The significance of the shift taking place on a geo-political basis to unseat the U.S. dollar as the world’s reserve currency cannot be understated. It is, by all means, a complete upending of the financial and economic systems as we have come to know them. According to Keith Neumeyer, the Chairman of First Mining Finance and Chief Executive Officer of First Majestic Silver, the world’s purest silver producing mining company, the move is already taking place with countries like China, Russia, Venezuela and Iran already beginning to trade commodities with Yuan, Rubles and gold.
Amid a recent announcement about developments in the gold and silver mining industry discussed in the following interview with SGT Report, Neumeyer, who previously called out, in very public fashion, the manipulation of precious metals by a small concentration of market players, says that the global currency wars currently playing out on the monetary battlefield will lead to significant price increases in the world’s most trusted hard assets of last resort.
We’re seeing Chinese and Russians trading in gold for oil… there’s a real move on a worldwide basis… There is a break coming…
It has to… It’s just time… The United States is a very powerful country… it has a very powerful military and they want to keep the system that’s in place because a lot of people have made a lot of money in the current system…
I think as the world develops and gets off oil, I think that’s going to help facilitate a break from the Petrodollar system… and everything that’s going on in the world is very supportive of much, much higher gold prices… I do contend that silver is going to far exceed the move in gold.
The manipulation of commodities markets by secretive, yet very powerful forces will soon come to an end, and when it does, Neumeyer notes that the price of key assets like oil, gold and silver will be more efficiently priced to reflect their true fair market value:
It’s not going to happen overnight… but over several years I think we’re going to see better pricing mechanisms come in to the commodity sector and the miners get a better price for what they actually produce…
As for gold and silver, it’s a well known fact that these core monetary assets become the only trusted mechanisms of exchange in the midst of currency crises, and this time will be no different.
You’ve had government officials go visit Fort Knox… You’ve had talk of gold in the media… that it has been the best performing asset over the last twenty years… and even though we’re not seeing it show up in price… not that there’s anything wrong with $1300 gold… I still believe gold is substantially undervalued and it should be in the $3000, $4000 or $5000 range if not even higher than that… and those times will come.
Indeed those times will come and may be much closer than most people realize.
In 1988 The Economist magazine warned, with very vivid imagery, that thirty years on a new global currency would rise from the ashes of the U.S. dollar.
With 2018 quickly approaching and super powers in the East and West positioning themselves to ensure they have a seat at the table, we may soon witness an unprecedented shock to the entire global financial, economic and monetary systems.
Because the fact is, that for a new global currency to rise from the ashes of the U.S. dollar, there will need to be an event, or a set of events, that first has to burn it to the ground.
And, while the dollar burns to the ground and confidence in the system as a whole is shaken to its core, capital will rapidly shift to assets like gold and silver to preserve purchasing power and value.
The full interview with Keith Neumeyer is available at SGT Report
If it happens and I’m not convinced that its a forgone conclusion, the economic impact would not only devastate the US domestically but also deprive the “Defense” budget. In doing so TPTB will lose the massive capacity of their chief enforcer. For this reason I’m suspicious of the predictions as TPTB have almost omnipotent power.
No. There is no “break” coming. EVENTUALLY there will be two systems; Gog & Magog. But right now and for the foreseeable future, the dollar will be King; because in a world of dwarfs, even a midget can be king.
The coming market crash will be a massive deflationary event and what you are seeing now with elevated stock prices making new highs after new highs,and lots of cash on the sidelines, happens prior to the CRASH, every time as investors in third world currencies and investments seek safety in dollar denominated securities.
I have mentioned this phenomena many times here.
By the way, China has been purchasing dollar denominated securities for six months while the dollar is lower. So much for the theory that China is dumping dollars. They will sell again as they did before when the dollar strengthens: rinse and repeat. Think of it as a Band of Investment trade by China in the tens of billions of dollars. China profits by buying and selling US Treasuries because they have direct access to the US Treasury to buy, thus no fees.
If the USA is “GOG” and you live in the USA, then you will use the dollar, like always. All currency will be digital with the advent of quantum computers (GC); and any purchases you make in a foreign country while traveling will be automatically subtracted from your account and converted into the currency of the country in which you make your purchase.
