thugs.Imagine a Europe that ran on solar and wind power: whose cars ran on locally provided electricity, and whose homes were heated by electric air-source heat pumps. That Europe would not be funding Putin’s Russia, and it would be far less scared of Putin’s Russia—it could impose every kind of sanction and keep them in place until the country buckled. Imagine an America where the cost of gas was not a political tripwire, because if people had to have a pickup to make them feel sufficiently manly, that pickup would run on electricity that came from the sun and wind. It would take an evil-er genius than Vladimir Putin to figure out how to embargo the sun.These are not novel technologies—they exist, are growing, and could be scaled up quickly. In the years after Hitler invaded the Sudetenland, America turned its industrial prowess to building tanks, bombers, and destroyers. In 1941, in Ypsilanti, Michigan, the world’s largest industrial plant went up in six months’ time, and soon it was churning out a B-24 bomber every hour. A bomber is a complicated machine with more than a million parts; a wind turbine is, by contrast, relatively simple. In Michigan alone (“the arsenal of democracy”), a radiator company retooled to make 20m steel helmets and a rubber factory retooled to produce the liners for those helmets; the company that made the fabric for Ford’s seat cushions stopped doing that and started pushing out parachutes. Do we think that it’s beyond us to quickly produce the solar panels and the batteries required to end our dependence on fossil fuel? Imagine a Europe that ran on solar and wind power. That Europe would not be funding Putin’s Russia.It’s not easy—among other things, Russia has a good deal of some of the minerals that help in renewable energy production. (Nickel, for example.) But here, again, the example of the second world war is helpful—with the Axis in control of commodities like rubber, we quickly figured out how to mass-produce substitutes.It’s true that we could produce carbon-free energy with nuclear power too, as long as we were willing to pay the heavy premium that technology requires—and right now, Germany is probably regretting its decision to hastily shut down its reactors in the wake of the Fukushima accident. But if you think about the scenario now unfolding across Europe, you’re reminded of another of the advantages of renewable power, which is that it’s widely distributed. There are far fewer central nodes to attack with cruise missiles and artillery shells—targeting reactors is pretty easy, but driving your tank across Europe from one solar panel to the next so you can get out to smash it with a hammer is comical.At the moment, big oil is using the fighting in Ukraine as an excuse to try to expand its footprint—reliable industry ally Kristi Noem, the governor of South Dakota, went on Fox this week to argue that stopping the Keystone XL pipeline had empowered the Russian leader, for instance, and the American Petroleum Institute called for more oil and gas development. But this is absurd—we may need, for the remaining weeks of this winter, to ensure gas supplies for Europe, but by next winter, we need to remove that lever. That means an all-out effort to decarbonize that continent, and then our own. It’s not impossible.We have to do it anyway, if we’re to have any hope of slowing climate change. And we can do it fast if we want: Huge offshore wind farms in Europe have been built inside of 18 months without any wartime pressure.We should be in agony today—people are dying because they want to live in a democracy, want to determine their own affairs. But that agony should, and can, produce real change. (And not just in Europe. Imagine not having to worry about what the king of Saudi Arabia thought, or the Koch brothers—access to fossil fuel riches so often produces retrograde thuggery.) Caring about the people of Ukraine means caring about an end to oil and gas.This story originally appeared in The Guardian and is part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate story.

Putin has world over an oil barrel, proving why we can't cut deals with dictators-Chris Tomlinson- Staff writer-March 2, 2022

