Thursday, March 17, 2005

All about the Benjamins

During any protest for the Iraqi war you will see at least one sometimes more, sign that states "NO BLOOD FOR OIL" or something similar. Conservatives like to say pithy comments such as "If we were really in the war for the oil, were is the oil?" given the high price of oil right now.

However it really was about the oil, the monetary unit that controls the oil.

The petro dollar makes the US function. Almost two-thirds of the world's currency reserves are kept in dollars, because oil importers pay in dollars and oil exporters keep their reserves in the currency they are paid in. The entire global oil trade was conducted in dollars. This means that everyone needs to keep dollars. Since 1971 the dollar was no longer measured in terms of gold. This removed the restraints on printing new dollars. The dollar has become the world’s dominant currency and the core reserve asset of central banks all over the world. It has replaced gold as an international currency. This money is invested in dollar securities like US Treasury notes, stocks, mutual funds, and bonds. The US dollar's current strength is supported by OPEC’s requirement that all OPEC oil sales be denominated in dollars. This was done by an agreement between the US administration and Saudi Arabia. In 1975 OPEC officially agreed to sell its oil only for dollars.

Now enter the euro, which many felt was created with the direct purpose of ending the control the US has on the dollar being the reserve currency, in 1999. The dollar as the main reserve unit starts to be slowly replaced by the euro, in 2000 Saddam makes a decision that very few of us heard about here. He replaced the dollar with the euro, the first OPEC nation to not follow the agreement made in 1975. Saddam made a huge profit from the switch to euros. Other nations start to discuss switching to the euro as well. Libya, Iran, Russia, even Saudi Arabia where comments such as changing the petro dollar to the euro would be more of an effective punishment against the US than an oil embargo. In 2003 Putin announced Russia was seriously considering chaning to the euro.

If you now start connecting some of the dots things become very clear. If the dollar looses it's status as the current reserve and petro dollar it would have a serious blow to the US economy. Some predict worse than the crash in the late 1920's. After 9/11 many wondered why Saudi Arabia was never seriously called into question when all of the terrorists came from Saudi Arabia. The real reason why nothing was done is the petrodollar. If Saudi Arabia would support an immediate change to the euro all of OPEC would follow. Why did the US go against the UN? Why didn't the UN support a war in Iraq? The petrodollar. The main countries that did not support the war also have the most to gain in a switch to the euro. Who had the most to loose? The United States, and the first thing we did after taking over Iraq was to change the petrodollar back to the US dollar rather than the euro in Iraq.

Is the US preparing for this financial crisis on our horizon? It does not appear so, we are still spending like drunken sailors (sorry to the sober sailors). It appears our Government after removing Saddam has a false sense of security that no one else would dare to change to the euro for petrodollars. Enter a rumor, granted it is just a rumor but still worth being taken seriously written about at Rigorous Intuition, towards the end of this article it states:

The Café and GATA (Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee) have developed quite the information network around the world. On that note I am passing on what I am hearing from a solid source. None of this can go in the verified camp, so it all must be treated as rumor until we receive proper verification:

Russia is preparing for possible war and its actions on the dollar indicate just that; they are going to back Syria, Iran. China will back Iran.

Russia has made deals on oil and gas projects and opened its minerals to trading. This should show soon in response to Chinese raw materials buying.

Russia has also abandoned efforts to tie the ruble's movement closely to the dollar and switched to shadowing both the euro and the US currency. This is the first step to war. Other countries operating de facto dollar pegs will follow suit. With 81 per cent of Russia's oil exports currently sold to Europe, the move means that Russia will eventually denominate its oil in euros.

Asia is following Russia, or should I say leading, and is about to dump dollars in sizeable chunks; they believe that the U.S. dollar is no longer seen as a stable currency and it appears that Malaysia will be the first major Asian economy to dump the dollar. China has already calculated when they will optimize the dumping of the dollar to provide the greatest strength to a newly un-pegged Yuan. Both events will occur very close together and it will be planned to do the most damage to the US.


To be clear, this is just a rumor, however Russia has stated in the past they are considering a switch to the euro. Iran has also discussed it, if you follow the pattern it appears when something is said about Iran and euros is when the Bush administration steps up it's "axis of evil" type comments about Iran. However the real risk to the United States is not terrorism, it is a forced monetary collapse. This would bring about the end of our world monetary control and cause a huge blow to our economy.

It's something we should be aware of and demanding answers for.

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