Thread: Iraq/Dinar News. 09/05 to 01/14/07

The statement said : "Banks made offers to sell the dollar at 2.5 million at the exchange rate of 1463 dinars and buy the bank in full."



What does buy the bank in full mean?

Originally Posted by cigarman

The statement said : "Banks made offers to sell the dollar at 2.5 million at the exchange rate of 1463 dinars and buy the bank in full."



What does buy the bank in full mean?

I have no idea but recently there was an article about the banks should merge or combine, I think. I have no idea.....

Originally Posted by cigarman

The statement said : "Banks made offers to sell the dollar at 2.5 million at the exchange rate of 1463 dinars and buy the bank in full."



What does buy the bank in full mean?

Believe it means they bought all of what the banks offered to sell.

Originally Posted by $onedaysoon$

I found something that could be very interesting.. I did a search and the search sent me to a link for a story that I can not find. I am hoping maybe someone has seen this artical or maybe can find it.
here is the google search link and heading along with the story link
Tuesday, 07 November 2006 ...Economic expert :the increase in the price of the dinar is a deliberate government policy
ارتفاع قيمة الدينار العراق نوفمبر 2006 - Google Search
Translated version of http://www.aswataliraq.info/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=index&startn um=1186

Heres the translation you are looking for oneday:

(November 7?)
Economic expert :the increase in the price of the dinar is a deliberate government policy of Dargham Muhammad Ali-Baghdad (Voices of Iraq) said an economist and industrial today, Thursday, that the decline witnessed by the dollar rate of exchange against the dinar in Iraq is temporary and comes within the government policy aimed at encouraging banks to buy the largest possible quantity of the dollar to withdraw more floodse and the reduction of inflation.He explained Mr. Sadiq Abdul Razzaq in a statement to the News Agency (Voices of Iraq) Independent, "one of the policies that government is currently working to follow is to encourage the purchase of foreign currency bonds and the purchase of government loans."The dollar had reached in the auction the Central Bank today dinars in 1470 compared to 1471 dinars yesterday.He pointed out that "these policies may include restoration-related factors of supply and demand scientifically and economically, but a policy of keeping a gradual shock does not lead to a significant drop in the value of the dollar and sudden lose confidence dealer."He added that "the government needs to tremendous liquidity for the payment of salaries of staff and to cover government expenditure of the local currency and not covered by any returns as the productive sectors and is now the sole entrance of the State of the local currency, either through print or through the purchase of exchange in the local market."He said that "the decline in the dollar rate at 2 dinars, suggested dinars, or 20 dinars will not have a significant impact on the economic level for the merchants who Atether including the simple movement in the price but it will be sufficient to encourage banks to purchase and conversion."He explained that "it is expected that a continued decline in measured does not affect the confidence-dollar deal by traders and encourage further buying of dollars by banks in an attempt to reduce inflation as a result of the irresponsible economic management."H n

Cheers!
DayDream

Start U.S. Iraq withdrawal in 4-6 months: Democrats - Yahoo! News

"Democrats, who won majorities in the U.S. Congress in last week's elections, said on Sunday they will push for a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq to begin in four to six months. "

Ok, what do you think about this in terms of Iraqi Dinar Investment?

Im still upbeat, but you have to wonder how the recent election could influence or investment.

Chicago Tribune
Iraq girds for shift in U.S. policy
Baghdad fears changes will be too extensive, too fast
By Aamer Madhani
Tribune staff reporter

November 11, 2006

BAGHDAD -- With President Bush set to meet Monday with a bipartisan Iraq study group co-chaired by former Secretary of State James Baker, Iraqis are bracing for a significant shift in U.S. strategy as the White House considers a range of ideas, proposals and options on how to move forward.

After Tuesday's overwhelming Democratic election victory and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's abrupt resignation, Iraq's parliamentarians and political operatives believe that the U.S. approach to their war-torn country is about to undergo a major overhaul.