Houston artist Shelbi Nicole paints the words “stand with Ukraine” next to a mural in the shape of a heart and the Ukrainian flag colors, Monday, Feb. 28, 2022, in Houston.Vladimir Putin has amply demonstrated why you don’t cut deals with dictators.The Russian president has embarrassed his apologists—including former President George W. Bush and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel—and confirmed his critics’ worst fears. Doing business with authoritarians never leads them to democratic reforms; it only puts another weapon in their pocket.When democracy and free markets are threatened anywhere in a globalized world, democracy and free markets are threatened everywhere.Western leaders looking to boost economic growth have long claimed that constructive engagement with predatory authoritarians would lead to peace, prosperity and liberty for all.“I looked the man in the eye,” Bush said after an engagement with Putin in 2001. “I found him to be very straightforward and trustworthy. We had a very good dialogue. I was able to get a sense of his soul, a man deeply committed to his country and the best interests of his country.”Merkel went further, believing that making Germany dependent on Russian energy would somehow soften Putin. She shut down nuclear power plants, banned fracking for natural gas and relied on state-owned Russian companies to keep her people warm in the winter.Every country depends on Putin for something. In 2019, Russia exported $225 billion of oil, $55 billion of natural gas, $50 billion of metals, $20 billion of coal, $30 billion of basic materials and $25 billion of agricultural products. The entire world helped rebuild the Russian army.Exports are a critical element of what Putin calls hybrid war. In today’s globalized world, the best defense is first to make your enemy dependent, so they cannot hurt you without hurting themselves.Putin’s next step was to take advantage of Western naivete and launch an unimaginable ground war, leaving democracies worldwide gobsmacked.Russia’s criminal war has sent stock markets roiling, commodity prices spiking, and businesses scrambling to pivot. In addition to energy, Russia and Ukraine are the predominant suppliers of sunflower oil, palladium, car parts and countless strategic minerals to the world.World leaders have retaliated with what they call the financial equivalent of a “nuclear bomb” on Russia’s economy. Putin retorted with a threat to use actual nuclear weapons. But both sides are staying away from the true red line, which is Russia’s oil and natural gas exports.The energy weapon can cut both ways. The West knows they could end Putin with an embargo, but they would also collapse the global economy. For the same reason, Putin has surely threatened to suspend exports if the West takes any additional steps against him.The Russian energy standoff is the economic version of mutually assured destruction. Given the global stakes, the West is sacrificing the liberty of 40 million people in Ukraine. Thousands will die because the world economy depends on Russian energy.What remains uncertain is the future toll on the global economy. Wars are won by unpredictable and bold leaders who surprise their enemies. Americans have not felt any blowback yet, but it’s foolish not to expect consequences are coming.The loss of life and wealth in Ukraine results from a tragic diplomatic and economic miscalculation. Despite attempts to coax him into the democratic, free-market global order, Putin has rejected our values while taking our money to finance his imperial agenda.Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proves Dr. Martin Luther King’s observation that an “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”Many politicians will use Russia’s invasion to argue for greater self-sufficiency, to cut ourselves off from the world. But that’s a fool’s game. We need goods and services that only foreign countries can supply. We need trade to reduce prices and boost living standards.Instead, the United States needs to renew its commitment to promote and spread democracy worldwide. We need to insist other nations have leaders accountable to their people. We need to ensure every human knows trade and cooperation will bring a better life, not war.We must stand up to bullies early. Chinese President Xi Jinping is claiming the entire China Sea as sovereign waters and is preparing plans to take Taiwan by force. He’s also betting that the global economy is more important to the West than the liberty of 23.5 million people.Every day I see someone touting their assault rifle in the name of liberty. But weapons only destroy; commerce builds. If we want world peace, we need to stop financing dictators and demand democracy before turning over our dollars.Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics.twitter.com/cltomlinson-chris.tomlinson@chron.com

AND AS A RESULT OF STOPPING PUTINS OIL AND GAS-NEW YORK FRIED.ISRAELIS NEED TO LEAVE NEW YORK AND GO TO ISRAEL. I THINK NY WOULD BE DONE BEFORE PUTIN GOES TO ISRAEL FOR HIS DEMISE.

