Spriro on American Hegemony

Rakesh Bhandari bhandari at phoenix.princeton.edu
Sun Nov 21 08:14:05 PST 1999


Doug, Was I right to pick up skepticism in your interview of Spiro? What do other people think of how he has made sense of how the petrodollars were recycled. He focused on who won and lost and which preexisting arrangements were violated along the way (for example he likened the way the US influenced the recycling to a teacher deciding to auction off grades). He also pointed to the dual advantage that the US derives from the pricing of oil in dollars: ability to procure oil by simply printing greenbacks and consumption of global exports simply because other countries need dollars. Finally he suggested that the deal the US cut with Saudi Arabia for the latter's massive purchase of T bills explains why the US sent 500,000 troops to defend a feudal desert monarchy. I fear that others here didn't find the analysis that compelling. So I'd love to hear peoples' skepticism (of course Doug's in particular).

Yours, Rakesh



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