Ex-Wall Street banker predicts dollar’s demise

The US dollar, which is enjoying its peak years at the moment, could lose its status as the world's main reserve currency, former Lehman Brothers executive Lawrence McDonald has told Sputnik news agency.

In an interview published on Thursday, he said, “It’s definitely going to happen. It’s not a near term problem, maybe 20 to 30 years because the US has so much wealth, we’ve got a lot of military power, but there’s no question. The peak dollar best years are right about here.”

According to McDonald, who served as the vice president of distress debt and convertible securities trading at Lehman Brothers, the weaponization of the SWIFT financial system may harm the greenback’s dominance by pushing banks to other substitutes.

“The sanctions-SWIFT game should be used by the West once every 10 years, but they’ve been using this against multiple countries,” he said. “Sanctions against Russia in a war, okay, that’s fine. From a US perspective the problem is you’ve hit 10 different countries over the head with the sanctions card, so you’re forcing these countries to form a bloc against you. That’s what’s happening.”

McDonald believes that two years from now, the dollar will probably be much lower because countries and banks will be searching for ways around SWIFT.

Last week, China’s Charge d’Affaires to Russia said that switching to payments in national currencies is speeding up the process of global de-dollarization.

Moscow has repeatedly warned that Washington’s sanctions policy is undermining confidence in the dollar. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the US has “discredited” its currency by weaponizing it. According to him, the long reign of the dollar as the world reserve currency is under threat. Putin predicted that settlements in national currencies will gain momentum and gradually become dominant across the globe.

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