AMERICA (POLITICAL BABYLON)(NUKED BY SNEAK ATTACK FROM RUSSIA)

IN REVELATION 17 & 18 IS THE DESTRUCTION OF THE RELIGIOUS AND POLITICAL BABYLONS.IF YOU CAN NOT DECERN BETWEEN THE 2 BABYLONS IN REV 17 & 18.YOU WILL JUST THINK THEIR BOTH THE SAME.BUT NO-THERES A RELIGIOUS BABYLON (THE VATICAN IN REV 17)(AND THE POLITICAL BABYLON IN REV 18 (AMERICA OR NEW YORK TO BE EXACT)

ISAIAH 34:10
10  It (AMERICA-POLITICAL BABYLON) shall not be quenched night nor day; the smoke thereof shall go up for ever: from generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it for ever and ever.

JEREMIAH 51:29-32 (CYBER ATTACK 1ST)
29  And the land shall tremble and sorrow: for every purpose of the LORD shall be performed against Babylon,(AMERICA-NEW YORK) to make the land of Babylon (AMERICA) a desolation without an inhabitant.
30  The mighty men of Babylon (AMERICA) have forborn to fight, they have remained in their holds: their might hath failed; they became as women: they have burned her dwellingplaces; her bars are broken.
031  One post shall run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to shew the king of Babylon (NEW YORK) that his city is taken at one end,
32  And that the passages are stopped,(THE WAR COMPUTERS HACKED OR EMP'D) and the reeds they have burned with fire, and the men of war are affrighted.(DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO)

COMPLETE SILENCE AFTER AN EMP GOES OFF
REVELATION 8:1
1 And when he had opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven about the space of half an hour.

JEREMIAH 50:3,24
3 For out of the north (RUSSIA) there cometh up a nation against her, which shall make her land desolate, and none shall dwell therein: they shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.
24 I have laid a snare for thee, and thou art also taken, O Babylon,(AMERICA) and thou wast not aware: thou art found, and also caught, because thou hast striven against the LORD. (RUSSIA A SNEAK CYBER,EMP ATTACK,THEN NUKE ATTACK ON AM

JOEL 3:2 (WW3 OCCURS WHEN JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED)
2 I will also gather all nations, and will bring them down into the valley of Jehoshaphat, and will plead with them there for my people (ISRAEL) and for my heritage Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations, and parted my land.(JERUSALEM)(WW3 STARTS BECAUSE JERUSALEM IS DIVIDED AND ISRAELIS UPROOTED FROM THEIR GOD GIVIN LAND BRINGS 3 DEAD BILLION IN WW3)


US CENTRAL BANK DIGITAL CURRENCY
https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/files/money-and-payments-20220120.pdf

HOARDING OF GOLD AND SILVER

JAMES 5:1-3
1 Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.
2 Your riches are corrupted, and your garments are motheaten.
3 Your gold and silver is cankered; and the rust of them shall be a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as it were fire. Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days.

REVELATION 18:10,17,19
10 Standing afar off for the fear of her torment, saying, Alas, alas that great city Babylon, that mighty city! for in one hour is thy judgment come.(IN 1 HR THE STOCK MARKETS WORLDWIDE WILL CRASH)
17 For in one hour so great riches is come to nought. And every shipmaster, and all the company in ships, and sailors, and as many as trade by sea, stood afar off,
19 And they cast dust on their heads, and cried, weeping and wailing, saying, Alas, alas that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.

EZEKIEL 7:19
19 They shall cast their silver in the streets, and their gold shall be removed:(CONFISCATED) their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them in the day of the wrath of the LORD: they shall not satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowels: because it is the stumblingblock of their iniquity.

