Thread: Iraq/Dinar News until 5/23/07 Midnight CST

Originally Posted by chadm

im going to email the ritz carlton in bahrain to see if this is true, will let eveyone know when i get a response.

Thanks allot Chadm for doing that. I sure hope it's good news that you receive.

US ambassador urges speedier reforms from Iraqi govt
23/05/2007 - 12:38:39

America’s top diplomat in Iraq has urged Prime Minister Nouri Maliki’s government to speed up reforms geared toward achieving national reconciliation, saying it was its duty to do so soon.

Ambassador Ryan Crocker listed the adoption of a draft law for the equitable distribution of oil wealth, another to integrate members of Saddam Hussein’s Baath party in government departments, amending the constitution to satisfy Sunni Arab demands and holding local elections as measures that the government had a “responsibility to tackle in the coming weeks.”

“These are tasks that must be completed, and completed soon, to achieve national reconciliation,” he said in an Arabic-language statement marking the first anniversary of Mr Maliki’s Shiite-dominated government.

“The first anniversary of a democratic government in Iraq is a victory for the people of Iraq. They’ve chosen their leaders and now it is the right of every citizen in a democratic society to expect measures and decisions from their elected representatives to serve the interests of Iraqis.”

Mr Crocker’s statement provided the latest evidence that Washington had Mr Maliki’s government on notice that it must meet several policy benchmarks to secure continued US support at a time when the Bush administration was under congressional pressure over its Iraq policies.

“The transition of any nation to a democratic system is considered a complex process ... It is easy to focus on the problems and challenges. Easy, but wrong,” said Mr Crocker, who took over his job in late March.

denied any disagreements with the Kurdistan on Article 140

Skinner : Iraq is not an arena for the exchange of messages between Iran and the United States

Baghdad morning

The Iraqi government denied the existence of differences between them and the government of Kurdistan on Article 140 of the Constitution and expressed its territory to be an arena for settling accounts and pass messages between the United States and Iran.

He denied the Iraqi government spokesman Dr. Skinner in a joint press conference with the spokesman of the multinational forces, General William Caldwell attended (Sabah) yesterday denied any differences between the Iraqi government and the government of Kurdistan on Article 140 of the Constitution and said : The delegation headed by the Prime Minister of the Kurdistan Nigervan Barzani held discussions with Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki included a set of files foremost, the Peshmargas, The distribution of wealth and resources and the constitutional amendments. The meeting on the Iranian American Skinner expressed the hope that the two sides would reach an understanding during the meeting, which will be in Baghdad in 28 of this month, said : Understanding that this should not be at the expense of Iraq. We do not accept that our region to pass messages and an arena for settling accounts ..

Pointing out that the good relations between the international parties help Iraq and support the process of consolidating security and stability in the region.
Skinner asked the international community to assist Iraq in its war against terrorism and said : that terrorism exists in Iraq, international terrorism, global and the international community to assist Iraq because of heart Meselyath. He stressed that the Iraqi government has been trying to be the law of accountability and justice substitute for uprooting the Baath, and it is determined to make the draft national reconciliation. For his part, General Caldwell : The Iraqi police found the body believed to be the body of one of our soldiers abducted and we will process definition of the identity of this body to ascertain. He added : in the last three days we have b (54) operation against Al Qaeda and found more than a hideout for trapping cars and torture rooms in some buildings, noting that American forces were able liberate 17 hostages from two different sites and was among the abducted boy in the third year-old where he was tortured severely.

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

Fighting overshadows Iraq's oil law
By Adam Wolfe

Iraq's national oil law has been touted as a major step toward the political reconciliation of the country's major sects. The US military "surge" in Baghdad is, in part, designed to provide the sectarian-defined political groups breathing room to pass this and other measures that would give every group a greater stake in the political and economic future of a unified Iraq. Yet as negotiations over the oil law drag on, and grow increasingly bitter, such
reconciliation seems less and less likely.

It now appears impossible for the Iraqi Parliament to pass the national oil law by the government-imposed deadline of May 31. The immediate cost of this failure will be economic - while many of the Western majors will not invest in Iraq because of the remaining security risks, Eastern and smaller oil firms appear willing if the political risks are first removed through legislation.

However, the long-term damage done by the failure to reach a consensus on the oil law will be a hardening of the sectarian fractures in Iraq's political landscape. The debates surrounding the oil law do not center on what is best for the country as a whole, but only on what is best for each sectarian group. By defining the debate as yet another zero-sum competition, Iraq's politicians have made it impossible to emerge from the negotiations without at least one group feeling like the losers. The US Embassy in Iraq has only encouraged this situation by insisting on a greater role for foreign firms in future investments.

As such, reconciliation will never emerge from the passage of an oil law in Iraq. This darkens the prospects of success for the US military "surge".

Background on the oil law

The Iraqi constitution passed in 2005 was deliberately vague on ownership and control of Iraq's oil. The document was written in such a way as to win the approval of the Kurdish and Shi'ite negotiators (Sunni Arab representation at the negotiations was minimal because the Sunni leadership was still largely boycotting the political process at the time). To do so, the text was vague on issues of governance and specific on issues of power politics.

Article 111 of the constitution states that "oil and gas are [under] the ownership of all the people of Iraq", while Article 112 calls for distribution of oil revenues to be allocated "in a fair manner in proportion to the population", with little clarity on either issue. Because the constitution is so vague, and because Sunni Arab leaders remain unsatisfied with large portions of the constitution, a new oil law is needed to clarify issues of control and revenue distribution.

The importance of a comprehensible oil law cannot be understated. The oil sector accounts for 95% of the government's revenues. Iraq's proven reserves are estimated at 115 billion barrels, putting it only behind Saudi Arabia and Canada. Less than 20% of the country has been explored, however, and many believe that Iraq's western regions could almost double Iraq's proven reserves if exploration were to go ahead.