BTW, I called gold at $3500 when the SHTF two or three years ago. Yes, of course, its in the archives. 🙂
DK also said the Chinese Yuan is not backed by Gold. Yes that too is in the archives along with the thousands of other DK failed predictions and misinformation. Too much to list but it’s all in the archives going back years and years. So DK called Gold $3500 several years ago. And tell us great one when did it hit $3500 since then? NOT!! so STFU.
North Korea minister says with US declaration of war it can shoot down US bombers in international airspace
North Korea’s foreign minister, “Ri Yong Ho said that North Korea has every right to take countermeasures against US aggression, and that all options are on the table.”
ht tp://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/north-korea-minister-us-declaration-war-shoot-us-50077010
Direct link…
http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/north-korea-minister-us-declaration-war-shoot-us-50077010
He shoots at us in international airspace and NK ends with an entirely new and different government within days.
“DK also said the Chinese Yuan is not backed by Gold.”
The Yuan is NOT backed by gold anymore than the US Dollar is or any other major pair currency. You can buy gold with it on the Chinese Gold Exchange, just like you can in London and New York, or anywhere else for that matter, where gold is sold.
But don’t try that outside of China. The Yuan is not fungible. 🙂
DK.. does that deflationary event include lower costs for housing, food, new and older cars and everything else needed to survive?
Yes. With the CRASH, trillions of dollars will be destroyed overnight and eliminated from the global marketplace as stocks crater. Velocity of currency will slow as those with money will be less likely to spend it, slowing the economy further, magnifying the downward spiral. This is the process every time.
Housing prices will crater. That is happening already in the USA and in Canada. And relocation will increase again as Americans move to growing regions with more opportunity. China will not be far behind as its inflated housing market is littered with leveraged investors.
Demographics for housing is over as the Boomers move through and out of the housing market. RV ownership is at an all-time high for both new and used vehicles as these empty nesters hit the road. I got mine.
Cars and trucks have been massively over produced, inventories for both new and used cars and trucks are building and prices are already falling for those with the ability to pay and have even meager negotiation skills.
As a Ford truck owner, Ford tries to induce me to buy a new truck every month, and the incentives keep getting better. I mentioned this process last year when I described this inventory process at the end of the business cycle.
Food costs are not likely to drop even though the USA over produces food that must be given away to soup kitchens and shelters or thrown away; but I don’t believe that food costs will increase dramatically until our just in time delivery system (Tobin & Baumal) is severed by natural disaster. Until then food prices will be relatively stable.
Keep prepping. 🙂
The Bible is clear. There will be an attempt to have one world government. In-turn, one world currency. This talk about the EU is disbanding is fake news. The EU zone will rise in power and influence. Just read the last chapter in the Bible. The “old roman empire” equals the EU zone.
I have mentioned many times here over the years that the problems in the EU are just a prelude to the Changes that allows the Ant-Christ to come to power.
The Bible says that the EU will get stronger rather than weaker; but it may take more time than people expect. 🙁
No, TPTB can shift their “capital” anywhere they choose, and boost the defense budget of any nation or group of nations they choose. They’ve done it before and they’ll do it to the US. The concept of America has to be officially sacrificed on the alter of globalism for the banksters to build their one world system. The idea that the US is somehow indispensable to the cabal is delusional.
The control the cabal has over the US (think they trust China?), the incredible R&D facilities and military manufacturing make the US indispensable to TPTB.
The control the cabal has over the US (think they trust China?), the incredible R&D facilities and military manufacturing make the US indispensable to TPTB.
First of all pure silver miners are far and in between as they have the highest cost structure. Second of all after the lawsuits were filed against banks Neumeyer said he couldn’t understand why the large mines were not joining in. It is because they were all making money when prices were pushed down with their hedges on the Comex and LBMA and making money when the banks also moved up prices. Take the Comex. When prices rise they let their hedges expire worthless and sell physical in other markets. If price falls thru the strike price they can exercise their hedges for cash, still sell in other markets and still make money. It is hard to sue someone if you are making money when prices go up and down. For traders and large miners hedges are simply the cost of doing business.