WORLD POWERS IN THE LAST DAYS (END OF AGE OF GRACE NOT THE WORLD)

EUROPEAN UNION-KING OF WEST-DAN 9:26-27,DAN 7:23-24,DAN 11:40,REV 13:1-10
EGYPT-KING OF THE SOUTH-DAN 11:40
RUSSIA-KING OF THE NORTH-EZEK 38:1-2,EZEK 39:1-3
CHINA-KING OF THE EAST-DAN 11:44,REV 9:16,18
VATICAN-FALSE RELIGIOUS LEADER-REV 13:11-18,REV 17:4-5,9,18

REVELATION 13:16-18 (WORLD ECONOMY RUN BY THE EUROPEAN UNION)
16 And he(FALSE POPE) causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:(CHIP IMPLANT)
17 And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.
18 Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.(6-6-6) A NUMBER SYSTEM

REVELATION 17:12-13
12 And the ten horns (NATIONS) which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.(SOCIALISM)
13 These have one mind,(SOCIALISM) and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

REVELATION 6:1-2
1 And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seals, and I heard, as it were the noise of thunder, one of the four beasts saying, Come and see.
2 And I saw, and behold a white horse:(PEACE) and he that sat on him had a bow;(EU DICTATOR) and a crown was given unto him:(PRESIDENT OF THE EU) and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.(MILITARY GENIUS)

2 THESSALONIANS 2:9-12
9 Even him,(EU WORLD DICTATOR) whose coming is after the working of Satan with all power and signs and lying wonders,
10 And with all deceivableness of unrighteousness in them that perish; because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
11 And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion,(THE FALSE RESURRECTION BY THE WORLD DICTATOR) that they should believe a lie:
12 That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.

GENESIS 49:16-17-POSSIBLY A JEW FROM DAN KILLS THE DICTATOR AT MIDPOINT OF TRIB
16  Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel.
17  Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward.

REVELATION 13:3,7,8 (WORLD GOVERNMENT, WORLD ECONOMY, WORLD RELIGION)
1 And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy.(THE EU AND ITS DICTATOR IS GODLESS)
2 And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority.(DICTATOR COMES FROM NEW AGE OR OCCULT)
3 And I saw one of his heads as it were wounded to death;(MURDERERD) and his deadly wound was healed:(COMES BACK TO LIFE) and all the world wondered after the beast.(THE WORLD THINKS ITS GOD IN THE FLESH, MESSIAH TO ISRAEL)
7 And it was given unto him to make war with the saints,(BEHEAD THEM) and to overcome them: and power was given him over all kindreds, and tongues, and nations.(WORLD DOMINATION)
8 And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him, whose names are not written in the book of life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.(WORLD DICTATOR).

If Russian Currency Reserves Aren’t Really Money, the World Is in for a Shock-Sanctions have shown that currency reserves accumulated by central banks can be taken away. With China taking note, this may reshape geopolitics, economic management and even the international role of the U.S. dollar.The West has shut off the Russian central bank’s access to most of its foreign reserves.By Jon Sindreu-Updated March 3, 2022 7:44 am ET