It is vital for the future of Iraq that there is legal certainty in the oil industry to encourage future exploration and acceptable distribution of the country's leading stream of revenue among Iraq's major sectarian groupings.

The Kurdish position

Kurdish opposition to the current draft is based on fear that the central government will have too much control over the oilfields in the relatively peaceful north.

Kurdish leaders claim that the constitution gives them the right to develop the proven reserves in their semi-autonomous region because it grants regional control over existing oil reserves. However, Shi'ite and Sunni leaders interpret the constitution as only granting regional control to operations that were developed before 2005. This would mean that incremental additions to existing operations would also be controlled by the central government. Since the constitution did not define what constitutes a "new" field, the sectarian groups are now pushing for their interpretation to be spelled out in the law.

The Kurds also want decisions about foreign investment to be made at the regional level. In fact, they have already negotiated deals with foreign oil firms to explore and develop the Kurdish semi-autonomous zone. In 2004, the Kurdish Democratic Party reached an agreement with Norway's DNO ASA, which began drilling in December 2005. This month, DNO announced that it had begun pumping oil and will be able to deliver it to the market in June. Under the existing draft of the oil law, the deal reached with DNO and other contracts made by the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) would have to be renegotiated.

Kurdish leaders are concerned about granting control to the central government for two main reasons. First, assuming that Kirkuk is brought under control of the KRG, the proven reserves in the semi-autonomous region would provide enough revenues to fund a Kurdish state when Kurdish leaders feel it is time to cross that bridge. Second, they are skeptical about granting control to the ill-defined bodies that would control oil developments and revenues, which the central government would oversee.

The existing draft would create the Iraqi National Oil Co (INOC), a state-run oil firm, to manage new projects. The Federal Oil and Gas Council would regulate the industry, but it is not clear how membership to the council would be granted, or whether it would be limited to Iraqis.

The Kurdish leadership would prefer regional control of all oil reserves, with a defined portion of revenues going to the central government. Ideally, existing oilfields would contribute a lower rate, and newly developed fields (narrowly defined) would contribute to the central fund at a higher rate.

Sunni objections

Opposition to the draft oil law is only part of a larger agenda for Sunni politicians. The Sunni-majority region is oil-poor, and Sunni politicians fear that the oil law could cut off their regions from Iraq's main source of income.

Vice President Tariq al-Hashimi, leader of the Iraqi Accord Front, earlier threatened to pull his party's 44 politicians out of the 275-member Parliament if the government did not meet his demands for redrafting the constitution before May 15. After a face-saving meeting with the prime minister and the president, Hashimi backed away from his threat. Nevertheless, many Sunni politicians are only interested in passing the oil law if it also leads to revisions in the constitution.

Sunni demands are primarily concerned with creating a strong central government and preventing the breakup of Iraq into autonomous zones. As such, Sunni negotiators are pushing for a larger role for INOC in new oil developments. It is their belief that Sunnis would need to be brought in to run the company because of their experience gained under Saddam Hussein's regime in operating Iraq's oil industry. They would also like to limit the role played by foreign firms in developing Iraq's reserves, partly for similar reasons.

Sunni politicians are also pushing for redistribution based on population, and discounting other concerns that might be brought into the equation such as retributions for hardships endured under Saddam.

While many of their demands are close to those of the Shi'ite leadership, the Sunnis appear willing to prevent the law's passage until their other demands are granted.

Competing Shi'ite visions

The Shi'ite leadership is united in its desire for a stronger role to be played by the central government in Iraq's oil sector, if only to prevent the Kurdish region from growing in power.

The Iraqi oil minister, Hussein al-Shahristani, has inserted language into the draft bill that would strengthen the government's role. Four appendices were inserted into the law after it emerged from the cabinet in February, which appear to grant INOC control over 93% of Iraq's reserves. This is not acceptable to the Kurdish leadership and is now a major obstacle to its passage.

However, there is a large split within the Shi'ite majority over the role of the central government. The politicians aligned with Muqtada al-Sadr favor a strong central government for strategic reasons. Since the US-led invasion of Iraq, Sadr has advocated maintaining the existing borders of Iraq, as well as a powerful national government, because he believes this will lead to the creation of a strong Shi'ite state on Iran's border.

Currently, Sadr seems to be preparing for the downfall of the government led by Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. For this reason, Sadr's loyalists may prove to be another obstacle to the passage of the oil law, even if they believe in the spirit of the text. They may believe that they can hasten Maliki's departure by preventing his government from achieving one of the benchmarks often mentioned in Washington to judge Iraq's political progress. They believe that if Maliki's government fails to reach the benchmarks, Washington will be forced to begin pulling its troops out of Iraq. One strategy for doing this may be to insert language into the draft oil law that they know will be unacceptable to their Kurdish counterparts.

The other main Shi'ite faction, the United Iraqi Alliance (UIA), made up of the Islamic Da'wa Party and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), was formerly closely aligned with Iran. However, it has moved closer to the interests of the United States as it tries to maintain Maliki's government. In fact, SCIRI re-branded itself as the Supreme Iraqi Islamic Council (SIIC) this month to distance itself from the Islamic Revolution in Iran and give it more of an Iraqi-centric title.

The main goal of the UIA at this point is passing the oil law in whatever form is acceptable. Because Washington has hinged the prospects of its current "surge" policy on Maliki's ability to reach reconciliation with Iraq's other groups, the oil law has become even more important. Every other group knows this, and their intransigence stems from either a desire to gain concessions from the UIA on other issues or a goal of removing the UIA from power.

Benchmarks, investments drive US

President George W Bush's "surge" strategy in Iraq is increasingly losing political support. With the Democratic Party controlling Congress, the pressure to demonstrate that the military policy is working has grown.

The domestic debate in the US seems settled on granting the military until September to prove that the surge has had an effect on security conditions in Baghdad. Yet lawmakers are insistent that Iraq's government must demonstrate political progress by redrafting portions of the constitution to mollify Sunni concerns, revise the de-Ba'athification laws, hold provincial elections, and pass a national oil law.

