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

Originally Posted by Adster

Well kristin I feel for US members if they do. With the dollar sinking and Iran planning on ditching the dollar too I'd hate to think what the outcome will be. A deep depression for the country.

Well, if the dollar sinks I will just cash out my Dinars as the rate increases or go to Euros. Then convert to Dollars when I can get as many Dollars as possible. Being in the U.S. I would then have more Dollars to buy up cheaper American goods, property and services...

Not bad if you are prepared.

The Oil Connection in Iraq Study Group Report
Abdus Sattar Ghazali

SAN FRANCISCO, 16 December 2006 — A group of Iraqi politicians and ministers is close to finishing a draft of a national oil law that, if enacted, would be the most significant legislation passed by the government so far and help narrow some of the country’s major political schisms, according to the International Herald Tribune.

The working draft calls for the central government in Baghdad to collect oil revenues and distribute them to provinces or regions based on population. The law could also encourage foreign investment in the oil industry.

General George W. Casey Jr., the senior American commander in Iraq, and Zalmay Khalilzad, the US ambassador, have urged Iraqi politicians to put the oil law at the top of their agendas, saying it must be passed before the year’s end.

Interestingly, the Iraq Study Group report released on Dec. 6, emphasized that an equitable oil law was a necessary cornerstone to the process of national reconciliation and thus to ending the war. In a major far reaching recommendation to deal with the situation in Iraq, the report called for opening Iraq to privatize foreign oil and energy companies, providing direct technical assistance for the “drafting” of a new national oil law for Iraq, and assuring that all of Iraq’s oil revenues accrue to the central government.

The ISG said: “Expanding oil production in Iraq over the long term will require creating corporate structures, establishing management systems, and installing competent managers to plan and oversee an ambitious list of major oil-field investment projects.... The United States should encourage investment in Iraq’s oil sector by the international community and by international energy companies.”

It may be recalled that President George W. Bush hired an employee from the US consultancy firm Bearing Point Inc. over a year ago to advise the Iraq Oil Ministry on the drafting and passage of a new national oil law. As previously drafted, the law opens Iraq’s nationalized oil sector to private foreign corporate investment, but stops short of full privatization.

The ISG report, however, goes further, stating that “the United States should assist Iraqi leaders to reorganize the national oil industry as a commercial enterprise.” In addition, the current constitution of Iraq is ambiguous as to whether control over Iraq’s oil should be shared among its regional provinces or held under the central government.

The Iraqi constitution, drafted under US supervision, leaves the door open for regions to take the lead in developing new oil resources. Article 108 states that “oil and gas are the ownership of all the peoples of Iraq in all the regions and governorates,” while Article 109 tasks the federal government with “the management of oil and gas extracted from current fields.” This language has led to contention over what constitutes a “new” or an “existing” resource, a question that has profound ramifications for the ultimate control of future oil revenue.

If the ISG proposals are followed, Iraq’s national oil industry will be privatized and opened to foreign firms and in control of all of Iraq’s oil wealth, says Antonia Juhasz, author of “The Bush Agenda: Invading the World, One Economy at a Time.

However, the proposals should not come as a surprise given that two authors of the report, James A. Baker III and Lawrence Eagleburger, have each spent much of their political and corporate careers in pursuit of greater access to Iraq’s oil and wealth.

Juhasz, in his recent article “Oil for Sale: Iraq Study Group Recommends Privatization,” points out that “pragmatist” is the word most often used to describe Iraq Study Group co-chair James A. Baker III. It is equally appropriate for Lawrence Eagleburger. The term applies particularly well to each man’s efforts to expand US economic engagement with Saddam Hussein throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. Not only did their efforts enrich Hussein and US corporations, particularly oil companies, it also served the interests of their own private firms.

This past July, US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman announced in Baghdad that senior US oil company executives would not enter Iraq without passage of the new law. Petroleum Economist magazine later reported that US oil companies put passage of the oil law before security concerns as the deciding factor over their entry into Iraq.

Put simply, Antonia Juhasz argues, the oil companies are trying to get what they were denied before the war or at anytime in modern Iraqi history: Access to Iraq’s oil under the ground.

