Iran ends oil transactions in U.S. dollars

Here it comes, the final act of the Empire. Buckle your seatbelts.

The dollar as a medium of exchange is really bad right now, and has been getting worse for the past couple of years. I know because it's Iran people will say it's political, but we'll probably be seeing more 'reputable' nations doing in this in the future if the dollar continues its downward spiral.

The fed cut interest rates again today. Combined with news of Iran's currency shift, expect the dollar to fall.

lol devo

The Great Babylon has fallen.Ironically,Iran is old Babylon and America is the new Babylon.Great empires always fall from inside corruption first. The sooner we as a nation come out of our denial of invincibilty,the great chance we have for a recovery.The longer we wait,we may never recovery.Attacking Iran for their oil is not the answer,it's just the real reason, as it was in Iraq.

Don't the Iranians know the threat of stopping use of the dollar got him attacked and killed? Just know this we are after their oil for the major oil companies not the government. Thank you Bill Clinton for making an ignorant populace possible by allowing consolidation of the media by corporations involved in the manufacture of war equipment. Be sure and vote for Hillary or McCain so we can watch the total destruction of our country.

really , i can't think of any better program to bring Iran and the US together than the "sister cities" thing - if every city in america joined hands with a city in Iran , it would further real , grass roots human binds between the 2 countries - but , having Iran branded as a sponsor of terror sort of complicates things huh ? oh well , it was just an idea.

I think this might be a good thing because Iran will have less leverage with the U.S. if the U.S. commences troop activity on the Iran boarder.

The more financially integrated nations are with each other the more leverage they have on one another. This can be seen with China and the 2000 election between Gore and Bush. Bush had a hard line with China but once he won the Oval Office his position changed to a much more mild tone.

Why you might ask. Economic integration between the U.S. and China. Hard to bite the hand that feeds you, at least from a fiscal policy point of view.

well, that's been threatened by them for about ... is it one year? two? five?

the US dollar keeps depreciating, mostly due to our government's inflationary process of increasing M1, M2 and M3 much faster than the economy can absorb it, mainly to produce the "dollars" [deliberately in quotes] to pay for the mideast war.

if the tables were turned, every sane economist in our country would be advocating the same thing.... when you're selling something, you don't want the value of the money you're GETTING to be falling year after year, and not due to anything YOU'RE doing!

it's a wise economic move on their part, whether it hurts us or anyone else in the world.

it might be a wake-up call to Washington that they can't just debase our currency forever with no repercussions.

some of you may be too young to remember this, but when Saudi Arabia unilaterally raised the price of oil back in the early 1970s, you could just as well blame the Saudis who had just gotten MBAs from Stanford and Wharton, who suddenly realized that the "product" they'd been selling had been underpriced by the oil companies who helped them develop the reserves... US companies.

they raised the price to new, better [for them] "market-clearing prices," made tons of [hello, Nancy Pelosi and Hillary and Barack] "windfall profits" and the world took several years to adjust to the new prices, but it did.

so this is the same thing over again.

interestingly enough, the depreciation of the US dollar has made many US exports more affordable around the world, and our exports have been picking up as a result, to the detriment of china, india, and many other countries who enjoyed large export business to us.

for some, "simple economics" is too complex; for others, it's a heart-rending populist weapon to get votes. in the long run, it never works, any more than Nixon's wage and price controls did, but you're probably too young to remember that.... i was employed and getting a salary back then. how do you think i felt when my company announced "no new raises because the gummint suggested it to them"?

and that didn't work, either, any more than Jerry Ford's "Whip Inflation Now" buttons did. I changed my button to say "WHIM", because that seemed to be how they came up with those ideas, and my managers asked me to remove my pin.

some time later, Carter's economic policies failed, too.

that's what i like about the younger generations: they're never unwilling to re-invent the same problems we dealt with decades ago.

(((((M_M))))), by the way... XOXOOXOXOXOOXO

The world is falling apart. It's okay because Plusaf still likes me.

(((((M_M))))) both have been true for a LONG time, M.

plusaf, well put. I'd also like to point out that it is no coincidence that the Fed no longer publishes M3 data (since 2006). They are deliberately trying to hide how much inflation they are generating. The government will never be able to "manage" the economy the way the pure "invisible hand" of a free market with sound money can. While Carter was basically as ineffectual as Ford at least he appointed Paul Volcker as Fed Chairman who, through drastic measures, was able to tame the beast. Greenspan and Bernanke have been playing the "avoid-recession-at-all-costs" game for so long that they have just been making the inevitable downfall worse.

Thank you.

@Hawkmang... thanks.. i'll correct that error... slip of the old mind... i'm old enough to suffer from CRS...
then i'll delete this...

neither one of them was a favorite of mine... as were none of the others who followed.... :)

and SPOT ON about the gumblement's desire to hide the M-numbers from scrutiny. follow the money... follow the data that's hidden from you, and heck yes, that Volcker was a good guy and Greenspan and Bernanke should at the very least, have their mouths duck-taped shut, maybe 364.99 days of the year.

was it milton friedman who said that the Fed Chairman should be replaced by a trained horse? ... one which knew only two tricks.... once a year, they'd bring the horse out onto the front portico of the Fed and ask the horse, "What should the Fed rate be for the next year?"
the horse would stomp one hoof five times.
the next question put to the horse would be "do you mean 5%?"
the horse would nod his head, whinny a cheerful "YES!" and go back to stable and stud for another year.

i always liked that idea...
:)

plusaf, I'm with you there. They've all steered us down a road to nowhere, especially this last "genius".