As a result, the US Embassy in Iraq is pressuring the sectarian groups to pass the oil law as soon as possible. Still, Washington does have an agenda as to what the law should look like.

US-funded consultants had a significant role in shaping the draft oil law in Iraq. Firms such as BearingPoint were brought in to advise the Iraqi government and advocated allowing for private competition in the oil sector. It is Washington's belief that Iraq's oil sector will be most efficiently exploited and managed through the competition of private oil firms, including foreign companies. As such, Washington would like to reduce the role played by INOC in the oil sector. However, at this point passing the oil law is more important to Washington than granting rights to foreign oil companies.

Conclusion

Iraq's national oil law has become an important factor in gauging the country's progress on political reconciliation. Judging by the debate surrounding the oil law, such a reconciliation will not be in the offing any time soon. Each sectarian and political group brings to the debate its own agenda, and these are incompatible with each other. Rather than looking for areas where compromise might be found, each group has dug in and looks to demand further concessions before voting for the oil law.

This puts Washington and Maliki in the precarious position of pushing for any law to be passed, even if it may be against their interests in the long term. Washington has hinged its military "surge" on progress from Maliki's government to pass measures demonstrating the political reconciliation of Iraq's sectarian groups. In turn, Maliki must push for the passage of such measures out of fear of losing support from Washington.

This is a situation that the Kurdish, Sunni, and Sadr-led groups would like to use to their advantage. Because the debate has been framed in these zero-sum terms, there will invariably be a loser. This, by definition, makes the possibility of Iraq's oil law leading to national reconciliation zero. It is likely that the law will be passed in some form in the next few weeks, but its passage will only hasten rather than slow Iraq's drift toward factionalism.

Iraq still hopes to pass oil law in May
Translated by IRAQdirecotry.com - [23/05/2007]


Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, Barham Salih, said on Saturday that Iraq still hopes for agreement based on the oil law draft this month, thus allowing the Parliament to pass it soon.

Salih said on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Jordan that negotiations should begin soon in Baghdad to review details of the annexes of the law and the method of distributing oil income. He said that a Kurdish delegation is in Baghdad and that he will return to Iraq on Sunday to start negotiations.

Salih said that those who seek to hold talks want to ensure that the law includes restrictions and balances for a fair distribution of income and to discuss the scope of activity and control of the Iraqi National Oil Company. He said that they hope to complete this before the end of the month, adding that reaching an agreement would mean that the law can be passed to Parliament for approval.

Salih said that the law will shape the country's economy for a long period, describing it as the most important legislation that Iraq has to draft.

The law aims to distribute Iraq's oil wealth fairly among the Shiites, Sunni and Kurds. Washington thinks that the law is important to ensure national reconciliation in Iraq.

Humam Hamoudi : In addition to amend article 70 and the leaders of the political blocs meet soon

To solve contentious points

Parliament extended the work of the Constitutional Review Commission one month

Baghdad-Sabah.

The House decided to extend the work of the Constitutional Review Commission one month to find solutions to controversial material between the leaders of the political blocs on one hand and members of the Commission on the other hand. It was Massoud Barzani, head of Kurdistan region has been renewed yesterday his refusal to postpone Article 140 of the Constitution of Kirkuk.

The Article 140 of the points of contention between the political blocs, as demanded by some lumps postpone this article to another time. He said when he met with Barzani, Ashraf Qazi, representative of the Secretary General of the United Nations in Iraq in the Salah Eddin summer resort, according to a statement issued by the Presidency of the Territory : "The postponement of that article was totally unacceptable and that the Kurdish people committed to the implementation of Article (140) of the Constitution." The Lok Sabha during its routine yesterday Maardhth Commission amendments to the Constitution in its second report.

The report stated that "the committee held several meetings during the last term and formed a sub-committee chaired by MP Hamid Majid and membership Jalal Eddin small and Salim Abdullah Abdullah Saleh, Ammar Tu'mah, Hussein Alflogi its receipt of proposals and review articles of the Constitution and agreed to identify materials that had not been agreed upon."

Reviewed MP Humam Hamudi Chairman of the Committee on Amendments to the Constitution what has been accomplished in the last term of the Committee's work, noting in his speech that the Commission was able to resolve more than five important issues with the amendment has been more than 60 articles in the deletion, addition or amendment added that the committee was in agreement materials such as task imports provinces and territories and the formation of armed groups on a temporary basis and exceptional circumstance as well as the powers of the Federation Council and the subject of rights and freedoms and powers of the provinces.

Chairman of the Committee, announced that the articles had not resolved so far is Article (140) of Kirkuk and article concerning the powers the President of the Republic as Chairman of the Committee wished to House Speaker to intervene to solve the mentioned articles. Because of the failure to complete the overall work of the Chamber of Deputies voted to give the Commission a month to complete the remaining work to continue to hold meetings.

For his part, the deputy coalition Ridha Jawad Taqi noted that the leaders of the political blocs will discuss the report of the Special Constitutional Reforms In addition to the necessary amendments in order to reach agreement on the matter.

He said in a statement to "Assabah" : that the issue resolved some differences in the Constitution would be through leaders blocs after the arrival of the report to them and the conclusion of the Constitutional Commission which will be presented to the Presidency after expressing his optimism access to resolving some differences according to the constitutional mechanisms and the synergies between the political blocs.

So members of the Council voted on the draft tax law rebuilding Iraq and the proposed abolition of Revolution Command Council decision dissolved No. (91) for 1977 and a draft law Fifth Amendment to the Execution Law No. (45) for 1980 and a draft law to the First Amendment Law discipline staff and the public sector and a draft law amending the law Service Civil No. (24) of 1960 concerning Article 49 has also been at the first reading of the package of proposals include the repeal of the laws of the laws of the Revolution Command Council dissolved numbered (1019) to 1979 and 1283 to 1980 and 1203 to 1983 and 1253 to 1985.