The Oil Connection in Iraq Study Group Report

Originally Posted by TerryTate

Just a thought here folks, but if it doesn't reval till the end of the year, that could be a good thing. The reason being is that if it goes this weekend and you cash out next week, you are gonna be paying this years capital gains tax rate, which I believe is 15% (feel free to correct me if this is wrong). But if we wait a few weeks until next year we pay 2007 tax rates, which are lower (wasn't it 0% or 5%). Crazy as this sounds, if it were zero percent I think I would give some money to my government just to say thanks...

In the Tax Thread Please.

Originally Posted by TerryTate

Just a thought here folks, but if it doesn't reval till the end of the year, that could be a good thing. The reason being is that if it goes this weekend and you cash out next week, you are gonna be paying this years capital gains tax rate, which I believe is 15% (feel free to correct me if this is wrong). But if we wait a few weeks until next year we pay 2007 tax rates, which are lower (wasn't it 0% or 5%). Crazy as this sounds, if it were zero percent I think I would give some money to my government just to say thanks...

Careful Terry as those rates less than 15% only apply to certain income levels. Over a certain amount and you are paying the full 15%. For those who are looking at a gross income in 100K band and up (which would be your the combined total of all income and capital gains, they are at risk of getting hammered with AMT (Alternative Minimum Tax). Anyone who is going to have a net income/capital gain in the US of over $100K or so needs to be talking to a tax attorney or accounting firm.

Cheers

Originally Posted by TerryTate

Well, if the dollar sinks I will just cash out my Dinars as the rate increases or go to Euros. Then convert to Dollars when I can get as many Dollars as possible. Being in the U.S. I would then have more Dollars to buy up cheaper American goods, property and services...

Not bad if you are prepared.

Furthermore, the devaluation of the American Dollar looks to me to be linked more so to the push to create a regional currency with Canada and Mexico (The Amero). In order for the three currencies to be joined they would have to be closer to parity right? Just like the middle east is talking about with their joined currencies. Anyway, even when the Dinar ride is over, I will be watching the currency changes unfold. It is because of becoming aware of that information that I am infinitey greatful to this investment and the people that are discussing it here. Thanks.

Lastly, as this is my 100th post, how funny is it that I have quoted myself....

Baghdad, city of broken dreams

Alastair Macdonald and Aseel Kami

Monday, December 11, 2006

Iraq may already be in a civil war or just on the brink of one. But whatever it is, the focus is Baghdad, where all aspects of life are ever more disrupted by sectarian violence and its people ever more weary and afraid.
Drive around the city of seven million in daylight and the signs are clear - rows of shuttered shops, barricaded roads, empty homes. At night, under curfew, gunmen take command. Talk to the people of Baghdad and one hears the voice of a fractured, terrified community.

"We're afraid, depressed, frustrated," said one woman for whom this month should have been among the happiest of her life.

Lina is about to be married, but the 33-year- old said: "I feel such a burden when I think of what might happen on our wedding day."

This year weekly death tolls in the capital have risen from the dozens to the hundreds, notably since February's destruction of a major Shiite shrine in Samarra touched off a wave of reprisals.

Two weeks ago, bombs that killed more than 200 people in the capital in the worst attack of the conflict caused another quantum leap in the fear factor, driving the mildest of men to take up Kalashnikovs and roam the streets to defend their homes.

Already 100,000 Iraqis a month were fleeing abroad, many of them part of a "brain drain" of Baghdad's skilled classes. Now, even more of those who remain are moving, seeking safety in numbers among people of their own sect, Sunni or Shiite Muslim.

"Mortar wars" have broken out between rival neighborhoods in what used to be known as the "City of Peace."

Shops and schools have closed. Workers, merchants and civil servants have been kidnapped in their dozens, many later found tortured and dead on the streets. Teachers are dragged pleading for mercy from their classes.

"I can't go to a photographer. I'm afraid," said bride-to-be Lina. "When my friend married in July it was bad, but this is worse. I'm terrified to go shopping. I should be happy, but I don't feel like a bride."

For family man Abu Marwah, the November 23 bombs in the Shiite slum stronghold of Sadr City were a life-changing moment.

Already his neighborhood was being hit by deadly mortar attacks, a death squad shot and dumped two men near his house, his wife had given up work and his local shops had closed.

