Phenomenal World analysis of class politics in dollar hegemony features in Bloomberg Markets Odd Lots podcast

In one of the Phenomenal World’s most widely-circulated pieces to date, Yakov Feygin and Dominik Leusder analyze “The Class Politics of the Dollar System.” Their analysis caught the attention of Bloomberg financial journalist Tracy Alloway and Joe Weisenthal, executive editor at Bloomberg News, and co-host of the podcast “Odd Lots” on Bloomberg Markets. Feygin joined Alloway and Weisenthal for their May 28th episode to discuss “who really benefits from the dominance of the U.S. dollar.”

Feygin and Leusder’s analysis underscores the ways the dollar system structures international finance and shifts the US economy “toward the accumulation of rents rather than the growth of productivity.” The effects include dramatically increasing costs for basic needs, such as education, healthcare, and rental housing.

From the piece:

“The fact that the dollar system is primarily based on social, rather than geopolitical conflict means that the best solutions suggest at a reform of the system in a manner that empowers people at the bottom of the global social hierarchy…

“When US budget deficits fall either as the result of an increased trade surplus, or the cutting of the budget, financial risk increases as markets substitute safe US government debt for risky collateral, such as the infamous mortgage backed securities of the 2008 crisis. The most visible cost of the disease is the steady appreciation of the dollar since the 1980s, despite a falling US share of global gross domestic product. The main domestic symptom has been the rising costs of non-tradable goods—such as medicine, real estate rents, and education—over tradable goods.”

Listen to the podcast here. Thank you to Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway, and to Yakov and Dominik for their insightful writing on the Phenomenal World.