And was also the second reading of the proposed bill on the cancellation of the Revolution Command Council resolutions No. 690 of the dissolved in 1981 and 222 of 1977 and 817 of 1981 and the second reading of the draft Code of Military and proposed Act to amend the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Court No. session of 2005.

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

foreign investment and its role in the petroleum industry

Mousa Kazem

The Iraqi oil sector of the oldest regional oil sectors, and it is the largest national economic sectors, as a basic rule of the overall economic activities that are Iraqi, and represents the oil sector source

The basis for the financing of the national financial, and adopt the state budget almost entirely on the resources of the oil sector and by 98% of the total proceeds of the national income, therefore, is the first private-funded governmental actors, which is spending on various projects and services to current and future by identifying the culprits in the financial and monetary policies governmental, leading up to the level of granting the real value of the national currency (the dinar) awarded by the state steadiness and stability, which reflect positively on the living standards of the individual and society, including the oil sector needs to develop processes for the entire share.

should recourse to foreign investment to finance the work of joints that sector to determine the quality and quantity of foreign investment, after the economic feasibility study required, in addition to determining the joints eligible for investment, It must be the engine base in the petroleum industry (extraction) that the government sincerely Acosta joints extractive industry will be (a big role in guiding the industry according reconciliation whose pricing policy and determine how much and what type of surroundings. Maiedi to have a negative effect on the political decision.

It is more appropriate to foreign investments, in particular, the capital of Iraqi expatriates joints towards establishing oil refineries and service departments, such as those for construction, as well as possible direct those investments towards modernization and support joints transport petroleum products (fuels from and to Iraq, as well as pipeline projects oil derivatives (oil - and-white liquid gas) inside Iraq and this requires billions of dollars and dinars to extend thousands of kilometers away from the pipeline for delivery of assembly plants Chairperson reservoirs subsidiary, which in turn leads to the industrial parks, commercial and town centers, It is the way the distribution of petroleum products within cities in the very backwardness and primitive hand they rely wagons and sedans donkey carts, along with the bad packets distributed those products, Pednani liquid gas specializes feet and damaged, and the best way replaced by networks of connections tubes in place in some residential complexes list, as is foreign investment in this oil detailed many benefits are cut and crisis situations of scarcity, in addition to absorbing a large amount of unemployed labor and other trained personnel, as well as easing pressure on the budget of the Ministry of Oil recycles funds allocated for the establishment of similar projects to other projects, Investing in this key is promising and successful because of its guaranteed benefits for investors, it must have foreign investments in the service of the national economy through contributing players in the construction Srouheh / It may amount of those investments to the national economy, increase financial streams is a great contribution to the export of products.

Oil to the outside world through the ranks of oil, to be constructed by these investments, rather than relying on existing government that the refineries are unable to meet the growing domestic demand for petroleum products in general and motor fuel (gasoline and gas oil) in particular, the accounts of the Ministry of Oil to import petroleum products are assigned government treasury (5) billion dollars annually allocated for the imports reclaimed from the amounts allocated to spend on infrastructure projects and services projects, as well as manifestations of the crisis of scarcity, and which acquired a permanence and continuity, what leads to the use of foreign investments through conciliation joints oil mentioned leading to the benefits of vehicle, reflect positively on overall economic activities other, and establish a process of social welfare that pass through the phase of economic prosperity.

Translated version of http://www.alsabaah.com/

By Mike Whitney

The massive equity bubbles which arose from artificially low interest rates and the deliberate destruction of the dollar by reckless increases in the money supply have shifted trillions of dollars from working class Americans to the predatory aristocrats at the top of the economic food chain. The gulf between rich and poor has grown so wide that it now poses a direct threat to our increasingly fragile democracy.

“Whatever future developments may prove to be, my best guess is that the US will continue to maintain a façade of Constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it.” Chalmers Johnson, “Empire V. Democracy: Why Nemesis is at our Door”

02/06/07 "ICHBlog" -- - Every time a US Dollar is traded, a check is issued on an account that is overdrawn by $8.6 trillion. (That is the present size of the national debt) It is, without question, the biggest swindle in history. Flimsy sheets of faded-green scrip are eagerly exchanged for costly goods and services without any regard for the real value of the currency.

And, the real value of the currency is absolutely nothing!

How is it that this scam persists when people appear to be aware of the massive debt and deficits which underwrite the dollar? Do they still believe in that puerile fairy tale about “the full faith and credit” of the United States backing up every greenback? Or are they pacified by the wizened graybeards, like Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson, who soothingly bray about the “strong dollar policy”?

What gibberish.

In truth, the dollar rests on the crumbling foundation of consumerism and oil. The American consumer’s gluttonous appetite for spending has kept the greenback flying high for decades. Economists marvel at America’s lust for electronic gadgetry, the latest fashions, and useless knick-knacks. They call our profligate spending “the engine for global growth”; and indeed it is. No other country in the world is nearly as addicted to binge-spending as the US consumer. As long as he can beg, borrow or steal his way into the shopping mall; the orgy of spending is bound to continue. (Consumer spending is 70% of GDP)

Regrettably, there are signs that the US consumer is beginning to buckle from the weight of personal debt. The Associated Press reported just this week that “people are saving at the slowest rate since the Great Depression… and the Commerce Dept stated that the nation’s personal savings rate for 2006 was a negative 1%, the worst showing in 73 years.”

Additionally, credit card debt has skyrocketed, which is an indication that homeowners are no longer able to siphon easy-money from their home-equity. The nose-diving real estate market has slowed refinancing to a dribble; cutting off the additional $825 billion of cash which was extracted from home-equity just last year.

Clearly, the well is running dry; the housing bubble is hang-gliding into the abyss and there’s nothing Fed-master Bernanke can do to save it from its inevitable crash-landing.