There is no one suppressing prices and this shows a total lack of understanding what causes price movement in markets. For the last couple of years people on the net have been forecasting a dollar and Dow collapse and it hasn’t and won’t. For over a year international capital flows especially from Europe have been moving into these assets as the euro, the EU, most of its banks and countries are insolvent Looking at the Target 2 settlement mechanism in Europe capital is fleeing southern Europe to Germany and then to the US. The Bundesbank is owned close to 1 trillion euros mostly from central banks in the south. Investors have finally realized this will never be paid back. Folks this is capital flight Capital is simply being parked in markets where there are huge pools of liquidity and that has been and will be the dollar and the Dow.
Now the largest consulting firm on the planet, Armstrong Economics, has computer models which track both domestic and international capital flows. They are forecasting that both the Monetary and Sovereign Debt crisis hits the EU as we move into the rest of the year and the shit hits the fan in 2018. The EU and the euro will not survive in its present form. The German banks have publicly complained that the ECB has destroyed the traditional banking models there and now it is rumored that Commerzbank will be merged into BNP Paribus, a french bank. The consulting firm has been in discussions with many governments including those in the EU and all are bracing for the collapse. All their clients are still moving capital out of Europe and into the dollar and the Dow. Even banks in the EU have opened branches in the US also converting euros to dollars and parking at the FED as the ECB charges banks to park capital. The only thing holding up the EU is the ECB creating 60 billions euros a month out of thing air and buying the toxic assets. This cannot continue and one reason why the euro is toast. As the capital flight accelerates into dollars and the Dow this will create across the board commodity weakness including gold and silver. This has caused enormous problems for the FED and they recently went into panic mode desperately trying to create dollar weakness. They are powerless to stop what is coming.
The dollar is not going anywhere and one reason is that central banks do not like to hold large amounts of foreign currency reserves as they pay no interest. They need a product that is extremely liquid and pays interest and that is treasuries. This is the second most liquid market on the planet behind currencies. China’s bond market is still too small and not liquid enough and will take at least 10 more years to compete with treasuries and this is when the dollar and treasuries start their problems. China in June and July bought billions in treasuries and countries do not buy another country’s debt if they have no confidence in the currency.
Back in 2011 the models forecast that the Dow would hit 22,000 first, (done) and then to 23,000 and onto 38,000 to 42,000 all due to capital flows. Where else are you going to park capital? Italy? Spain? Greece? Portugal? A bank in Germany? The whole banking system in the EU is rapidly shrinking and on the verge of collapse. The worst for the Dow according to the models is a normal correction at a maximum 8% before moving higher.
The net has become full of people predicting total nonsense. These people simply do not understand what causes price movement in markets. All are connected and it is all about capital flows.
JJ : Hope everything works out for you. Long posts always insisting there is no price suppression of PM’s. On PM and prepper web sites. Thanks for caring and sharing. Buy the Dow and ‘park’ ‘capital’ in the dollar? lol
a measure or wheat for a days wages or three measures of barley for a days wages and hurt not the oil and the wine says the last book of the bible. THATS PRICE CONTROLS. THATS TO STABLIZE THE WORLDS ECONOMY. ITS COMING! GOD CANNOT LIE.
More phony Mining Stock propaganda? Get the real deal, physical Gold and Silver you hold in your hand. ETF’ers and Mining Stock holders will all be holding their dicks, since they are nothing more than Paper Promissory IOU’s.
This has been in the works for nearly a century. I guess we’re the lucky ones who actually get to live through it. Or, rather, survive through it.
IT’S COMING.
It’s been coming for decades.
Just like the Energizer Bunny with the batteries in backwards, it keeps coming, and coming, and coming,…
Yea. They visited Fort Knox while people’s attention was on the eclipse. Yep. Must have been a magical experience seeing all that gold under decades of cobwebs and dust.
They have a crew to keep it dusted and polished as needed.
I’m into silver, gold, copper, zinc, iron, steel, lead (of course), and aluminum.
Even regular coins are better than paper money. When there’s a devaluation and new paper money is printed, they never replace the coins. So any coins you have magically keep their buying power.
So I’m all for metals.
Even aluminum cans are good, because you can melt them down easily and make things for yourself or for barter.
As far as world currencies go, by all rights
the Euro should have beaten the dollar years ago.
The Euro is failing mainly because of sovereignty
issues. Any kind of BRICS money will eventually
have the same issues.
Nobody trusts the Russians so it won’t be the Ruble.
Chinese banks are heavily manipulated and so no one
trusts the Yuan.