But on the night of the bombing, when the 40-year-old translator found himself picking up his Kalashnikov in anger for the first time and preparing to shoot anyone who came near, he realized it was time finally to abandon his home.

Fearful the district would be attacked, he went out on the street, taking orders from tough-talking strangers, all of one sect, who organized the men into defensive positions.

"In my family there are Sunnis and Shiites but I had to choose because my house is in a particular area."

Sitting in the dark, on the roof of the house he had built and lived in for 16 years, he decided it was time to quit Iraq.

"If I die, it will be when God chooses. I'm not afraid," he said, sitting in his office in a suit and tie. "But I was thinking, `What will my family do if something happens to me?' This week I made up my mind to leave."

The exodus - which would be equivalent in terms of its population to a million Americans emigrating every month - is hitting business, deadening the city's economy, which briefly flourished when the US-led invasion ended sanctions.

Mass kidnappings and bombings at markets have disrupted supplies, retailers say. Inflation is running above 50 percent a year but lately prices of some imported luxuries such as coffee and chocolate have leapt by that much in just a week or so.

Hairdresser Um Khaled lamented the drop in trade over her 25 years in business. "Saddam's time was the golden age," she said, echoing many Iraqis who once cheered the fall of the dictator.

"Even a year ago, things were much better," the salon owner said. "I used to have lots of brides come in on their wedding days too. Now I don't take many. I'm too afraid they'll be kidnapped when they leave the shop in their gowns."

Among the hardest hit victims of the troubles are Baghdad's children. Not only are they kept away from parks and street games by anxious parents but their education is suffering badly as many either stay away from class or find schools are shut.

For reasons best known to themselves, militant groups have been attacking colleges and schools, assassinating teachers. Teenager Mohammed said he fled his school this week when militiamen burst in and dragged away the headmaster.

For many, money and an uncertain welcome elsewhere stops them leaving the city. Others though simply find it hard to go.

"I tried going to Jordan this year," said Um Khaled, but she found the small familiar things of home too hard to abandon.

"I missed our wooden Baghdad fish carts," she said. "Even though now I think of them carrying bodies after bombs go off.

"I won't quit because I love Iraq."

REUTERS

Recently, somewhere, I saw an article about actors staging a play in an outdoor theatre...the spirit of the people is not broken and given the chance theirs could recover and be once again the City of Peace....
I'm afraid that the violence has become institutionalized, that is, that it has become an ingrained part of their daily lives...they put up with it, and suffer, instead of getting angry and doing something about it.
I don't understand for the life of me why the govmint allows this to continue. Is it just that Maliki is under Sadr's thumb? I agree that the solution is largely economic, but as long as the govt stands by and allows the militias to do what they want, the road to success is going to be hard going...bombed and bombed out I would say...

OSWoman

Originally Posted by DesertNuke

This is big and I mean BIG!!! I have worked in the past in the sales industry and if you want to "get the sale" you throw all your best at him/her in order to capture that client. To have the bank manager go over financial services like that in hopes of keeping the money in house says something........somethings comin' and it's BIG!!!!!

can i get a WOOT???!!!!!

WOoT!!!!!

for anyone who is interested here is a link to a website that has links to Iraqi newpaper websites
and Iraqi news websites.
if any of the websites come up in Arabic just copy the page and run it through the Google translater.
Iraq Newspapers - Iraq Newspaper & News Media Guide

Originally Posted by Innkeeper1

not to throw ice water on this but the only thing that gets me about these type of stories is , if the bank manager really had this kinda (inside) information he and all his tellers would be buying up dinar like crazy wouldnt they?? and everyone else they know.. just seams hard to swallow, I stopped by my local chase and order 1 million more today.. they dont know if it will come in on a saturday or not lets hope cause if it revales b4 monday i doubt very seriously if i would get it for my purchase price..course with sum of these tellers and banks not having a clue whats going on maybe i would..lol they tried to sell it to me at their buy price again..

that would be blatant insider trading and i suspect bank personnel would be busted in big ways over that sort of stuff...

Originally Posted by lndmn_01

see my comments/questions in red above...

did i read moldy bags say not to base your thoughts on old outdated information??

musta found a mirror...