“What is money?” is a question that economists have pondered for centuries, but the blocking of Russia’s central-bank reserves has revived its relevance for the world’s biggest nations—particularly China. In a world in which accumulating foreign assets is seen as risky, military and economic blocs are set to drift farther apart.After Moscow attacked Ukraine last week, the U.S. and its allies shut off the Russian central bank’s access to most of its $630 billion of foreign reserves. Weaponizing the monetary system against a Group-of-20 country will have lasting repercussions.The 1997 Asian Financial Crisis scared developing countries into accumulating more funds to shield their currencies from crashes, pushing official reserves from less than $2 trillion to a record $14.9 trillion in 2021, according to the International Monetary Fund. While central banks have lately sought to buy and repatriate gold, it only makes up 13% of their assets. Foreign currencies are 78%. The rest is positions at the IMF and Special Drawing Rights, or SDR—an IMF-created claim on hard currencies.Many economists have long equated this money to savings in a piggy bank, which in turn correspond to investments made abroad in the real economy.Recent events highlight the error in this thinking: Barring gold, these assets are someone else’s liability—someone who can just decide they are worth nothing. Last year, the IMF suspended Taliban-controlled Afghanistan’s access to funds and SDR. Sanctions on Iran have confirmed that holding reserves offshore doesn’t stop the U.S. Treasury from taking action. As New England Law Professor Christine Abely points out, the 2017 settlement with Singapore’s CSE TransTel shows that the mere use of the dollar abroad can violate sanctions on the premise that some payment clearing ultimately happens on U.S. soil.To be sure, the West has frozen Russia’s stock of foreign exchange, but hasn’t blocked the inflow of new dollars and euros. The country’s current-account surplus is estimated at $20 billion a month due to exports of oil and gas, which the U.S. and the European Union want to keep buying. While these balances go to the private sector, officials have mobilized them. Stopping major banks like Sberbank from using dollars and excluding others from the Swift messaging system still plunges the economy into chaos, especially if foreign businesses are afraid to buy Russian energy despite the sector’s explicit exclusion from sanctions. But hard currency will probably keep gushing in through energy-focused lenders like Gazprombank, and can theoretically be used to pay for imports and buy the ruble.Yet the entire artifice of “money“ as a universal store of value risks being eroded by the banning of key exports to Russia and boycotts of the kind corporations like Apple and Nike announced this week. If currency balances were to become worthless computer entries and didn’t guarantee buying essential stuff, Moscow would be rational to stop accumulating them and stockpile physical wealth in oil barrels, rather than sell them to the West. At the very least, more of Russia’s money will likely shift into gold and Chinese assets.Indeed, the case levied against China’s attempts to internationalize the renminbi has been that, unlike the dollar, access to it is always at risk of being revoked by political considerations. It is now apparent that, to a point, this is true of all currencies.The risk to King Dollar’s status is still limited due to most nations’ alignment with the West and Beijing’s capital controls. But financial and economic linkages between China and sanctioned countries will necessarily strengthen if those countries can only accumulate reserves in China and only spend them there. Even nations that aren’t sanctioned may want to diversify their geopolitical risk. It seems set to further the deglobalization trend and entrench two separate spheres of technological, monetary and military power.China itself owns $3.3 trillion in currency reserves. Unlike Russia, it cannot usefully hold them in renminbi, a currency it prints. Stockpiling commodities is an alternative. The conundrum creates another incentive for Beijing to reduce its trade surplus by reorienting its economy toward domestic consumption, though it has proven challenging.What can investors do? For once, the old trope may not be ill advised: buy gold. Many of the world’s central banks will surely be doing it.Sanctions Begin to Weigh on Russia’s Banks, Currency and Economy.Write to Jon Sindreu at jon.sindreu@wsj.com- 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8

The Future of Money: Gearing up for Central Bank Digital Currency-By Kristalina Georgieva, IMF Managing Director-Atlantic Council, Washington, DC-February 9, 2022