There is simply not enough gold to cover the worlds
money needs, unless you hyper inflate its value, or dramatically depress the values of existing money. Besides
gold is another Manipulated market.
Bitcoin? Not everybody runs their life with Internet
and a computer.
Unless you can do a Star Trek where everything is provided
and for whatever reason people are motivated to work hard
and selflessly contribute to good of all, for free, I really don’t see the dollar going away anytime soon.
But that is just a somewhat informed opinion.
Very astute. 🙂
It’s like the end is closing in from all directions, a feeling of dread and impending doom. No news is good news. The push escalating for war on Iran, a US military base now in Israel. Strange that the silver price is so low, it must be far more plentiful than gold. Is that subject to civil forfeiture?
Everything you own is subject to civil forfeiture — even the clothes on your back. Literally.
All the DA’s office has to do is to convince a single judge that your assets might possibly be the result of some sort of criminal activity. (And every DA’s office knows who the ‘friendly’ judges are.) Everything you own can be seized immediately. Presto! Instantly, you’re broke and homeless.
YOU now bear the burden of PROVING that the allegations are not true. Ever try to prove a negative? It’s about as easy as trying to hire an attorney to go to bat for you after the government has seized your life savings.
Civil Forfeiture has become a huge cash cow for the authorities due to gross misuse; but who’s going to stop it? Certainly not the government, which profits handsomely from every “official” theft.
I believe that you actually meant to ask whether silver can be “appropriated” (nice word for stealing, huh?) as per the confiscation of gold by FDR via Executive Order 6102.
The short answer is: EVERYTHING can be.
The government already has rules in place — and they have been in place for decades — that allow confiscation of virtually every privately owned asset in the country: commercial buildings, private dwellings, motor vehicles, livestock, crops, all food items in shops AND in private homes, bank accounts, cash, securities, bonds, timber, mines, water sources, fuel… EVERYTHING.
The federal government has granted itself the authority to take any or all of these assets under two distinct sets of circumstances. Are you ready for this?
1. Emergencies
2. Non-emergencies
If all this sounds too awful to be true, do your own research. In fact, I would like to suggest to Mac that a detailed, updated article upon this very topic would make for interesting reading here.
UNLESS JEFF SESSIONS GAINS POWER IN CONGRESS…………..SILVER AND EVERYTHING YOU OWN IS STILL SUBJECT TO CIVIL LAW FORFITURE THEFT. I KNOW I LOST AND ENTIRE LOAD OF OLD HARLEY MOTORCYCE PARTS TO A CITY WHO CLAIMED MY 67 YEAR OLD SHOP WAS NOW ILLEGAL. I AM STILL IN BUSINESS BUT IT SET BE BACK TEN YEARS AND AT AGE 80 I AM STILL WORKING AFTER BUY ING THIS INDUSTRIAL PROPERTY IN 1985. THIS PROVES NOTHING IS BEYOND THE REACH OF THE CIVIL LAW THEIVES. CHECK ON THE WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE BY GEORGE WILL ON DECEIMBER 27TH OF LAST YEAR ABOUT TAKING PEOPLES HOUSES AND NOT GIVING THEM BACK UNLESS THEY WAIVED THEIR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS. WHAT DOES THIS TELL YOU? ? scooterdog37
remember O J SIMPSON BEAT THE CRIMINAL CHARGES WITH 20 MILLION IN CASH TO JOHNNY OF NYC. BUT GOT CAUGHT IN THE CIVIL ASSETS FORFITUTURE AND NOW DOING 33 YEARS IN PRISON AFTER BEING FOUND GUILTY……..THIS SHOWS HE SHOULD HAVE BEEN FORCED TO TAKE HIS OWN WITNESS STAND IN CRIMINAL COURT……..BUT THE CIVIL LAWS WERE MADE STRONGER BECAUSE OF THIS AND WE ARE ALL NOW PAYING THE PRICE FOR IT. THESE CITY CROOKS NOW CALL IT ABATEMENT AND NOT THEFT.
