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Billy Joe McAllister
Joined: 12 Jan 2003
Posts: 249
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 Tue Feb 11, 2003 12:10 am
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quote:
I just don't adhere to any dogma of any kind.
The thing you need to do FLK, is recognize BS when you see it. See the above statement by Gas, for example. My BS meter was just pegged. Yours will be as well one day when you become a true conservative.  |
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Mech
Joined: 06 Jun 2001
Posts: 8237
Location: THE 4th REICH USA |
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Tue Feb 11, 2003 12:47 am
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No Swamp.... Don't be a hypocrite. A SO-CALLED "conservative" RepubliKKKan is not much different from a "conservative" DemoRAT.
If you really value freedom...be a CONSTITUTIONALIST!!!
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Mech on 02-10-2003] |
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FLKook
Joined: 28 Apr 2001
Posts: 710
Location: East Central Florida |
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Tue Feb 11, 2003 3:25 am
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Better yet a conservative constitutionalist! |
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Raelven
Joined: 01 Feb 2003
Posts: 123
Location: Númenor |
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Tue Feb 11, 2003 7:07 am
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quote:
In any case, I stand by my original comments. The US hasn't paid US dollars for Iraqi oil since the gulf war.
Perhaps payment is made with cases of Spam?
Facing its most chronic shortage in oil stocks for 27 years, the US has this month turned to an unlikely source of help -Iraq. Weeks before a prospective invasion of Iraq, the oil-rich state has doubled its exports of oil to America, helping US refineries cope with a debilitating strike in Venezuela.
After the loss of 1.5 million barrels per day of Venezuelan production in December the oil price rocketed, and the scarcity of reserves threatened to do permanent damage to the US oil refinery and transport infrastructure. To keep the pipelines flowing, President Bush stopped adding to the 700m barrel strategic reserve.
But ultimately oil giants such as Chevron, Exxon, BP and Shell saved the day by doubling imports from Iraq from 0.5m barrels in November to over 1m barrels per day to solve the problem. Essentially, US importers diverted 0.5m barrels of Iraqi oil per day heading for Europe and Asia to save the American oil infrastructure.
The trade, though bizarre given current Pentagon plans to launch around 300 cruise missiles a day on Iraq, is legal under the terms of UN's oil for food programme. (Gotta wonder about that program)
US buys up Iraqi oil to stave off crisis
quote:
The argument that the motivation for war is somehow related to the idea that Sadam prefers Euros, is a ridiculous argument on it's face and indicates a common lack of understanding as to how the world markets work.
Spam and Oil Sandwich, anyone?
1 EUR = .86 USD
This means one Euro equals $.86 in U.S. dollars, or 1.16 EUR = $1.00 U.S.
Oil is not just by far the most important commodity traded internationally, it is the lifeblood of all modern industrialised economies.
If you don’t have oil, you have to buy it. And if you want to buy oil on the international markets, you usually have to have dollars.
Until recently all OPEC countries agreed to sell their oil for dollars only. So long as this remained the case, the euro was unlikely to become the major reserve currency: there is not a lot of point in stockpiling euros if every time you need to buy oil you have to change them into dollars.
This arrangement also meant that the US effectively part-controlled the entire world oil market: you could only buy oil if you had dollars, and only one country had the right to print dollars - the US.
If on the other hand OPEC were to decide to accept euros only for its oil, then American economic dominance would be over.
Not only would Europe not need as many dollars anymore, but Japan which imports over 80% of its oil from the Middle East would think it wise to convert a large portion of its dollar assets to euro assets (Japan is the major subsidizer of the US because it holds so many dollar investments).
The US on the other hand, being the world's largest oil importer would have, to run a trade surplus to acquire euros.
The conversion from trade deficit to trade surplus would have to be achieved at a time when its property and stock market prices were collapsing and its domestic supplies of oil and gas were contracting. It would be a very painful conversion.
The purely economic arguments for OPEC converting to the euro, at least for a while, seem very strong. The Euro-zone does not run a huge trade deficit nor is it heavily indebted to the rest of the world like the US and interest rates in the Euro-zone are also significantly higher.
The Euro-zone has a larger share of world trade than the US and is the Middle East’s main trading partner.
And nearly everything you can buy for dollars you can also buy for euros - apart, of course, from oil.
The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War with Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geostrategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth
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Elen síla lumenn' omentielvo!
[Edited 1 times, lastly by Raelven on 02-11-2003] |
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