The central banks around the world are now watching for any sign that the American consumer is about to give up the ghost. As soon as that happens, bank managers everywhere will swing into action, ditch their U.S.Dollars and head for the exits. When the “global engine” sputters to a halt; it’ll be curtains for the greenback.

The Oil-extortion Racket

The dollar’s link to oil has helped to keep it afloat but, in truth, it’s just another dismal rip-off. More than 70% of the world’s oil is denominated in USD; a virtual monopoly for the USA. Until last year, even Russia was using dollars in its oil transactions with Germany. Imagine a comparable deal, like the US purchasing oil from Canada in rubles?!?

It’s lunacy; and yet this is the system the US hopes to preserve so it can maintain its unique status as the world’s “reserve currency” and keep expanding its debt into perpetuity. It explains why the Federal Reserve has been able to increase the money supply by a whopping 15% for the last 6 years! Trillions of dollars are now circulating in the oil trade keeping the value of the dollar high by creating artificial demand.

The other reason the dollar hasn’t succumbed to hyperinflation is because the current account deficit is running at roughly $800 billion per year. The Asian giants (China and Japan) and the oil exporting countries are mopping up more than $700 billion of our red ink every year!

The dollar’s link to oil forces central banks to maintain humongous stockpiles of USD to pay the steadily rising price of oil that keeps their industries and vehicles running. Otherwise they would have chucked the flaccid greenback years ago and converted to the more steadfast euro.


The so-called ‘global economic system’ has nothing to do with competition, free markets or private enterprise; that’s just public relations gobbledygook. In practice, it is the world’s biggest extortion racket, wherein, the “Godfather”-- Uncle Sam-- holds a gun to the heads of his subjects and forces them to use our fiat-paper to purchase the oil that lubricates their economies.

Why would anyone accept a personal check from a nation that owes the bank more than $8.6 trillion dollars?

Why, indeed?

It’s blackmail, pure and simple; and yet, the Chinese, Japanese etc. continue to play along knowing full-well that we neither have the inclination nor the resources to pay them back in kind?

It’s madness.

Every so often, a rebel nation will try to break the shackle of greenback-tyranny and operate outside the US-run system?

For example, Saddam Hussein switched to euros 6 months before he was carpet-bombed in Shock and Awe. His defiance only hastened his ultimate downfall.

Now Iran and Venezuela are threatening to convert to euros. Is it any surprise that they are both on Bush’s axis-of-evil hit list?

Russia has already made the conversion to euros and rubles (and has considerably depleted his supplies of USD) but, of course, regime change is more difficult when a state has nuclear weapons. Instead, the mainstream media is conducting an impressive “Swift Boat” campaign against Putin, smearing him as a “Russian autocrat” who is “rolling back democracy”. At the same time, the Bush administration is threatening to deploy missile systems in Eastern Europe and ratcheting up the pressure in the former Soviet republics.

Bush would rather restart the Cold War than abandon the supremacy of the greenback.

But, why? Is Dollar-primacy really that crucial to our economy?

The greenback is the baling wire that keeps the global economy in the hands of the doddering old misers at the Federal Reserve. It’s the cornerstone of the whole wretched system; a system which now includes torture, extraordinary rendition, and myriad other war crimes.

The young Muslim men who are abducted off the streets of Europe and Asia and taken to CIA Black Sites where they are waterboarded or stacked in naked pyramids; are tortured in defense of the crumpled piece of green paper we carry in our pants pockets.

Think I’m kidding?

Just look at Bush’s budget for 2007-2008; $700 billion for foreign wars?!? There’s no way the US can pay off that debt through the normal means of increasing exports. In fact, Bush has already said that he plans to preserve his unfunded tax cuts whether they produce massive deficits or not.

What Bush plans to do is force the foreign central banks to hold more dollar-based assets, thus, thrusting our gigantic debt onto our trading partners. According to Bob Chapman of The International Forecaster, “US debt was up 10.1% to $4.085 trillion and accounts for 58.8% OF ALL THE CREDIT ISSUED GLOBALLY LAST YEAR. The US is producing more debt than the rest of the world combined.

As long as foreign lenders are willing to take our paper, Bush will keep expanding our debt. As Chalmers Johnson opined, “We are dependent on ‘the kindness of strangers’”. (The Blanche Dubois economy)

Of course, if the central banks grow tired of this pyramid-scheme and dump the dollar; the world can get on with the business of addressing global warming, poverty, AIDs, Peak Oil, nuclear proliferation etc. That won’t happen as long as the dollar reigns supreme and a small cadre of unelected racketeers at the Fed continue Gerry-rig the system.

Economic justice and equitable distribution of wealth begin with greater parity among the currencies. That requires “regime change” for the greenback and a loosening of its tyrannical grip on the system.

Sleepwalking in the Weimar U.S.A.

The good news is that the Bush administration is pushing the dollar towards extinction anyway. Another few years of $800 billion trade deficits, lavish unfunded tax cuts for the mega-rich, and a Pentagon budget of $700 billion-plus; and the old greenback will be going the way of the Dodo. Jim Willie of GoldenJackass.com summarized it this way:

“Never in the history of central bankers has the hidden coordination, influenced pressure, gargantuan money creation, doctored statistics, and interference with financial markets been so broad, so deep, and so profound. My allegation is clear, that we now live in Weimar times, as has been warned for two years worth of scribbles. Collectively, they have abused the privilege of printing money, and in doing so, have guaranteed a gold bull market. … The more heavily the counterfeit press dispenses electronic dollars, devoted to operations, to credit, to consumer spending, to military adventures, to good old fashioned fraud, the gold bull benefits from ample new oxygen and blood flow”.

Willie is right; the system is rotten to the core. Once the dollar crashes, other currencies rush in to fill the void generating greater competition between the energy and manufacturing giants. A new paradigm will emerge distributing power more equitably among the states. It’s a way to resuscitate a system that is currently held together through force of arms.

