Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: Una buona ragione per l'invasione

Interessante, l'ha tirata fuori Artamano oggi.
E' vero l'Irak aveva cominciato a vendere petrolio contro Euro.
Calcio nelle palle agli USA.
What precipitated all of this was not September 11, nor a sudden realization
that Saddam was still a nasty guy, nor just the change in leadership in the
United States. What precipitated it was Iraq's November 6, 2000 switch to
the EURO as the currency for its oil transactions. At the time of the
switch, it might have seemed daft that Iraq was giving up such a lot of oil
revenue to make a political statement. But that political statement has been
made and the steady depreciation of the dollar against the euro since then
means that Iraq has derived good profits from switching its reserve and
transaction currencies. The euro has gained about 17 percent against the
dollar since that time, which also applies to the $10 billion held in Iraq's
United Nations "oil for food" reserve fund.
So the question arises, as it did for George Bush, what happens if OPEC
makes a sudden switch to euros? In a nutshell, all hell breaks loose.
At the end of World War II, an agreement was reached at the Bretton Woods
Conference which pegged the value of gold at $35 per ounce and that became
the international standard against which currency was measured. But in 1971,
Richard Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard and ever since, the
dollar has been the most important global monetary instrument, and only the
United States can produce them. The dollar, now a fiat currency, is at a
16-year trade-weighted high despite record U.S. current-account deficits and
the status of the U.S. as the leading debtor nation. The U.S. national debt
as of April 4, 2002 was $6.021 trillion against GDP of $9 trillion.
Trade between nations has become a cycle in which the U.S. produces dollars
and the rest of the world produces things that dollars can buy. Nations no
longer trade to capture comparative advantage but rather to capture needed
dollars to service dollar-denominated foreign debts and to accumulate dollar
reserves in order to sustain the exchange value of their domestic
currencies. In an effort to prevent speculative and potentially harmful
attacks on their currencies, those nations' central banks must acquire and
hold dollar reserves in amounts corresponding to their own currencies in
circulation. This creates a built-in support for a strong dollar that in
turn forces the world's central banks to acquire and hold even more dollar
reserves, making the dollar stronger still.
This phenomenon is known as "dollar hegemony," which is created by the
geopolitically constructed peculiarity that critical commodities, most
notably oil, are denominated in dollars. Everyone accepts dollars because
dollars can buy oil.
The reality is that the strength of the dollar since 1945 rests on being the
international reserve currency for global oil transactions (i.e.,
"petro-dollar"). The U.S. prints hundreds of billions of these fiat
petro-dollars, which are then used by nation states to purchase oil and
energy from OPEC producers (except presently Iraq and, to some degree,
Venezuela). These petro-dollars are then re-cycled from OPEC back into the
U.S. via Treasury Bills or other dollar-denominated assets such as U.S.
stocks, real estate, etc. The recycling of petro-dollars is the price the
U.S. has extracted since 1973 from oil-producing countries for U.S.
tolerance of the oil-exporting cartel.
Dollar reserves must be invested in U.S. assets which produces a
capital-accounts surplus for the U.S. economy. Despite poor market
performance during the past year, U.S. stock valuation is still at a 25-year
high and trading at a 56 percent premium compared with emerging markets. The
U.S. capital-account surplus finances the U.S. trade deficit.
Since it is the U.S. that prints the petro-dollars, they control the flow of
oil. Period. When oil is denominated in dollars through U.S. state action
and the dollar is the only fiat currency for trading in oil, an argument can
be made that the U.S. essentially owns the world's oil for free.
So what happens if OPEC as a group decides to follow Iraq's lead and
suddenly begins trading oil on the euro standard? Economic meltdown.
Oil-consuming nations would have to flush dollars out of their central bank
reserves and replace them with euros. The dollar would crash in value and
the consequences would be those one could expect from any currency collapse
and massive inflation (think of Argentina for an easy example). Foreign
funds would stream out of U.S. stock markets and dollar denominated assets;
there would 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.
And that's just in the United States. Japan would be particularly hard hit
because of total dependence on foreign oil and incredible sensitivity to the
U.S. dollar. If Japan's economy tumbles, so does that of many other
countries, especially the United States in a crescendo of dominos.
Now, this is the potential effect of a "sudden" switch to euros. A more
gradual shift might be manageable but even that would change the financial
and political balance of the world. Given the size of the European market,
its population, its need for oil (it actually imports more oil than the
U.S.), it may be rapidly approaching that the euro will become the de facto
monetary standard for the world.
There are some good reasons for OPEC as a group to follow Iraq and begin to
value oil in euros. There seems little doubt that they would relish the
opportunity to make a political statement after years of having to kowtow to
the U.S., but there are solid economic reasons as well.
The mighty dollar has reigned supreme since 1945, and in the last few years
has gained even more ground with the economic dominance of the United
States. By the late 1990s, more than four-fifths of all foreign exchange
transactions, and half of all world exports, were denominated in dollars. In
addition, U.S. currency accounts for about two thirds of all official
exchange reserves. The world's dependency on U.S. dollars to pay for trade
has seen countries bound to dollar reserves, which are disproportionately
higher than America's share of global output.
It is important to note that the euro is not at any disadvantage versus the
dollar when one compares the relative sizes of the economies involved,
especially given the E.U. enlargement plans. Moreover, the E.U. has a bigger
share of global trade than the U.S. and while the U.S. has a huge current
account deficit, the E.U. has a more balanced external accounts position.
One of the more compelling arguments for keeping oil pricing and payments in
dollars has been that the U.S. remains a large importer of oil, despite
being a substantial producer itself. But the EU is an even larger importer
of oil and petroleum products than the U.S., and represents for OPEC a more
attractive market, closer and less domineering.
The point of Bush's war against Iraq, therefore, is to secure control of
those oil fields and revert their valuation to dollars, then to increase
production exponentially, forcing prices to drop. Finally, the point of
Bush's war is to threaten significant action against any of the oil
producers who would switch to the euro.
In the long run, then, it is not really Saddam who is the target; it is the
euro and, therefore, Europe. There is no way the United States will sit by
idly and let those upstart Europeans take charge of their own fate, let
alone of the world's finances.
--
http://www.hyperlinker.com/spg/
-
http://www.hyperlinker.com/spg/spg_it_1.htm
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 Calcio nelle palle agli USA.
Anche la Russia vende petrolio contro euro invaderanno anche quella? :-)

, 
 
kurt...@despammed.com
 
 unit stupidamente ebbe a dire:

No stanno aspettando che cada a pezzi da sola.


purtroppo per loro la Russia oggi appare in ascesa

 purtroppo per loro la Russia oggi appare in ascesa
Hanno sempre la carta Cecenia da giocare.

 Hanno sempre la carta Cecenia da giocare.
Col petrolio alto la Russia č in ascesa (e viceversa). Pil previsto per il
2004: +6%

 per il 2004: +6%
mmm io avevo sentito un +8% con possibilità di arrivare fino al +10%.
Comunque la Cecenia ormai così completamente distrutta non rappresenta più
un grosso rischio. A parte i terroristi suicidi di Al Qaeda (contro i quali
Putin ha gioco molto libero) e i giochi mafiosi (dei quali l'omicidio di
Kadirov sembra faccia parte) non c'è più una guerriglia temibile e
organizzata come quella del 1994-1996