Ladies and gentlemen, friends, Let me start by thanking the Atlantic Council for providing a fitting venue to discuss central banks’ forays into Digital Currencies.Since its founding in 1961, the Council has made important contributions to strategic, political, and economic policy debates. Those debates have served us well, helping us to test the boundaries of our thinking and be better prepared for what lies ahead.So, today, we aim to test our thinking again. We have moved beyond conceptual discussions of CBDCs and we are now in the phase of experimentation. Central banks are rolling up their sleeves and familiarizing themselves with the bits and bytes of digital money.These are still early days for CBDCs and we don’t quite know how far and how fast they will go.  What we know is that central banks are building capacity to harness new technologies—to be ready for what may lie ahead.If CBDCs are designed prudently, they can potentially offer more resilience, more safety, greater availability, and lower costs than private forms of digital money. That is clearly the case when compared to unbacked crypto assets that are inherently volatile. And even the better managed and regulated stablecoins may not be quite a match against a stable and well-designed central bank digital currency.We know that the move towards CBDCs is gaining momentum, driven by the ingenuity of Central Banks.All told, around 100 countries are exploring CBDCs at one level or another. Some researching, some testing, and a few already distributing CBDC to the public.In the Bahamas, the Sand Dollar—the local CBDC—has been in circulation for more than a year.Sweden’s Riksbank has developed a proof of concept and is exploring the technology and policy implications of CBDC.In China, the digital renminbi [called e-CNY,] continues to progress with more than a hundred million individual users and billions of yuan in transactions.And, just last month, the Federal Reserve issued a report that noted that “a CBDC could fundamentally change the structure of theU.S. financial system.”[i] As you might expect, the IMF is deeply involved in this issue, including through providing technical assistance to many members. An important role for the Fund is to promote exchange of experience and support the interoperability of CBDCs.As part of the service to our members, today we are publishing a paper that shines a spotlight on the experiences of six Central Banks at the frontier—including China and Sweden—to be covered in the panel discussion following my remarks.We take away three common lessons from these Central Banks from which others may benefit.Lesson number one: no one size fits all.There is no universal case for CBDCs because each economy is different.In some cases, a CBDC may be an important path to financial inclusion—for instance, where geography is an obstacle to physical banking. In others, a CBDC could provide an essential backup in the event that other payment instruments fail. One such case was when the Eastern Caribbean Central Bank extended its CBDC pilot to areas struck by a volcanic eruption last year.So, central banks should tailor plans to their specific circumstances and needs.Lesson number 2, financial stability and privacy considerations are paramount to the design of CBDCs.Central banks are committed to minimizing the impact of CBDCs on financial intermediation and credit provision. This is very important for the wheels of the economy to run smoothly. The countries we studied offer CBDCs that are not interest-bearing—which makes a CBDC useful, but not as attractive as a vehicle for savings as traditional bank deposits.We also saw in all three active CBDC projects—in the Bahamas, China, and the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union—that they placed limits on holdings of CBDCs, again, to prevent sudden outflows of bank deposits into CBDC.Limits on holdings of CBDCs also helps meet people’s desire for privacy while guarding against illicit financial flows. Smaller holdings are allowed without the need for full identification if the risks of money laundering and terrorist financing are low—this could be a boon for financial inclusion. At the same time, larger transactions and holdings require more stringent checks, as you would expect if you deposit a bag of cash at the bank.In many countries, privacy concerns are a potential deal breaker when it comes to CBDC legislation and adoption. So, it’s vital that policymakers get the mix right.And that brings me to lesson number three: balance.Introducing a CBDC is about finding the delicate balance between developments on the design front and on the policy front.Getting the design right calls for time and resources, and continuous learning from experience—including shared experiences across countries. In many cases, this will require close partnerships with private firms to successfully distribute CBDCs, build e-wallets, add features, and push the bounds of technology.But the policy aspects are also paramount, including developing new legal frameworks, new regulations, and new case law.On both fronts, a CBDC also requires prudent planning to satisfy policy targets like financial inclusion, and avoid undesirable spillovers such as sudden capital outflows that could undermine financial stability.Taken together, careful design and policy considerations will underpin trust in CBDCs. But let us not forget that trust must be anchored in credible central banks with a history of delivering on their mandates.Introducing a CBDC is no substitute for this underlying trust built over decades—a public good that allows money to grease the wheels of our economies.The success of a CBDC, if and when issued, will depend on sufficient trust. And, in turn, any successful CBDC should continue to build trust in central banks.So, let me conclude.The history of money is entering a new chapter.Countries are seeking to preserve key aspects of their traditional monetary and financial systems, while experimenting with new digital forms of money.The paper we are releasing today shows that for those experiments to succeed policymakers need to deal with many open questions, technical obstacles, and policy tradeoffs.It may not be easy or straightforward, but I am confident that the bright minds in Central Banks can succeed, thanks to their trademark resourcefulness and perseverance.Fittingly, even the great inventor Thomas Edison acknowledged that: “There is no substitute for hard work.”And this is what we embrace at the IMF: This hard work has already advanced. We are supporting countries in their CBDC experiments—to understand big picture trade-offs, to provide technical assistance, and to serve as a transmission line of learning and best practice across all 190 members. And we are stepping up collaboration with other institutions, such as the Bank for International Settlements, at par with the rapidly growing significance of digital money.Today’s discussion is only the beginning of an exciting journey — and we have a great panel to take us further on it.Thank you.