THATS LIKE PUTTING EARRINGS AND LIPSTICK ON A PIG AND CALLING IT A WHORE. THEFT IS THEFT BECAUSE I WORKED FOR IT NOT THEM…PUTTING ANOTHER NAME ON THEFT IS ILLEGAL. I TOLD THE COPS THAT WERE HERE………IF SOMEONE RAPED YOUR DAUGHTER, WOULD THEY GET OFF BY CALLING IT FREEDOM OF SEXUAL EXPRESSION? SCOOTERDOG37
Cash out of bit coin immediately if you are in it and buy silver, assuming your other preps are in order and if not, review what is missing and purchase according to your means and priorities.
Keep the Ten Commandments: fidelity to God invokes His Divine Protection, individually and collectively.
Pray for the President and for his protection.
Buy L.E.D. flashlights of various sizes, especially one for every day carry, and stock up on batteries. Protect most in a galvanized steel trash can with lid cushioned by bubble warp and then cardboard.
Expect more man-made geostorms, note the predictive programming of the movie bearing that name. Keep in mind that prayer can mitigate all evils. Educate yourself more at geoengineeringwatch.org.
Lastly, take your money out of the bank, keep only a minimum in, and get out of the stock market.
This post, then, is my response to the demise of the dollar. When faced with what it is outside our ability, within reason, to change or impact, we can still choose HOW to deal with it in actuality and potentially.
We are never without choices.
The mission is preserving and protecting life; the task is to utilize wise and ethical choices in doing so. The spiritual means is prayer, reflection, consultation, dialogue.
Yes, watch your six, but of course not to the exclusion of all the above.
God bless you all.
– the Lone Ranger
LR- Thank you for your time in posting this. I don’t put
much up here on SHTFPlan, but I do read. You are one of the few
ky ears ‘perk’ and listen.
As a female, married to a normalcy bias man, I am always scanning.
It’s hard to keep your head down and eats perked. Easy to lose track of your
focus. I appreciate your posts, and many others, to keep my head in the game when those around me are focused on…football scores.
Take care.
Anon 1070, thank you for your kind words. They mean a lot to me.
If each of us keeps our spiritual center, uses each day wisely, trusts God in prayer, and gets our proper rest as best we can, then I think we we will be OK, though there certainly will be different types of challenges because that’s life.
Remember, nobody can take away from any person here his or her accumulated wisdom and knowledge, nor faith for that matter.
Just as Einstein said imagination is more important than knowledge, so, too, wisdom and prayer are the best ways to “launch” or utilize knowledge.
Sometimes when I can’t take one day at a time, I take one hour or moment at a time.
Thank you again for your kind words.
– the Lone Ranger
BALLGAMES ARE A WAY OF DISTRACTING THE MASSES SO THE LEADERS CAN DO THEIR DIRTYWORK IGNORED. REMEMBER CEASAR SAID……GIVE THEM BREAD AND A CIRCUS. AMEN SCOOTERDOG37
Bitcoin and all these other crypto currencies are 100% FRAUD. What part of that do you not understand?
Ha! I don’t disagree, but this 100% fraud allowed me to increase my own investment in cryptos by 700% and buy physical gold/silver with the profits.
Every other currency that is a candidate to succeed the dollar is in just as much trouble!
Enough countries could simply stop trading oil in dollar similar to when the British Pound stopped being the world reserve currency. We could become like England.
The English Pound is pretty strong.
Just a possibility for consideration. Would the US government resort to the +8000 tons of gold she has to extend the lifespan of the greenback as the world’s reserve currency? A return to gold standard may not be such an impossible thing.
Digital dollars created out of thin air and not even printed on paper by the mint. just numbers on spread sheets. They could evaporate into the very same thin air they are created out of? Something else to think about. The Government officials have to always appear to be upholding the rule of law. Especially when they are the ones breaking the most laws.
Digital money completely controlled by a Gov = Citizens that are completely controlled by a dictator.
Digital money completely outside the control of a Gov (Bitcoin and similar) = Much more Free citizenship.
The more control a Gov has, the more evil they will become. The US Founding Fathers knew this… and why they based the entire gov on limiting it’s powers (which has been completely ignored in recent years.)
Like the trillions of dollars that disappeared the day before the towers were taken down?