Besides, how long will China and Japan continue to abet Washington’s war-mongering adventurism? My guess is that the daggers have already been sharpened in Beijing, Caracas, Delhi and Moscow. Everyone is just waiting for Bush to cross that invisible line in the sand before they fling their greenbacks into the jet-stream and wait for Goliath to tumble.

That “invisible line in the sand” is Iran.

The world is at a crossroads and everyone who can fog a mirror knows it. The superpower model of global governance has failed miserably. We need more responsible stewardship of the planet and its resources.

How can we build our economies when a handful of western plutocrats control the spigot for quickly dwindling oil reserves? How can we attack climate change when those same blinkered reprobates employ pseudo-scientists to dispute global warming? How can we address nuclear proliferation when neocon militarists believe in “useable” low-yield, bunker-busting warheads?

The model is hopelessly shattered. We’d be better off boarding-up the White House and the Federal Reserve and starting from Square One.

The world needs a break from Washington’s wasteful spending and unprovoked wars. At the same time, foreign creditors are increasingly reluctant to keep financing America’s extravagant consumption. And, no one is hoodwinked by Bush’s “war on terror” scam; a conflict that was clearly concocted to assert control over the world’s remaining resources.

The world is realigning according to mutual interests and a shared vision of the future. The rise of energy alliances in Latin America and Asia (particularly the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which now controls most new oil deposits and output) signals the waning of western influence and the ascendancy of a new energy paradigm. Power is progressively shifting away from Washington.

That’s bad news for the greenback which depends on its linkage to oil to sustain its enormous debt.

The dollar now faces challenges from all directions. Western elites have savaged the country’s economic base by hollowing out our manufacturing base in order to destroy the American labor movement.

Free trade has transformed the US into the biggest creditor nation in history. The country exports nothing but bombs and misery.

Also, as Congressman Ron Paul notes, “Most knowledgeable people assume that inflation of the money supply is not only going to continue, but accelerate. This anticipation, plus the fact that many new dollars have been created over the past 15 years that have not been fully discounted, guarantees the further depreciation of the dollar.”

Eventually, the markets will catch on, foreign lenders will stop buying our Treasuries, and the dollar will fall through the floor.

The laws of gravity apply to economics as well as science.

Red flags are going up everywhere. China’s central bank issued a warning in December about the risks of the weakening dollar:

“If external capital stops flowing into the US, a significant drop in the dollar may occur with consumption and investment shrinking, interest rates rising, and financial markets experiencing turbulence, endangering global financial and economic stability. There could be adjustments to how European private capital, Asian foreign exchange reserves and oil export proceeds are invested.”

Yes, of course, a complete economic meltdown with capital fleeing the United States to foreign countries and the American economy collapsing in a heap.

The Chinese central bank statement adds:

“If the US current account deficit continues to grow faster than GDP, then the investment value of US assets may be subject to doubts and challenges and the willingness of investors to continue holding and buying US financial products may weaken. This could cause changes in capital flows, the exchange rates of major currencies, and the value of foreign exchange assets.”

The Chinese bank is giving the Bush Team a chapter out of Econ. 101: “If you keep spending more than you are taking in; the stock market will fall, the dollar will plummet, and the US economy will tank”.

What could be clearer than that?

The administration, however, chooses to ignore the basic laws of economics and pursue a madcap plan to wage aggressive war across the planet and pilfer the world’s oil reserves.

So far, the results have been less than reassuring.

The Decline of U.S. Sovereignty; blame it on the Fed

The United States set off on the road to perdition when it transferred the power to create money to the privately-owned Federal Reserve. It’s been downhill ever since.

The man who can set interest rates and create money is more powerful than the man who can move armies and change laws. By conferring that authority on the Federal Reserve we have assured that the policies that govern our economy are decided by unelected members of the ruling elite whose choices will naturally reflect the interests of their class.

The wealth gap that has opened up like a yawning chasm between rich and poor in America originated with the class-based policies of the Fed. The massive equity bubbles which arose from artificially low interest rates and the deliberate destruction of the dollar by reckless increases in the money supply have shifted trillions of dollars from working class Americans to the predatory aristocrats at the top of the economic food chain. The gulf between rich and poor has grown so wide that it now poses a direct threat to our increasingly fragile democracy. That’s why Thomas Jefferson said:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of our currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing of power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Free people cannot control their own destiny unless they control their own currency. The Federal Reserve must be abolished

Originally Posted by flockstar

By Mike Whitney

The massive equity bubbles which arose from artificially low interest rates and the deliberate destruction of the dollar by reckless increases in the money supply have shifted trillions of dollars from working class Americans to the predatory aristocrats at the top of the economic food chain. The gulf between rich and poor has grown so wide that it now poses a direct threat to our increasingly fragile democracy.

“Whatever future developments may prove to be, my best guess is that the US will continue to maintain a façade of Constitutional government and drift along until financial bankruptcy overtakes it.” Chalmers Johnson, “Empire V. Democracy: Why Nemesis is at our Door”

02/06/07 "ICHBlog" -- - Every time a US Dollar is traded, a check is issued on an account that is overdrawn by $8.6 trillion. (That is the present size of the national debt) It is, without question, the biggest swindle in history. Flimsy sheets of faded-green scrip are eagerly exchanged for costly goods and services without any regard for the real value of the currency.

And, the real value of the currency is absolutely nothing!

How is it that this scam persists when people appear to be aware of the massive debt and deficits which underwrite the dollar? Do they still believe in that puerile fairy tale about “the full faith and credit” of the United States backing up every greenback? Or are they pacified by the wizened graybeards, like Alan Greenspan and Hank Paulson, who soothingly bray about the “strong dollar policy”?

What gibberish.