Central bank digital currencies are coming. The US must be prepared-Opinion by Emily Parker for CNN Business Perspectives-Updated 8:17 AM ET, Fri August 13, 2021

"Emily Parker is managing director at CoinDesk and a former policy advisor at the US State Department and writer/editor at The Wall Street Journal. She is author of "Now I Know Who My Comrades Are: Voices From the Internet Underground." The opinions expressed in this commentary are her own. "Perspectives Emily Parker-Cryptocurrencies, like bitcoin and dogecoin, have dominated the news cycle in recent months. Meanwhile, the rise of another type of digital currency has gotten far less attention: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs).Unlike bitcoin, CBDCs are issued by governments and are basically digital versions of an existing national currency. But instead of holding it in your wallet, you store it on your phone.CBDCs could become more commonplace sooner than you'd think. According to the think tank Atlantic Council, 81 countries, which account for over 90% of the world's gross domestic product, are exploring a digital currency, and five countries have already launched one. And there will be more to come. According to a survey by the Bank for International Settlements, countries representing one-fifth of the world's population may well issue a digital currency in the next few years.Leading the race is China's digital yuan, which has already been trialed in over $5 billion worth of transactions. The US, by contrast, is still in the research phase. The House Committee on Financial Services recently had a hearing on the promises and perils of CBDC, in which several witnesses called on the US to be more proactive. Julia Coronado of MacroPolicy Perspectives called on the US to take a "leadership role" on CBDCs. "Failing to act now will leave the US on the outside looking in," added the Atlantic Council's Julia Friedlander.In other words, if America waits too long, it could miss a chance to shape the future of digital money.Why should Americans care? Well, partly because they have gotten used to a world in which the US dollar reigns supreme. But the rise of CBDCs could challenge that order, potentially threatening the status of the US dollar as the global reserve currency. Different countries will have a much easier time transacting with each other directly, removing the need for the US dollar or SWIFT, a global financial messaging system.In a CBDC world, "people would use the dollar less," predicted Michael Sung, a professor at Shanghai's Fudan University who researches digital currencies, in an interview with me. "The dollar is dominant because it is the reserve currency. Everyone needs to use it for convenience. You don't need a reserve currency if you can do direct settlement between trade pairs."The dollar is also a tool for US foreign policy, in that the US can essentially bar sanctioned countries from the dollar-based system. If the US doesn't develop its own CBDC and other countries move ahead, it might have less information about cross-border transactions since countries could transact with each other without using the SWIFT network, which the US can monitor.CBDCs could bring a domestic advantage for the US as well. In his Senate testimony on a digital dollar, Stanford University professor Darrell Duffie noted that part of the appeal of CBDCs lie in finding an alternative to our current costly and inefficient bank-railed system. "Banks have also underinvested in payment technologies that would improve the speed, interoperability and programmability of payments," Duffie said.Digital currencies can be programmed to be spent in a certain way — say for food and medical supplies, but not for cigarettes or alcohol. Of course, many Americans would understandably be uncomfortable with the idea of the government knowing how your digital money is spent. And there is reason to fear that CBDCs will become a convenient way for authoritarian governments to monitor individual citizen transactions. But that doesn't have to become the dominant model.The US could help set the standard by developing a digital currency that has privacy at its core. "If this is going to be the tech of the future, we want to make sure the US brings democratic values to bear," Chris Giancarlo, co-founder of the Digital Dollar Project, said in an interview with me.A digital dollar should also be a tool for certain use cases, such as delivering government aid in the case of a pandemic, not an end all be all. It should not eliminate cash, which is still the most private form of money. Nor should it intend to replace non-government digital currencies like Bitcoin, dollar-pegged stablecoins or other cryptocurrencies that allow for more private transactions.We may soon be living in a CBDC world. And if America stays on the sidelines, it could miss its chance to influence what that world looks like.