New Article:
https://antoniusaquinas.com/2017/09/25/a-constitutional-anniversary-to-forget/
AA
If only we could have stopped using credit to make war. The one constraint that sound money has that truly strikes fear in the western elite presently in control is having to afford and actually pay for a war in their lifetime thus making war the exception that it must be. As it was intended to be by our Founders, the exception. Not the reason to exist as our Flounders have made it. The key to longevity of Empire lies with compassion not greed. All the good traits of mankind are the real losers here. When they disappear we simply exist and suffer jungle law. There is no honesty, integrity or compassion in the jungle. 150,000 years of evolution only to come full circle. A Constitutional Republic using sound money would have elevated us above that. We have made our choice and now we prepare to simply exist knowing in our hearts that it is soon to be survival of the fittest. This is the driving force of why we prepare. The days of devolution are upon us. We now stumble down the garden path when we could be high stepping down the Constitutional path is what really pisses me off. But now Grandma is really pissed off and if there is one thing I have learned in 50 years of marriage. You don’t piss Grandma off.
I agree with Grandpa. Right or wrong Good or Bad My fault your fault nobodys fault. It eventually will become A root hawg or die survival of the fittest. I think it will become a stone age existence.
“Root hawg”…lol…love it.
Yes, we will be getting down and dirty when TSHTF.
Trouble every where. A few posts ago I reported that the Khoisan people of South Africa have declared independence along with the Afrikaners, other Europeans and mixed race people. Now the Kurds are voting for their own country. The Iraqi government is already moving against the Kurds. The Turks and Iranians are holding joint military training to go after the Kurds. Looks like genocide is going to kick into high gear pretty soon.
Do the math. 8,000 tons of gold worth about $250 billion at today’s prices. That covers the US trade deficit for 6 months. Probably much less if the real deficit was known. If the world’s nations subscribe to a commodities backed currency, the US has relatively nill compared to our spending. No more free stuff.
The U.S. is the world’s largest holder of gold.
That puts us in better shape than anyone else of gold becomes the standard again.
How do you know? Because they told you? Ft. Knox has not been audited since 1953.
Supposedly China has been buying all the gold they can and it is illegal to export Chinese gold. I have heard China has somewhere near 20,000 tons of gold.
Until an audit by an objective third party (like Switzerland) is done no one really knows.
That magazine cover is chilling. It’s like they knew way back in 1988 that 2018 would be
the breakout year for something huge. Here we are on the cusp and everything is rapidly
changing. Cryptos. SDR. Exploding sovereign debt. Gold backed Yuan for oil. Deep State
trying to start wars everywhere. It’s fucking here. They knew this shit 30 years ago!!!!!!!!!
Inflation created by gov’t has made the dollar little more than trash compared to its once exalted history (once it could literally be exchanged for gold) but it is still considered king dollar of the world with only a few exceptions. The only entity that benefits from inflation is gov’t.; with this mechanism they can gain more tax revenue and make it easier to manipulate the currency for all types of its own purposes and reasons. The debt and deficit are NOT EVER going to be resolved due merely for the fact every single dollar must be loaned into existence. More debt is created before the dollar is even spent. To pay off the debt would literally consume every dollar that exists in the world, there simply isn’t enough dollars to accomplish that. To create enough money to resolve all the debt would be absolutely and utterly ruinous. Therefore, debt will continue to grow geometrically until the ability of conventional economic, financial, and gov’t powers can no longer sustain and manage it. Then you will see non-conventional measures in effect. Presently, one cannot foretell exactly what these measures would be, but it will be draconian to say the least.
The fact that gov’t has allowed this to exist as a policy for decades while realizing it’s ultimate result only proves it has always placed its own goals and purposes above that of the American people. The people must be used as nothing more than managed resources, eventually seeing a reduction in a standard of living and quality of life. Then civil rights will have to be curtailed, then eventually some kind of martial law to force us to help sustain the debt paradigm until something gives, then all hell will break loose in ways that is presently unimaginable.
Our gov’t has compounded this crime by allowing the Fed. Res. to create and manage the printing of currency, the money supply, controlling interests rates, and national financial policy; abandoning their constitutionally prescribed duty into the hands of a private non audited entity.
I don’t understand all this US$ bashing…. Yes US fiscal situation is not that rosy and the FED is printing money (even if it is sterilized). but fiscal situation is a lot worst in Japan and in Europe, and in % of GDP, Japan and Europe are printing a lot more. And I don’t even talk about the migrant crisis in Europe… And it’s not tomorrow that the YUAN will become reserve currency. So why this negativity on the USD ? Hate of USA as a country ???