USD Shortages and Global Solutions with Bancor/ICU and (SACT)AI
A USD shortage is not a lack of physical dollars. It is a shortage of dollar-denominated balance sheet capacity in the global financial system. Global trade is primarily invoiced in USD, debt is denominated in USD, and the most efficient collateral is USD Treasuries. The numbers reveal something profound. The world does not lack liquidity, it lacks a mechanism to allocate it globally. There is enough collateral, production, and demand. But not enough coordinated balance sheet capacity.
An Inconvenient Document: The Atlantic Charter and the Origins of the UN
The Atlantic Charter was inconvenient because it set a standard the Great Powers found difficult to meet, yet it also gave the colonized world the tools to dismantle the global empires. Here is the argument for why this document was a diplomatic landmine for the very people who signed it.
The Global “Balance Sheet” in Spreadsheet Capitalism
Spreadsheet capitalism builds a global balance sheet by transforming the world into a synchronized, computable set of claims. Through substitution, abstraction, symbolic computing, and telecommunications grids, it creates a system in which liquidity governs outcomes and balance sheets define possibility.
Reviewing the New Deal’s Global Political Economy Framework and Its Current Challenges
This blog post argues for reclaiming January 6th as the anniversary of FDR’s “Four Freedoms” speech (1941) rather than the date of the Capitol attack. The post traces the arc from FDR’s “Global New Deal” to the modern digital financial order.
The SACT Attack: How Spreadsheet Capitalism Conquered the World
Once Substitution is complete, the other layers of SACT can take over. You cannot apply Abstraction (comparing unlike things), Symbolic Computing (formulas), or Telecommunications (speed) to a physical house. But you can apply all of them to the token of the house sitting in a spreadsheet cell.
Will BRICS Effectively Tokenize Rare Earth Elements to Back a New Currency?
Rose Mason in Medium makes a compelling plea for the tokenization of Rare Earth Elements (REEs) currently in high demand around the world. From another angle, Cyrus Janssen presents an intriguing but ultimately flawed argument that the BRICS+ countries will use REEs to back a new currency to challenge the US dollar.[1] This post examines […]
Tokenization of Gold in Blockchained Spreadsheet Capitalism
In spreadsheet capitalism, tokenized gold becomes a substituted signifier for the financialized metal. Vaulted bullion becomes a tradable token represented in a spreadsheet cell. Gold becomes a computable variable (risk metrics, yield structures, algorithmic trading inputs) and a synchronized signal in the global financial grid. Real-time ledger entries are harmonized with financial terminals and portfolio dashboards.
Situating Gold in the Substitution-Computational-Telecom Stack of Global Finance
This post explains that in the modern financial system, gold no longer functions as a currency but as a powerful symbolic asset within the dollar-anchored framework of “spreadsheet capitalism.” Its physical form is replaced by the digital symbol XAUUSD, which represents abstract concepts like “safe-haven,” “inflation hedge,” and “geopolitical insurance.” This symbol is integrated into the global economy through a Semiotic-Computational-Telecom (SCT) stack.
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About Me
Professor (full) at State University of New York (SUNY) Korea since 2016. Research Professor for Stony Brook University. Moved to Austin, Texas in August 2012 to join the Digital Media Management program at St. Edwards University. Spent the previous decade on the faculty at New York University teaching and researching information systems, digital economics, and global political economy
You can reach me at:
anthony.pennings@gmail.com
apennings70@gmail.com
anthony.pennings@sunykorea.ac.kr
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