While Obama golfs, Putin was in Brazil sticking it to America and the West

BRICS is the acronym for an association of five major emerging national
economies: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

Out to Replace the U.S. Dollar

• While Comrade Obama was golfing, last week Vladimir Putin was in Brazil with the leaders of other major economies around the world looking to overthrow the U.S. dollar.

By creating their own multilateral financial institutions, the BRICS emerging-market powers are shaking up global economic governance but remain far from dismantling the post-war system dominated by the West.

For the past 70 years, the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank have been the pillars of the world's economic system.

"Shhhh . . . No one is supposed to know
about BRICS.  All is well.  Don't worry."

China, the world's second-largest economy, continues to have just slightly more voting power in the IMF than Italy, about five times smaller.

And, since their creation in 1944, the IMF and the World Bank have only been led by Americans and Europeans.

In this context, the launch Tuesday of a development bank and an emergency reserve fund by the BRICS -- Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa -- appears to be a concrete attempt to address those inequities.

"If the existing institutions were doing their jobs perfectly, there would be no need to go to the trouble of creating a new bank, a new fund," said Paulo Nogueira Batista, who represents Brazil and 10 other countries at the IMF, in an interview.

The mere creation of the two BRICS institutions sends a strong signal to Western powers, where some doubt the ability of the five powerhouses to surmount their individual needs and ambitions.

The launches "are significant actions that represent a game changer as they turn statements and rhetoric about cooperation among these countries into reality," Prasad said.

Read More at AFP News

Delivering milk through the rubble of bombed-out London, World War II.
.
U.S. Wealth - An Accident of History
The United States went from the almost total economic collapse of the Great Depression to the richest society in the history of the world in a couple years.  Why? 
.
Simply all of the world's economic superpowers were leveled to the ground by World War II.  The U.S. was the last man standing with its domestic cities and economy untouched by war.  But for decades now the rest of the world is making up for lost economic time. 

Bye-Bye Dollar
BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) and other countries are looking for ways to cut the U.S. dollar out of its dominant position in world economics.  If they succeed the damage to the American economy and jobs could be staggering.
.
in their summit, from July 14 to 16, the five BRICS announced two major initiatives aimed squarely at increasing their power in global finance. They announced the launch of the New Development Bank, headquartered in Shanghai, that will offer financing for development projects in the emerging world. The bank will act as an alternative to the Washington, D.C.—based World Bank. The BRICS also formed what they’re calling a Contingent Reserve Arrangement, a series of currency agreements which can be utilized to help them smooth over financial imbalances with the rest of the world. That’s something the IMF does now.
.
See more Time Magazine