Yes, yes, I know. The US is being overthrown as the sole superpower. The dollar is being dethroned. ACK! Run for the hills!

I believe I’ve mentioned this before but nation states are resilient little buggers. I may not have mentioned that the US invented resilience. Okay, so we didn’t invent it but we did corner the market. We’re that rare nation state that has a hard time destroying itself. Not for the lack of trying but as a nation, we just don’t know how to quit.

Predictions of our downfall are premature. We survived Obama. Amazingly, Biden seems to have enough sense to leave most of Trump’s policies in place – that or he keeps sleeping through the meetings. Not sure I even care which. Point being, America isn’t barreling toward her demise.

She may need some hangover medicine but she’s far from dead.

But, but, BRICS! New world order! American decadent decline! Cats and dogs marrying!

Oh, so it’s a Monday? Seriously, calm down. A civil war, two world wars, a massive depression, bell bottoms and Apple haven’t destroyed America; a bunch of liberal elitists are sure not gonna.

Oh, you meant the BRICS thing. The liberal elitists have a better shot.

Here, I’ll show you.

B is for Brazil. It’s only talking point is that it is in South America. Seriously, that’s it. Geography hates it. No major deposits of anything that half a dozen or more countries don’t have more of and some of the most useless land on the planet. Grows jungles really well, crops, not so much. Even if it could, all that land is behind a huge escarpment that makes inland travel a nightmare – guess how well exporting things works? They have an easier time exporting to Argentina, on the rare occasions that Argentina isn’t collapsing politically or economically. Brazil will not be an economic powerhouse anytime soon.

R is for Russia. Evidently Russia is having a ‘hold my beer’ moment with Brazil. Politically insane it decided to bite the hand that was feeding it. Things are not going well. They will get worse. Seriously, Russia’s only hope of beating Ukraine at this point is that Trump will be elected and will do something really stupid. Trump only does really stupid on Twitter. Russia is out of friends and money. The ruble is falling against both the yuan and the rupee. The word you’re looking for is doomed.

I is for India. India is very independent. That’s okay but it means India isn’t close allies with anyone. Least of all China. Ticking off America means having no back up when China invades or cuts off all their northernmost water supplies – yes, that’s a real thing. India might be independent but it’s not stupid. It’ll play buddy-buddy enough to keep everyone kinda happy but not enough to burn any bridges, especially not with America. Next…

C is for China. Do I have to keep a straight face for this? Okay, okay. China tried being the sneaky kid then it decided to try the cry bully thing. They’re on to full bully and none of it is working. On paper, if you don’t look t it too carefully, they are on the way to being a near peer of the US. In reality, they’re bankrupt and friendless. Oh, and they screwed over Russia by using the yuan instead of the ruble. The friendship with no limits is very interesting behind closed doors. Even if the CCP survives – doubtful – the rest of the world isn’t going to trust the yuan so no, it won’t replace the dollar.

S is for South Africa. They literally cannot keep the lights on. South Africa is a failed state. Corruption is what it does best. Its own people don’t trust it. Chief exports are diamonds and violence. BRICS keeps it around to make China, Russia and Brazil feel better about themselves.

So, ready to invest your life savings in the new BRICS super currency, should they ever create one? Yeah, neither is anyone else. The one nonnegotiable requirement for being the world reserve currency or even a reserve currency is that others trust that the currency will retain its value and that the government won’t manipulate it. We don’t have to worry about the manipulation as none of the members of BRICS would trust such a currency, let alone any other nation state.

The US may someday lose the reserve currency status, but it won’t be to these yahoos.