WO3 al aan de gang: "Hegemonie Amerikaanse dollar"

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Op zondag 13 augustus 2006 13:52 schreef DeepThought het volgende:
Ik snapte 'm wel, ben het ook met je eens, maar ik vond de beeldspraak gewoon erg treffend in dit verband... en hilarisch!

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Op zondag 13 augustus 2006 15:16 schreef BewustNederland het volgende:

Ben benieuwd wanneer we tot inzicht komen dat geweld alleen maar zorgt voor nog meer geweld en een dusdanige vicieuze cirkel in stand houden.

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Op zondag 13 augustus 2006 17:46 schreef -scorpione- het volgende:
Ach, dat is helemaal niet de interessante vraag.

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Op zondag 13 augustus 2006 10:24 schreef pberends het volgende:

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En:

Google Video: Masters of the Universe - The Secret Birth of the Federal Reserve
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Op dinsdag 8 augustus 2006 16:15 schreef mgerben het volgende:
Interessant verhaal in de OP. Goede analyse, maar er zit iets niet lekker.
Dat de Dollar de standaardmunt is en dat Amerika er afhankelijk van is, prima onderbouwd.

Maar.
De schrijver stelt dat Amerika ten oorlog trok vanwege de opmerking van Saddam dat hij de Euro wilde gebruiken ipv de dollar. Dat zou de unieke positie van de dollar op de helling zetten.

Ik denk dat Amerika dit niet kan voorkomen. De dollar gaat op de helling vanwege economische krachten, zoals de 500 miljard dollar handelsonbalans.
Op een gegeven moment heeft de wereld zo veel geld aan Amerika geleend dat ze er mee ophouden.
Op dat moment kan Amerika oorlog voeren tegen wie ze wil, maar je kunt niet de hele wereld dwingen om in dollars te handelen.

Dus mijn punt is: Met die oorlog konden ze Sadam wel afstraffen, maar ze kunnen de economische beweging niet beteugelen.

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Klopt, daarom vind ik de aanval op Irak vanwege een opmerking over de dollar nogal overdreven.
Maar het verhaal over de dollar zelf is, hoewel het naar de negatieve kant neigt, goed onderbouwd.
Vooral het gegeven dat Amerika 500 miljard per jaar leent van de wereld hoor je ook in andere bronnen, en je kunt op je vingers natellen dat dat niet altijd zo kan blijven.

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In dit zeer leesbare, verder goed onderbouwde verhaal wordt sterk gesuggereerd dat Amerika Irak binnenviel om de rest van de wereld te laten zien: Dit is wat er gebeurt als je iets over de dollar zegt.

De link wordt gelegd: Sadam heeft uitspraak X gedaan. Vervolgens viel Amerika Irak aan. Ergo: Amerika viel Irak binnen vanwege die uitspraak.

Je mag van Amerika denken wat je wilt, maar die uitspraak van SH is gewoon geen reden voor een oorlog.

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Revisited - The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq

by William Clark

Although a collective switch by OPEC would be extremely unlikely barring a major panic on the U.S. dollar, it would appear that a gradual transition is quite plausible. Furthermore, despite Saudi Arabia being our `client state,' the Saudi regime appears increasingly weak/threatened from massive civil unrest. Some analysts believe civil unrest might unfold in Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Gulf states in the aftermath of an unpopular U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq [3]. Undoubtedly, the Bush administration is acutely aware of these risks. Hence, the neo-conservative framework entails a large and permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region in a post-Saddam era, just in case we need to surround and control Saudi's large Ghawar oil fields in the event of a Saudi coup by an anti-western group. But first back to Iraq.

"Saddam sealed his fate when he decided to switch to the euro in late 2000 (and later converted his $10 billion reserve fund at the U.N. to euros) -- at that point, another manufactured Gulf War become inevitable under Bush II. Only the most extreme circumstances could possibly stop that now and I strongly doubt anything can -- short of Saddam getting replaced with a pliant regime.

"Big Picture Perspective: Everything else aside from the reserve currency and the Saudi/Iran oil issues (i.e. domestic political issues and international criticism) is peripheral and of marginal consequence to this administration. Further, the dollar-euro threat is powerful enough that they will rather risk much of the economic backlash in the short-term to stave off the long-term dollar crash of an OPEC transaction standard change from dollars to euros. All of this fits into the broader Great Game that encompasses Russia, India, China."