In truth, the dollar rests on the crumbling foundation of consumerism and oil. The American consumer’s gluttonous appetite for spending has kept the greenback flying high for decades. Economists marvel at America’s lust for electronic gadgetry, the latest fashions, and useless knick-knacks. They call our profligate spending “the engine for global growth”; and indeed it is. No other country in the world is nearly as addicted to binge-spending as the US consumer. As long as he can beg, borrow or steal his way into the shopping mall; the orgy of spending is bound to continue. (Consumer spending is 70% of GDP)

Regrettably, there are signs that the US consumer is beginning to buckle from the weight of personal debt. The Associated Press reported just this week that “people are saving at the slowest rate since the Great Depression… and the Commerce Dept stated that the nation’s personal savings rate for 2006 was a negative 1%, the worst showing in 73 years.”

Additionally, credit card debt has skyrocketed, which is an indication that homeowners are no longer able to siphon easy-money from their home-equity. The nose-diving real estate market has slowed refinancing to a dribble; cutting off the additional $825 billion of cash which was extracted from home-equity just last year.

Clearly, the well is running dry; the housing bubble is hang-gliding into the abyss and there’s nothing Fed-master Bernanke can do to save it from its inevitable crash-landing.

The central banks around the world are now watching for any sign that the American consumer is about to give up the ghost. As soon as that happens, bank managers everywhere will swing into action, ditch their U.S.Dollars and head for the exits. When the “global engine” sputters to a halt; it’ll be curtains for the greenback.

The Oil-extortion Racket

The dollar’s link to oil has helped to keep it afloat but, in truth, it’s just another dismal rip-off. More than 70% of the world’s oil is denominated in USD; a virtual monopoly for the USA. Until last year, even Russia was using dollars in its oil transactions with Germany. Imagine a comparable deal, like the US purchasing oil from Canada in rubles?!?

It’s lunacy; and yet this is the system the US hopes to preserve so it can maintain its unique status as the world’s “reserve currency” and keep expanding its debt into perpetuity. It explains why the Federal Reserve has been able to increase the money supply by a whopping 15% for the last 6 years! Trillions of dollars are now circulating in the oil trade keeping the value of the dollar high by creating artificial demand.

The other reason the dollar hasn’t succumbed to hyperinflation is because the current account deficit is running at roughly $800 billion per year. The Asian giants (China and Japan) and the oil exporting countries are mopping up more than $700 billion of our red ink every year!

The dollar’s link to oil forces central banks to maintain humongous stockpiles of USD to pay the steadily rising price of oil that keeps their industries and vehicles running. Otherwise they would have chucked the flaccid greenback years ago and converted to the more steadfast euro.


The so-called ‘global economic system’ has nothing to do with competition, free markets or private enterprise; that’s just public relations gobbledygook. In practice, it is the world’s biggest extortion racket, wherein, the “Godfather”-- Uncle Sam-- holds a gun to the heads of his subjects and forces them to use our fiat-paper to purchase the oil that lubricates their economies.

Why would anyone accept a personal check from a nation that owes the bank more than $8.6 trillion dollars?

Why, indeed?

It’s blackmail, pure and simple; and yet, the Chinese, Japanese etc. continue to play along knowing full-well that we neither have the inclination nor the resources to pay them back in kind?

It’s madness.

Every so often, a rebel nation will try to break the shackle of greenback-tyranny and operate outside the US-run system?

For example, Saddam Hussein switched to euros 6 months before he was carpet-bombed in Shock and Awe. His defiance only hastened his ultimate downfall.

Now Iran and Venezuela are threatening to convert to euros. Is it any surprise that they are both on Bush’s axis-of-evil hit list?

Russia has already made the conversion to euros and rubles (and has considerably depleted his supplies of USD) but, of course, regime change is more difficult when a state has nuclear weapons. Instead, the mainstream media is conducting an impressive “Swift Boat” campaign against Putin, smearing him as a “Russian autocrat” who is “rolling back democracy”. At the same time, the Bush administration is threatening to deploy missile systems in Eastern Europe and ratcheting up the pressure in the former Soviet republics.

Bush would rather restart the Cold War than abandon the supremacy of the greenback.

But, why? Is Dollar-primacy really that crucial to our economy?

The greenback is the baling wire that keeps the global economy in the hands of the doddering old misers at the Federal Reserve. It’s the cornerstone of the whole wretched system; a system which now includes torture, extraordinary rendition, and myriad other war crimes.

The young Muslim men who are abducted off the streets of Europe and Asia and taken to CIA Black Sites where they are waterboarded or stacked in naked pyramids; are tortured in defense of the crumpled piece of green paper we carry in our pants pockets.

Think I’m kidding?

Just look at Bush’s budget for 2007-2008; $700 billion for foreign wars?!? There’s no way the US can pay off that debt through the normal means of increasing exports. In fact, Bush has already said that he plans to preserve his unfunded tax cuts whether they produce massive deficits or not.

What Bush plans to do is force the foreign central banks to hold more dollar-based assets, thus, thrusting our gigantic debt onto our trading partners. According to Bob Chapman of The International Forecaster, “US debt was up 10.1% to $4.085 trillion and accounts for 58.8% OF ALL THE CREDIT ISSUED GLOBALLY LAST YEAR. The US is producing more debt than the rest of the world combined.

As long as foreign lenders are willing to take our paper, Bush will keep expanding our debt. As Chalmers Johnson opined, “We are dependent on ‘the kindness of strangers’”. (The Blanche Dubois economy)

Of course, if the central banks grow tired of this pyramid-scheme and dump the dollar; the world can get on with the business of addressing global warming, poverty, AIDs, Peak Oil, nuclear proliferation etc. That won’t happen as long as the dollar reigns supreme and a small cadre of unelected racketeers at the Fed continue Gerry-rig the system.

Economic justice and equitable distribution of wealth begin with greater parity among the currencies. That requires “regime change” for the greenback and a loosening of its tyrannical grip on the system.

Sleepwalking in the Weimar U.S.A.