And I'm all for replacing "Helicopter" Ben with the horse. Something tells me he'd wreak less havoc on us. LMAO

HOLY CULITO CAGAO! I saw this coming last year when another OPEC nation paid all of it's American debt off, and sold all of its dollars back to the world bank and started dealing with the IMF, and will most likely switch to the EURO It's a matter of time before VZLA decides to lower US exports in favor of China. All they need is a pipeline to the pacific. Forming relationships with Bolivia is a start. The second Uribe is out of office the US economy with be in for some serious hurt.

while some may think that by ditching the dollar, iran carries less leverage with an easier target on its back.. so too by adopting the euro, iran probably looks a little less state-terror-sponsoring-ish (i pulled a dubya)..

the dollar does suck though.. i mean.. you know its bad when mcdonalds is clownin on it in a commercial for their dollar value meals..

@jlaboy.... EXCELLENT POST!!!!! never thought of that, but makes total sense... especially the Venezuela "connection" with Bolivia. hmmmmm......


now here's my spin...

the eco's in the US don't want refineries, right? haven't had one built on our soil in something like 30 years, although quite a few HAVE been expanded... but nothing really big...

India is going to complete a refinery complex towards the end of this year which will increase worldwide gasoline refining capacity by about FIVE PER CENT!!!! WORLDWIDE CAPACITY..... that's a LOT!

my points are:
1) in one year or less, gasoline prices should be lower than they are today. maybe 50 cents or more down around the US.
2) add "gasoline refining" to the list of things we've managed to get OUTSOURCED and MORE OUT OF OUR CONTROL as a result of eco-protests. if Iran or China [more likely Saudi Arabia?] or whoever decides that they want to screw the West some more, all they need is for some terrorists to take THAT complex off-line for a while.

bad thought, eh?

to wit...

from http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2006/oct/11/india.oi...

"Having built from scratch the world's third-largest refinery complex, stage two in the Reliance plan is to double capacity by 2008. Other companies and nations have woken up to the potential of refining. Saudi Arabia's national oil company, Saudi Aramco, is planning a 400,000-barrel-a-day refinery. Mexico, alarmed by how much crude oil it exports and gasoline it imports, is also planning a refinery capable of processing 250,000 barrels of crude a day."

You know what ol' Milton Friedman would say--EST--economic shock therapy.

Good thing Iraq's oil is now being traded in dollars (traded in euros under Saddam).

We have a proposal to make, not like the Romans trading in SALT, but EITHER in watt/meter/K [W/(m*K)] considering all the investments being sought in climate change & environment & sustainable development..... OR ......even better: kilocalorie (IT)/hour/meter/°C ... considering the Gisele Bündchen theory and status which we all certainly agree on!

As for our proposal on www.therightchoice.tv the commodities' prices should be all right! We will trade in corn, soy, coffe, palma, sugar-cane, black-beans... etc

Please check:

http://www.therightchoice.tv
and
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7078612.stm

The rest of the world knows why Saddam Hussein was attacked. George W. may be able to pull it off again, but just like Iraq, it won't be pretty. This time the rest of the world may not let him (US) get away with it.

You have to remember, if he attacks another country he's not doing it as an individual, he's doing it as (US), (We The People). Do we trust him to do more damage in our name? If there are consequences for his actions, he won't be the one feeling the pain. It will be (US), (We The People)! I'm feeling enough pain right now and I would like him to be held accountable NOW for what he has done to date. Not given a blank check (no checks and balance) to do more.

We need to start demanding mainstream media report relevant facts and stop using our valuable resource (news) for stories that are irrelevant to any of us. Stop telling us spin is important, we are watching and we aren't all 'dumbed down'!

The weeks leading up the Hanna Montana concert in Cleveland, most of the nightly news was about the concert and ticket sales. They reported and spun the concert until I was screaming at the TV, "We aren't all children, how about some real news". "They are just making another little girl a 'media star' that they can tear down later, when they need a distraction”.

This only made sense. I'm just waiting to get paid in euros. This whole thing is going to make the North American Union one step closer. Mexico and Canada have alot of money in our economy, people will be at ends to find the easiest fix to the problem

I was in Amsterdam last month, and had a hard time finding places to exchange dollars for EUROS as no one wanted to hold on to a slipping currency. I used to exchange dollars at 6000 bs in VZLA That number has decreased to 3000 bs, and I am afraid it will soon be on par at 2150 bs. I don't really for see a North American Union currency as the dollar is still stronger than the Mex Peso, and the Canadian dollar is growing stronger. It is the same reason the UK won't stop using the Sterling. As far as getting paid in EUROS, have to move to the EU as they will not want to devalue their currency by flooding a weak American market with it, and " True Patriots" (written sarcastically) like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Bill-O would be out raged.

Hmmm. I wonder how GWB will respond to, "Your money is no good here."?

GWB to America "We will not negotiate with terrorists!"

GWB : He he, wada ya mean the dollor is no good here, he he, he he. well pepi le pew, lemme get some francs.

Sir my name is not Pepi and the Franc is no longer used

GWB He he, he he, ok how bout some lira.