But the view from Baghdad is that many of the proposals floating around Washington--such as a phased withdrawal, using U.S. forces based outside Iraq only in emergencies or persuading Iran and Syria to get more involved--are fraught with problems, none assuring a certain and quick solution.

"It is probably a good thing for Iraq that there has been this big change in Washington, because it will force the Bush administration to consider new ideas," said legislator Haider al-Ebadi of the Shiite Dawa Party. "The concern is that Washington will impose changes too fast and further than the Iraqis are ready to go."

On Friday, Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said the military would be doing its own review of Iraq strategy.

``We have to give ourselves a good honest scrub about what is working and what is not working, what are the impediments to progress and what should we change about the way we are doing it to make sure that we get to the objective that we set for ourselves,'' Pace told CBS' ``Early Show.''

Said Stephen Hadley, the president's national security adviser, "The president said the other day that what was going on in Iraq in terms of our efforts [was] not working well enough and not working fast enough. And the question is, that being the judgment, how can we do better?"

The 10-member Iraq Study Group, led by Baker and former Rep. Lee Hamilton (D-Ind.), has made several fact-finding missions to Iraq and has interviewed hundreds of officials and experts since it was formed in March. Before the end of the year, it is expected to hand Bush a set of recommendations on how to accelerate progress in Iraq.

Baker is a longtime confidante and adviser to the president's father, former President George H.W. Bush. Robert Gates, the former CIA director picked by the president to succeed Rumsfeld, also has been a member of the group, although White House spokesman Tony Snow said Friday that Gates would be resigning from the panel.

The group meets Monday with the president, Vice President Dick Cheney and Hadley.

For months, various proposals for an alternative Iraq strategy have been bouncing around Washington, with several Democratic leaders and think tanks forwarding programs. The election results gave the Democrats and administration outsiders an opening to push them again.

Proposal for partition

Even before the panel convened, Joseph Biden (D-Del.) of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Leslie Gelb, president emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations, published a proposal that Iraq be divided into three loosely connected states--Kurds in the north, Sunnis in central Iraq and Shiites in the south--that would share oil revenues.

In the past, Bush has expressed strong opposition to such a plan, and the program has little support in Iraq.

Even Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, whose fellow Kurds in the relatively peaceful north would have the most to gain from a partition of Iraq, has said that such a plan is unfeasible for the time being. Others have predicted such a plan would destabilize the region and mark a major step to civil war.

Baker and other members of the Iraq panel have tried to keep their observations and conclusions close to their vests. But in public statements, Baker has indicated he opposes an immediate withdrawal of troops but believes there is an alternative to the "stay the course" stance of the White House.

Biden and others have suggested setting a deadline for most troops to be redeployed outside Iraq, perhaps as early as the end of 2007. A Democratic proposal in the U.S. House would begin the redeployment before the end of this year.

Some propose scaling back U.S. troops to an advisory role or pulling them back to Kurdistan or Kuwait and deploying them quickly only when Iraq's own security forces run into trouble.

Delay on withdrawal sought

But Iraqi officials on the ground say it is too soon to think about shifting U.S. troops out of the country.

Various polls, including one commissioned by the U.S. State Department, show that a vast majority of Iraqis want the U.S. military to withdraw. But Iraqi leaders, even from factions opposed to the presence of U.S. forces, say a pullout must come only after a semblance of normality has been established.

Talabani said Thursday he had spoken with Democratic leaders who assured him there are no plans for a quick pullout.

"One of them told me that any early withdrawal will be a catastrophe for the United States and the world," Talabani told Al Jazeera TV. "We are being subjected to a foreign invasion [of non-Iraqi, anti-U.S. insurgents], and we don't have enough forces to fight this invasion."

Saleem Abdullah, a spokesman for the leading Sunni bloc in parliament, said he has conflicting views about the American presence. Realistically, Iraqis will need U.S. forces to stay seven to 10 more years, he said.