This information about Iraq's oil currency is not discussed by the U.S. media or the Bush administration as the truth could potentially curtail both investor and consumer confidence, reduce consumer borrowing/spending, create political pressure to form a new energy policy that slowly weans us off Middle-Eastern oil, and of course stop our march towards a war with Iraq. This quasi `state secret' is addressed in a Radio Free Europe article that discussed Saddam's switch for his oil sales from dollars to the euros, to be effective November 6, 2000:

"Baghdad's switch from the dollar to the euro for oil trading is intended to rebuke Washington's hard-line on sanctions and encourage Europeans to challenge it. But the political message will cost Iraq millions in lost revenue. RFE/RL correspondent Charles Recknagel looks at what Baghdad will gain and lose, and the impact of the decision to go with the European currency." [4]

At the time of the switch many analysts were surprised that Saddam was willing to give up approximately $270 million in oil revenue for what appeared to be a political statement. However, contrary to one of the main points of this November 2000 article, the steady depreciation of the dollar versus the euro since late 2001 means that Iraq has profited handsomely from the switch in their reserve and transaction currencies. Indeed, The Observer surprisingly divulged these facts in a recent article entitled: `Iraq nets handsome profit by dumping dollar for euro,' (February 16, 2003).

"A bizarre political statement by Saddam Hussein has earned Iraq a windfall of hundreds of millions of euros. In October 2000 Iraq insisted upon dumping the US Dollar -- `the currency of the enemy' -- for the more multilateral euro." [5]

Although Iraq's oil currency switch appears to be completely censored by the U.S. media conglomerates, this UK article illustrates that the euro has gained almost 25% against the dollar since late 2001, which also applies to the $10 billion in Iraq's U.N. `oil for food' reserve fund that was previously held in dollars has also gained that same percent value since the switch. It was reported in 2003 that Iraq's UN reserve fund had swelled from $10 billion dollars to 26 billion euros. According to a former government analyst, the following scenario would occur if OPEC made an unlikely, but sudden (collective) switch to euros, as opposed to a gradual transition.

"Otherwise, the effect of an OPEC switch to the euro would be that oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their (central bank) reserve funds and replace these with euros. The dollar would crash anywhere from 20-40% in value and the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse and massive inflation (think Argentina currency crisis, for example). You'd have foreign funds stream out of the U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets, there'd surely be a run on the banks much like the 1930s, the current account deficit would become unserviceable, the budget deficit would go into default, and so on. Your basic 3rd world economic crisis scenario.

"The United States economy is intimately tied to the dollar's role as reserve currency. This doesn't mean that the U.S. couldn't function otherwise, but that the transition would have to be gradual to avoid such dislocations (and the ultimate result of this would probably be the U.S. and the E.U. switching roles in the global economy)."

Although the above scenario is unlikely, and most assuredly undesirable, under certain economic conditions it is plausible. In fact, one of the conditions that could create such an environment is a near unilateral U.S. led war in the Middle East. For example, a large spike in oil prices could create huge problems for the imperiled Japanese banking system, the world's largest holder of U.S. dollar reserves. Unfortunately the current Bush administration has chosen a military option instead of a multilateral conference on monetary reform to resolve these issues. In the aftermath of toppling Saddam it is clear the U.S. will keep a large and permanent military force in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, there is no talk of an `exit strategy,' as the military will be needed to protect the newly installed regime, and to send a message to other OPEC producers that they too might receive `regime change' if they convert their oil payments to euros.


[knip]


On April 28, 2003, I read the first article in the mainstream US media (msnbc.com) since the autumn of 2000 that addressed some of the issues regarding Iraqi oil exports in the euro. Apparently until the U.N. sanctions were lifted; Iraq's oil was to remain under UN control in the "oil for food" program. However, UN Resolution 1483 passed on May 22, 2003 establishing a joint US/UK administered "Iraqi Assistance Fund" which provided the mechanism to quietly and legally reconvert Iraqi's oil exports back to the dollar. To reiterate, the following excerpts from this forthright msnbc.com article is the only mainstream US media reference that I could locate during 2003 that discussed the Iraq war and the underlying petrodollar versus petroeuro issues. It was entitled "In Round 2, It's the Dollar versus the Euro" (implying the Iraq war was `Round 1').

