The response to the 2008 financial crisis has laid the groundwork for another market collapse. Dollar-reliant Mideast petrodollar states should begin reforms aimed at preserving their purchasing power in anticipation of a new, more multi-polar monetary system. Failure to do so may lead to wide scale social unrest and pose an existential threat to their regimes.
As political vacuums and formidable new threats tear nations apart from Libya to Iraq, MENA’s oil-dependent governments stand at another critical crossroad that will determine their ability to remain intact over the coming decades. At issue is the preservation of public and private purchasing power, currently based on a strained global petrodollar system. The reserve currency status of the US$ faces six years of highly experimental monetary policy by the Fed and other central banks and a stronger-than-ever willingness by key trading partners to shift commodity pricing and settlements away from the dollar. With no exit strategy to unwind bloated central bank balance sheets, jobless, debt-fuelled equity and bond market recoveries appear to have set the stage for another systemic financial crisis. (CONTINUED - 2344 WORDS)