"Personally, it tears at me every day to see these occupiers in our country," Abdullah said. "They are to blame for the broken political system they have put in place and all our hardships. But if they leave too soon it will be chaos."

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), an almost certain contender for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, has suggested the polar opposite to calls for withdrawal. He says the answer may lie in significantly increasing troop levels in Iraq, at least in the short term, beyond the 149,000 already there.

On Wednesday, McCain told reporters in Arizona he thought part of the U.S. military needs to focus on eliminating anti-American cleric Moqtada Sadr. Sadr controls the Mahdi Army militia and is blamed by the U.S. for much of the sectarian killing in Iraq, but he also enjoys an alliance with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a fellow Shiite.

"I believe al-Sadr has to be taken out," McCain said.

Gates, the defense secretary-designate, has said in the past that the U.S. should be open to holding a summit with Iran and Syria to seek their help in securing Iraq's borders from outside insurgents and influencing factions inside the country.

Baker, who recently has met with top Syrian and Iranian officials, has indicated he believes that directly engaging both countries is in the U.S. interest, even though the Bush administration has refused to consider talking to those countries and other perceived enemies.

Baker, who in the past played a significant role in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, also has hinted that he believes solving broader Mideast issues could help in Iraq.

"It's not appeasement to talk to your enemies," Baker told reporters last month.

Repairing relationships

Abbas al-Bayati, a Shiite legislator, said he hopes the Iraq panel also will push the White House to repair its relationship with much of the European community, which was marginalized in Iraq because of its opposition to the war.

"I think the Baker-Hamilton report will make it possible [for] the approach to solving Iraq's problems [to be] internationalized," al-Bayati said. "I think the Americans and European community understand that Iraq is just a square in the Middle East problem that has to be solved and the international community has an interest in solving it."

Moderate Democrats and others who support the phased withdrawal of troops suggest that only this threat may force Iraqi leaders to make difficult decisions toward promoting national reconciliation.

Bush has expressed opposition to timelines because he believes it would give insurgents the ability to wait out the Americans. Iraqi officials also object.

"To come to this country and leave it without a security force that can protect us ... that would be immoral and would leave us in a very difficult situation," al-Bayati said.

By Lolita C. Baldor
11-11-6


WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Pentagon is developing plans that for the first time would send entire National Guard combat brigades back to Iraq for a second tour, the Guard's top general said in the latest sign of how thinly stretched the military has become.

Smaller units and individual troops from the Guard have already returned to Iraq for longer periods, and some active duty units have served multiple tours. Brigades generally have about 3,500 troops.

The move - which could include brigades from North Carolina, Florida, Arkansas and Indiana - would force the Pentagon to make the first large-scale departure from its previous decision not to deploy reserves for more than a cumulative 24 months in Iraq.

For some units, a second tour would mean they would likely exceed that two-year maximum. The planning was described by Lt. Gen. H. Steven Blum, who commands the Guard, in an Associated Press interview this week.

In a related move, the Pentagon is preparing to release a list of active units - and perhaps reserves as well - scheduled to go to Iraq that would largely maintain the current level of forces there over the next two years, another senior defense official said on Thursday. There are about 152,000 U.S. troops in Iraq.

That official requested anonymity because the plan has not been made public.

The Pentagon routinely notifies units to prepare for deployment, knowing it is easier to cancel a move overseas than to suddenly make such a large troop movement.

It was not clear whether this week's resignation of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld would affect deployment plans. President Bush has selected former CIA chief Robert Gates, who has criticized U.S. policy in Iraq, to replace Rumsfeld, but he has not yet been confirmed by the Senate.

"We are doing contingency planning for one or two (units), and we have contingency plans for more than two if necessary," Blum said on Wednesday. The North Carolina brigade, he said, is being considered since it was one of the first to go to Iraq after the war began in 2003.

Blum also said defense officials have been discussing whether they need to adjust their policy that limits the deployment of reserves in the war to 24 months.