The good news is that the Bush administration is pushing the dollar towards extinction anyway. Another few years of $800 billion trade deficits, lavish unfunded tax cuts for the mega-rich, and a Pentagon budget of $700 billion-plus; and the old greenback will be going the way of the Dodo. Jim Willie of GoldenJackass.com summarized it this way:

“Never in the history of central bankers has the hidden coordination, influenced pressure, gargantuan money creation, doctored statistics, and interference with financial markets been so broad, so deep, and so profound. My allegation is clear, that we now live in Weimar times, as has been warned for two years worth of scribbles. Collectively, they have abused the privilege of printing money, and in doing so, have guaranteed a gold bull market. … The more heavily the counterfeit press dispenses electronic dollars, devoted to operations, to credit, to consumer spending, to military adventures, to good old fashioned fraud, the gold bull benefits from ample new oxygen and blood flow”.

Willie is right; the system is rotten to the core. Once the dollar crashes, other currencies rush in to fill the void generating greater competition between the energy and manufacturing giants. A new paradigm will emerge distributing power more equitably among the states. It’s a way to resuscitate a system that is currently held together through force of arms.

Besides, how long will China and Japan continue to abet Washington’s war-mongering adventurism? My guess is that the daggers have already been sharpened in Beijing, Caracas, Delhi and Moscow. Everyone is just waiting for Bush to cross that invisible line in the sand before they fling their greenbacks into the jet-stream and wait for Goliath to tumble.

That “invisible line in the sand” is Iran.

The world is at a crossroads and everyone who can fog a mirror knows it. The superpower model of global governance has failed miserably. We need more responsible stewardship of the planet and its resources.

How can we build our economies when a handful of western plutocrats control the spigot for quickly dwindling oil reserves? How can we attack climate change when those same blinkered reprobates employ pseudo-scientists to dispute global warming? How can we address nuclear proliferation when neocon militarists believe in “useable” low-yield, bunker-busting warheads?

The model is hopelessly shattered. We’d be better off boarding-up the White House and the Federal Reserve and starting from Square One.

The world needs a break from Washington’s wasteful spending and unprovoked wars. At the same time, foreign creditors are increasingly reluctant to keep financing America’s extravagant consumption. And, no one is hoodwinked by Bush’s “war on terror” scam; a conflict that was clearly concocted to assert control over the world’s remaining resources.

The world is realigning according to mutual interests and a shared vision of the future. The rise of energy alliances in Latin America and Asia (particularly the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) which now controls most new oil deposits and output) signals the waning of western influence and the ascendancy of a new energy paradigm. Power is progressively shifting away from Washington.

That’s bad news for the greenback which depends on its linkage to oil to sustain its enormous debt.

The dollar now faces challenges from all directions. Western elites have savaged the country’s economic base by hollowing out our manufacturing base in order to destroy the American labor movement.

Free trade has transformed the US into the biggest creditor nation in history. The country exports nothing but bombs and misery.

Also, as Congressman Ron Paul notes, “Most knowledgeable people assume that inflation of the money supply is not only going to continue, but accelerate. This anticipation, plus the fact that many new dollars have been created over the past 15 years that have not been fully discounted, guarantees the further depreciation of the dollar.”

Eventually, the markets will catch on, foreign lenders will stop buying our Treasuries, and the dollar will fall through the floor.

The laws of gravity apply to economics as well as science.

Red flags are going up everywhere. China’s central bank issued a warning in December about the risks of the weakening dollar:

“If external capital stops flowing into the US, a significant drop in the dollar may occur with consumption and investment shrinking, interest rates rising, and financial markets experiencing turbulence, endangering global financial and economic stability. There could be adjustments to how European private capital, Asian foreign exchange reserves and oil export proceeds are invested.”

Yes, of course, a complete economic meltdown with capital fleeing the United States to foreign countries and the American economy collapsing in a heap.

The Chinese central bank statement adds:

“If the US current account deficit continues to grow faster than GDP, then the investment value of US assets may be subject to doubts and challenges and the willingness of investors to continue holding and buying US financial products may weaken. This could cause changes in capital flows, the exchange rates of major currencies, and the value of foreign exchange assets.”

The Chinese bank is giving the Bush Team a chapter out of Econ. 101: “If you keep spending more than you are taking in; the stock market will fall, the dollar will plummet, and the US economy will tank”.

What could be clearer than that?

The administration, however, chooses to ignore the basic laws of economics and pursue a madcap plan to wage aggressive war across the planet and pilfer the world’s oil reserves.

So far, the results have been less than reassuring.

The Decline of U.S. Sovereignty; blame it on the Fed

The United States set off on the road to perdition when it transferred the power to create money to the privately-owned Federal Reserve. It’s been downhill ever since.

The man who can set interest rates and create money is more powerful than the man who can move armies and change laws. By conferring that authority on the Federal Reserve we have assured that the policies that govern our economy are decided by unelected members of the ruling elite whose choices will naturally reflect the interests of their class.

The wealth gap that has opened up like a yawning chasm between rich and poor in America originated with the class-based policies of the Fed. The massive equity bubbles which arose from artificially low interest rates and the deliberate destruction of the dollar by reckless increases in the money supply have shifted trillions of dollars from working class Americans to the predatory aristocrats at the top of the economic food chain. The gulf between rich and poor has grown so wide that it now poses a direct threat to our increasingly fragile democracy. That’s why Thomas Jefferson said:

“If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of our currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing of power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.”

Free people cannot control their own destiny unless they control their own currency. The Federal Reserve must be abolished

Unless I missed something I don't understand how this relates to any type of news let alone anthing on the dinar. Can anyone clarify?

Although what has been said about the American Dollar might have some truth to it. I had rather hear it from Rosie O'Donald or CNN this is not the place to bash the dollar. You can't spend any other money in the states and if you can it must be changed to the dollar. While this guy you all get your info from may be smart oh well nuf said.....