Following the scout's credo

'Always be prepared'

I would like to think I am able to mould my future towards something I can live with. With that in mind, I also familiarise myself with what the doom-sayers'/futurologists' forecast for our bleak future. Whether it is mass-famine, oil shortages, currency implosions, solar flares or rising water levels, if you were to follow all of that, you would probably end your life right now than try and work through it.

One date a lot of nut-jobs are fixated by is 2012. Apparently the Mayan calendar ends on that year, so a lot of them believe that the world ends with it. My belief, however, is more along the lines of this:

One thing that seems more plausible is the collapse of the US dollar. Now, before you call me a psycho, let me explain why this has a degree of credibility.

For the past 50 years, or so, the US has been the default currency for oil. This was brokered in the early stages when the Middle East required financing by the US to be able to extract the vast resources sitting under their feet. In exchange for this loan, they paid back the initial investment and reinvested a portion of the earnings back in the US economy. Since that time, no country has been able to buy oil without using US Dollars and this has given the currency a good amount of stability.

This is about to change.

With China and Russia trading oil in Yuan and Rubles and a lot of money being converted into Gold and Silver bullion and the US printing (and diluting with) Trillions of dollars to cover their Trillions of debt, it is just a matter of time before the rest of the world decides that the US Dollar needs to go as the default currency.

One of the conspiracy nuts states that at the point where Oil hits $250 a barrel, marks the end of the USD as the default currency. I'm not so sure that's an accurate marker, but all I know is that it's probably not a good idea to have US Dollars in the very near future. I'm not sure which currency is the best - your guess is as good as mine.

I don't think it is long till the US Dollar will look more like a Zimbabwean Dollar...