"When that policy was originally formulated, I seriously doubt anyone thought we would be where we are today, at the level of commitment that is necessary today," he said.

Just last month, defense officials said the Marines are drawing up similar plans that would for the first time send some reserve combat battalions back to Iraq for a second tour.

Under the authority by which Bush ordered a call-up of the Guard and Reserve after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, troops could be mobilized an unlimited number of times as long as each mobilization is no longer than 24 consecutive months.

Until now, Pentagon officials have interpreted that as 24 cumulative months.

While the ultimate goal for the National Guard is to deploy one year overseas and spend six years at home, Blum said the current demands could force soldiers to deploy as often as one year every three or four years.

Blum said he believes that Guard combat brigades are prepared and willing to make a second trip to Iraq if needed.

Blum said the first units to deploy in the war - such as the 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina, the 76th Infantry Brigade from Indiana, the 53rd Infantry Brigade from Florida, and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas - would likely be among those first called for a second tour.

"Logic would lead you to go back to the ones that went first, and start going around again," said Blum. "But that's probably not exactly how we'll do it" because the decision will depend partly on what types of units are needed.

Blum also said the Pentagon will no longer break up the brigades and send them to war in smaller units. He said the Guard wants to keep brigades together because they are more effective working as a team.

All of the National Guard's combat units have been deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan as a full brigade except South Carolina's 218th Infantry. Smaller groups of its soldiers have been mobilized periodically for homeland defense and numerous missions abroad, including Iraq.

Blum said the remainder of the 218th is preparing to go to Afghanistan next year, if needed.

ًWill increasing salaries reduces inflation pressures?
11/11/2006
Source: Translated by IRAQdirectory.com

The Iraqi economy is suffering, currently, from the aggravation of inflation pressures which are negatively reflected on Iraqi citizens through lower purchasing power due to high prices, which means lower amount of goods and services that can be obtained by the same amount of income at different periods consecutive. For example, if a citizen can get certain goods and services with his income in 2005, he will find himself unable to get the same set of goods and services in 2006 with the same income as a result of higher prices. This will compel citizens to demand increasing their salaries and wages, especially government salaries since government employees can not increase their salaries by themselves, according to the law, unlike the private sector which can face higher prices by increasing the prices of goods and services it provides.

However, will raising salaries treat the increase in prices? Some countries did apply this measure, but can Iraq do it? Although Iraq is an oil country and the price of crude oil has risen in international markets, which means increasing the financial resources of the State and thus enabling it to increase the salaries of employees, but this can only be done according to certain conditions which may not be available in the Iraqi economy, at least in the recent time. The conditions required to apply this measure are as follows:

1 - The private workers must be more, at least the double, than the public sector workers who work in economy. If we look at the Iraqi economy, we find that the number of workers in the public sector has doubled in the last two years; first because of the weakness of the private sector in providing jobs opportunities and second because of the high salaries of government employees which attracted more citizens to apply for such employment or return to it, and this led to inflation in the number of public sector workers and hence low productivity.

2 - the annual inflation rate must be moderate and not more than 10%; thus, the required increase in salaries will be limited and can be provided by the Ministry of Finance, but when the inflation rate is very high, the number of public sector employees increasing and in the number of retirees is increasing too, as the case in Iraq, it will be difficult for Ministry of Finance to afford the large sums of money required to increase the salaries so that to be equivalent to the high rates of prices.

3- the State must have the ability to provide the increase in salaries through local revenue sources such as increasing taxes, increasing the revenue of public institutions through raising the prices of goods and services they provide to citizens or through reducing public expenditure and convert it to salaries so that they do not lead to the increase in the salary increase the supply of money and then aggregate demand and thus higher prices again.

In Iraqi economy, we find that salaries and bonuses pensions constitute a considerable amount of public spending and if we add the amounts of government support of fuel, the ration card, water, electricity and health, it would make a significant proportion of public expenditure. On the other hand, we find that local revenue is still weak; whether tax revenues, because of the security situation and the weakness of private activity which represents the tax base, or the revenue of some public institutions that provide goods and services, which need to be supported by the Ministry of Finance to pay the salaries of its employees.

