As much as I'm inclined to believe there are profoundly serious issues with the global banking system, Karen Hudes is not someone I'd consider a credible source. I've looked into her claims previously on Google+ based on an earlier Russia Today interview with Sophie Schevardnadze. The DC Clothesline piece actually goes into somewhat less detail, so my earlier critique may be more relevant.

https://plus.google.com/104092656004159577193/posts/PP4vXjfF...

TL;DR: Hudes is a nut on a Gish Gallop, and Sophie Shevardnadze is charming to watch but you're best off muting the audio to prevent loss of intelligence.

Taking a look at claims of an imminently pending collapse of the dollar for another thread (https://plus.google.com/102282887764745350285/posts/eikoh6MZ... ... there are a few references in the wall of words following), I invested enough time in the project to at least post it as a caution for others.

Hudes is a former World Bank lawyer who has blown the whistle on transactions involving a Philippines bank. There's not much coverage of her outside of Russia Today, and I haven't evaluated her claims against the World Bank. What I make of her interview with RT leaves me with a much lower impression of Hudes, of RT, and of presenter Sophie Shevardnadze (granddaughter of Soviet/Russian/Georgian statesman Eduard Schevardnadze for Sovietologists of a certain age, and aren't we all?).

I love a good financial / economic conspiracy yarn as much as the next guy (hovering outside my window in a silenced dark helicopter as I write this), but ... really, this is crap.

To make it easier to follow, there's a printed transcript of the interview here:
http://rt.com/shows/sophieco/world-bank-us-shutdown-820/

And the original video:
'Dollar valueless, about to crash' - World Bank whistleblower
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4hgA9j-4dB0

My summary: Hudes weaves an interesting story and includes a number of factual and verifiable statements. Her key claims, however, are largely unsubstantiated, and she makes a number of claims which are simply (and easily verifiably) false, as well as numerous others which for want of a better term, fall outside the reams of either falsifiability or significance. Rather, what we've got is a Gish Gallop (http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Gish_gallop) of a whole slew of claims, with little specific direction.

Though it appears to me that Hudes' main point isn't so much that the US dollar will collapse as that the global financial system is going to move away from it, and specifically at the October 9, 2013 Bretton Woods meeting of the World Bank and IMF (though to what isn't clearly specified). That itself isn't a particularly novel claim, though it makes RT's headline both sensationalist and inaccurate. And the fact that events didn't transpire as Hudes' predicted doesn't do much for her predictive accuracy.

I've got to say that on watching this closely, I'm very underimpressed by Sophie Shevardnadze. Where she could and should have pressed Hudes to provide specifics, details, or substantiation, she failed. The result is a very interesting narrative ... but an utterly unsubstantiated one. And while Ms. Sophie is indeed a charming and graceful young woman, she's a horrible investigative interviewer.

But the bit on gold backwardization (article below) is somewhat interesting.

My tally of 31 identified claims:

6 True

5 False

1 Moot

10 Unsubstantiated

8 Indeterminable

1 What the fuck?

Not very persuasive. Especially when you consider she flubs a few major points that she seems to be hinging her arguments on (Constitutionality, legislative history of the Federal Reserve) which are trivially verifiable, and that several of my "trues" are for minor and largely irrelevant points.

There are only three significant true points: that the Federal Reserve is engaged in massive money creation (quantitative easing), that unemployment statistics are systematically underreported, and that a Swiss study showed a very high level of concentration of power (though it doesn't point to a deliberate conspiracy). The heart of Hudes' assertions are wholly unsubstantiated. Even if she's right, she's not making her case, and her errors works strongly against her.

For specific claims and further analysis, see my G+ post linked above (HN complained bitterly when I included it in this post).