The PR Blog

Money Still Makes the World Go Around - And Boy, Has It Gotten Wilder

When you control the currency everyone must use, you don’t need tanks on every border -  the money does the conquering for you.. Back in 2021, I argued that money doesn’t just grease the gears of civilisation - it controls them. Not just any money, either. Real money. The kind measured in ounces, not printed in truckloads.

I warned that the global system’s crown jewel was the petrodollar: the rule that oil could only be traded in US dollars. That arrangement kept America king of the hill, let Washington run giant deficits without collapsing, and ensured that the rest of the world would toe the line.

Mess with that system, and you get a lesson. Saddam Hussein tried to sell his oil in euros. Muammar Gaddafi floated a gold-backed dinar. Both ended up out of the picture - permanently.

I wrote back then that if the world ever moved back toward real value - gold instead of IOUs - the whole fiat charade would be exposed.

Well, here we are. And the cracks are turning into chasms.

Venezuela: The Petrodollar Pushes Back

If you needed proof that Washington protects the dollar with more than speeches, look no further than Venezuela. What happened in there wasn’t really about drugs or corruption : it was about currency discipline.

This month - January 2026 - US forces swooped in, captured President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, flew them straight to New York on drug charges, and installed “temporary administration” to “restore order.”

Translation: turn the taps back on.

Venezuela isn’t some bit player. It sits on 300+ billion barrels of proven oil - more than Saudi Arabia. And under Chávez and Maduro, they committed the ultimate sin: they tried selling that oil outside the dollar system. Euros. Yuan. Crypto. Anything that broke the petrodollar spell.

Washington tolerated it for a while. But as the cracks widened, time ran out.

Now American companies are lining up to rebuild fields, repair equipment, and pump that black gold again - and let’s not kid ourselves - in US dollars.

Same pattern. New decade.

Canada: Tough Talk or Temporary Compliance?

Up north, Trump’s tariff hammer came down just as hard. Ottawa didn’t reinvent itself  -  it panicked.

Early 2025: 25% tariffs slapped on Canada and Mexico over migrants, drugs, and border chaos.

Mexico? A predictable target. Canada? That raised eyebrows  -  until Ottawa realised the US wasn’t bluffing.

Suddenly, Canada grew a temporary backbone.

• Immigration slashed

• Consumer carbon tax scrapped

• A new “fentanyl czar” appointed

• Border forces bulked up

• NATO spending turbocharged

All under a new Prime Minister -  Mark Carney, the former Bank of England and Goldman Sachs man.

And that’s the irony. Carney is the poster child for global finance. The revolving door in a suit. Yet here he is, sounding like a populist patriot.

But let’s be real: survival makes politicians do remarkable impressions.

Canada didn’t change its heart -  it protected its wallet. When the tariff threat passes, we’ll see whether those policies melt like spring snow in Ottowa. 

Gold: The Ticker Telling the Truth

If you want the scoreboard, look at gold.

2025 was the best year in decades - up nearly 60%. Central banks are buying so fast miners can’t keep up. Countries that once stacked US dollars now stack bullion.

Why?

• National debts exploding beyond imagination

• Inflation that never truly left

• Geopolitics shifting away from Washington’s orbit

• Ordinary people waking to the fact that paper promises expire

Gold’s rise isn’t just a price move ...it’s a vote of no confidence in the stewards of the system.

When the world quietly swaps IOUs for ounces, something fundamental is breaking.

Trump talked about auditing Fort Knox  - then the subject vanished faster than a politician’s election promise. Almost as if someone decided it was safer left alone.

Which begs the question: Did he discover something too explosive to touch?

Because if Fort Knox doesn’t hold what America says it does, the entire monetary order  - the dollar, the Fed, the bond market -  becomes a house built on sand.

The Bretton Woods Agreement, signed in 1944 as World War II was ending, created a new global financial system built around the U.S. dollar. Under the deal, major currencies were fixed to the dollar, and the dollar itself was backed by gold at $35 an ounce. That made the United States the anchor of world trade, while institutions like the IMF and World Bank were created to keep the system stable. The arrangement lasted until 1971, when President Nixon ended the dollar’s convertibility into gold, breaking the Bretton Woods link and launching the modern era of floating fiat currencies.

Confidence is the only thing backing modern money, and confidence evaporates the moment you lift the lid.

The Game Is Changing -  Fast

So here we are, five years after that first warning.

The petrodollar is still powerful, but now it has to fight for its throne. Nations once whispering alternatives are now acting on them. And the United States is proving that when pressure alone doesn’t work, power fills the gap.

Money still makes the world go around - but the merry-go-round is spinning faster, wobbling harder, and starting to throw riders.

IT WAS A WILD NIGHT!!!🇻🇪🥳🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/J87yNQFCqK

— il Donaldo Trumpo (@PapiTrumpo) January 6, 2026

We’re entering a world where:

• real assets beat paper,

• trust beats branding,

• and those holding value -  not promises - decide the future.

The next decade won’t be about creating new money out of thin air.

It’ll be about finding what’s real, securing it, and defending it.

Because when the music stops, you don’t want to be left holding a fistful of colourful confetti the government swears “still counts.”