A new world is being created. Ironically, the most troublesome clash of civilizations in it may not be the one the academics expected: not Islamic fundamentalists vs. the West in the first instance, but the United States against Europe.

To oversimplify, but only slightly, it's the dollar vs. the euro.

. . . The Europeans and the United Nations want the inspections regime to resume because as long as it is in place, the U.N. "oil-for-food" program remains in effect. Not only does France benefit directly-its banks hold the deposits and its companies have been involved in the oil sales-the entire EU does as well, if for no other reason than many of the recent sales were counted not in dollars but in euros. The United Nations benefits because it has collected more than a billion dollars in fees for administering the program. As long as the 1990 sanctions remain in effect, Iraq can't "legally" sell its oil on the world market. At least, to this point, tankers won't load it without U.N. permission, because they can't get insurance for doing so.

Sometime in the next few weeks, push will come to shove. There are storage tanks full of Iraqi crude waiting in Turkish ports. For now, Rumsfeld and Powell are playing "bad cop, bad cop." "This isn't on the president's radar screen right now," an aide told me. "Powell is totally on board, though. He is as angry at the French as anyone else, maybe more. There may come a time when the smart thing to do is turn the whole Iraq situation over to the U.N. This is not that time." Meanwhile, if the rest of the world tries to block any and all Iraq oil sales, it's possible that American companies will find a way to become the customer of first and last resort.

And we'll pay in dollars. [55]

Although the author addressed this subject somewhat obliquely, his final sentence is quite candid. Indeed, my original hypothesis from December 2002 was reinforced in a Financial Times article dated June 5th 2003 which confirmed Iraqi oil sales returning to the international markets were once again denominated in U.S. dollars, not euros. Not surprisingly, this detail was never mentioned in our imperialist, corporate-controlled US media, but confirmation of this fact provides insight into one of the crucial -- yet overlooked -- rationales for the Iraq war.

Bron: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.pdf
Website: http://www.ratical.org/ratville/CAH/RRiraqWar.html

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Nieuwe signalen afkoeling economie VS

Het begint er steeds meer op te lijken dat de Amerikaanse economie behoorlijk afkoelt. Een graadmeter die de ontwikkelingen voor de komende zes maanden aangeeft, is in juli 0,1 procent gedaald. Dat heeft het onderzoeksinstituut Conference Board donderdag bekendgemaakt.

Het afgelopen halfjaar stond de index van zogenoemde leading indicators al vier keer in de min. Analisten waren in hun voorspellingen over juli aan de voorzichtige kant met een stijging van 0,1 procent. Op een daling hadden ze echter niet gerekend. Op Wall Street leidde de publicatie van het cijfer echter niet tot koersverliezen. De beursgraadmeters stonden net iets boven de slotstanden van woensdag. Afname van de groei kan namelijk ook positief worden uitgelegd: Het betekent dat er minder kans is op inflatie (positief) en verdere renteverhogingen door de centrale bank.

Eerder deze week bleek dat er in de Verenigde Staten in het tweede kwartaal minder huizen zijn verkocht. Ook dat wijst er op dat de groei van de Amerikaanse economie afneemt. De afgelopen jaren gaven de Amerikanen veel geld uit door leningen af te sluiten met de overwaarde van hun woning als onderpand.

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Robert Newman's History of Oil

Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at school, he places oil centre stage as the cause of all the commotion.

This innovative history programme is based around Robert Newman's stand-up act and supported by resourceful archive sequences and stills with satirical impersonations of historical figures from Mayan priests to Archduke Ferdinand. Quirky details such as a bicycle powered street lamp on the stage brings home the pertinent question of just how we are going to survive when the world's oil supplies are finally exhausted.

Video Google:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=7374585792978336967

Website: http://www.robnewman.com/index.html

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Op maandag 18 december 2006 19:05 schreef pberends het volgende:

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Do the math...

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Bij Iran lijken echter niet alleen economische motieven te spelen. De regering van Iran en de VS staan elkaar al jaren naar het leven.

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Op maandag 18 december 2006 21:57 schreef icecreamfarmer_NL het volgende:
Hmm dat zie ik niet gebeuren een atoombom afwerpen dat kan zelfs de VS zich niet veroorloven.