From here we find that the increase in employees' salaries would lead to an improvement in the standard of their living in the short term but will increase inflationary pressures in the medium term, as happened after the increases in salaries in 2003 and 2004.

We also read this a few weeks ago in the Al-Sabaah.

No solution to the real problem.

They have increase their exchange rate to create purchasing power for their people, to open their doors for foreign investment, increase the oil production and with the revenue of the oil production they have to create jobs to decrease the unemployment.

That's a solution!

Originally Posted by Inscrutable

Believe it means they bought all of what the banks offered to sell.

Is this good or bad....the last 4 auctions they had record highs and now nothing else to buy.....seems fishy like something is in the works....any ideas.

By FREDERICK D. BARTON
Published: November 8, 2006
Washington

IN recent days, Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki of Iraq has made public his disagreement with the dictates and tactics of the United States, including its proposed benchmarks for progress and the presence of military checkpoints around Sadr City.

American authorities view Mr. Maliki’s resistance as worrisome. But it’s just the opposite: his independence is our last best chance for a sustainable Iraq.

For the first time, a real politician appears to be fighting for his life. Whatever Mr. Maliki’s limitations, we may be seeing the emergence of a leader who puts Iraqi concerns above America’s blessing.

The table is now set for the prime minister to demand the phased withdrawal of United States forces from Iraq. In taking that single bold step, Mr. Maliki will do more to develop a political base than any recent Iraqi leader.

By delivering on a key Iraqi aspiration, Mr. Maliki will finally give his people a reason to believe in their government. Iraqi soldiers and police officers will not risk their lives for leaders perceived as Green Zone operatives.

Until recently, Mr. Maliki has run a government in name only. He could not fix a pothole, let alone deliver electricity, a functioning bureaucracy or a broader national strategy. His promises — including a new plan to make Baghdad safe — went unfulfilled. His only prospective allies were Shiite militias, which have their own narrow interests.

But he does have one friend who is eager to be responsive. As America moves away from its Iraq engagement, the United States government is in need of being saved from itself. The administration cannot find a way to leave because of its own early rhetoric and the advocacy of many Democrats for a timetable.

When Mr. Maliki demanded the removal of American checkpoints last week, they were taken down within four hours. When Mr. Maliki declined to sign on to an American timetable for stabilizing Iraq last week, he found himself talking as a peer with President Bush. Iraqis welcome a leader who takes responsibility and stands up to an unpopular foreign force.

The United States has suggested in the past that if the Iraqi government invited us to leave, we would oblige. We must prepare ourselves for this event. While being shown the door is never comfortable, the United States is ready to leave and the conditions are not likely to get better.

The next two years will not be easy, even following this course. Calling for the withdrawal of foreign troops is only a necessary first step to enable Mr. Maliki to deal with Iraq’s enormous challenges. The most pressing are holding the country together, making people safe and distributing Iraq’s oil wealth. Dealing equitably with these issues and delivering results is the best way to expand a political base.

Insurgencies are defeated only when the politics are right. Mr. Maliki must share the authorship of a withdrawal plan with Iraq’s major factions in order to take on the militias and foreign terrorists. Engaging the Sunni nationalists, whose stated opposition to foreign troops has been their central argument, is a start. With the future presence of American forces determined, their role during the coming months would be more likely to enjoy the support of rank-and-file citizens.

The oil deal must get beyond traditional divides. The most promising approach is a tripartite arrangement that splits oil revenues among the national and regional governments and provides a direct benefit to Iraq’s 26 million people. If Mr. Maliki pursues this course, he may well become the leader that Iraq needs.

Mr. Maliki’s new independence is America’s best chance to salvage the muddle Iraq has become. Let’s not get in his way.

Frederick D. Barton is a director of the Post-Conflict Reconstruction Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.