I have two suggestions for anyone interested in understanding the main reason why the US entered Iraq (IMHO): I do not think it has been covered before.
First, check out this page: trinicenter.com/oops/iraqeuro.html It has to do with paying for oil in US dollars instead of Euros. Basically, the theory goes something like this:
stop giving us facts! how are we to buy alibis like “the fog of war” when our eyes are clear and the view is pristine? IGNORE THE MAN BEHIND THE CURTAIN!
first of all, if bush went into iraq for cheap oil, why is oil so freaking expensive? perhaps you don’t live in the us and thus have no idea how much gas costs here, but it’s at record highs all across the country. you should start backing the “bush went in for EXPENSIVE oil” conspiracy theory…at least until prices come back down.
as for those wacko theories on the fed, here’s an informative page which picks it apart:
floodlight.org/theory/flaherty9.htm
you act as if americans have never been exposed to the “secret jewish plans for world domination” conspiracy theories before.
[color=blue]It gets even wackier. This from the Strange But True files:
Apocalypse Now[/color]
To understand what is happening in the Middle East, you must first understand what is happening in Texas. To understand what is happening there, you should read the resolutions passed at the state’s Republican party conventions last month. Take a look, for example, at the decisions made in Harris County, which covers much of Houston.
The delegates began by nodding through a few uncontroversial matters: homosexuality is contrary to the truths ordained by God; “any mechanism to process, license, record, register or monitor the ownership of guns” should be repealed; income tax, inheritance tax, capital gains tax and corporation tax should be abolished; and immigrants should be deterred by electric fences.2 Thus fortified, they turned to the real issue: the affairs of a small state 7000 miles away. It was then, according to a participant, that the “screaming and near fistfights” began.
I don’t know what the original motion said, but apparently it was “watered down significantly” as a result of the shouting match. The motion they adopted stated that Israel has an undivided claim to Jerusalem and the West Bank, that Arab states should be pressured to absorb refugees from Palestine, and that Israel should do whatever it wishes in seeking to eliminate terrorism. Good to see that the extremists didn’t prevail then. . .
And among them are some of the most powerful men in America. John Ashcroft, the attorney-general, is a true believer, so are several prominent senators and the House majority leader, Tom DeLay. Mr DeLay (who is also the co-author of the marvellously-named DeLay-Doolittle Amendment, postponing campaign finance reforms) travelled to Israel last year to tell the Knesset that “there is no middle ground, no moderate position worth taking.”
So here we have a major political constituency - representing much of the current president’s core vote - in the most powerful nation on earth, which is actively seeking to provoke a new world war. Its members see the invasion of Iraq as a warm-up act, as Revelations (9:14-15) maintains that four angels “which are bound in the great river Euphrates” will be released “to slay the third part of men.” They batter down the doors of the White House as soon as its support for Israel wavers: when Bush asked Ariel Sharon to pull his tanks out of Jenin in 2002, he received 100,000 angry emails from Christian fundamentalists, and never mentioned the matter again.
For 85% of the US electorate, the Middle East is a foreign issue, and therefore of secondary interest when they enter the polling booth. For 15% of the electorate, the Middle East is not just a domestic matter, it’s a personal one: if the president fails to start a conflagration there, his core voters don’t get to sit at the right hand of God. Bush, in other words, stands to lose fewer votes by encouraging Israeli aggression than he stands to lose by restraining it. He would be mad to listen to these people. He would also be mad not to.
*Skeptic yank,
Ignore the man behind the curtain? Sorry, I have seen first hand how “old money” plays a part in big business deals (on the board level). I could give more details, but I know I would be slammed for tooting my own horn.
Also, if you don
[quote]Hint: most people do not realize the US Federal Reserve is not owned by the US government; it is a private institution (citibank/chase (~Rockefeller) 51% controlling interest) which is backed by US taxpayer
I’d come across the Petrodollar theory before. I find it credible. Bush would have presided over a recession had he not prevented OPEC from switching to Euros, as they were thinking of doing at the time.
Israel’s (both senses) role is also open enough, for those who know how to read between the lines. Try to get ahold of some of Kevin MacDonald’s three books on the Jews, for a more long-term look at how they got where they are now.
As for the oil itself, I agree that the U.S. like many other countries is going to need to control as much of it as possible. I wonder what sort of price Bush etc. would regard as ideal. Too high, and it hurts U.S. manufacturing; too low, and Bush’s oil buddies don’t get as rich. So how is he calculating this, do you suppose?
[quote=“Screaming Jesus”]I’d come across the Petrodollar theory before. I find it credible. Bush would have presided over a recession had he not prevented OPEC from switching to Euros, as they were thinking of doing at the time.
[/quote]
um, both bushes(sr. and jr.) did preside over recessions.
*Skeptic
Sorry, after re-reading your post maybe I misinterpreted your sarcasm.
*Flipper,
I don
This theory has been banded about for some time. I can think of no better person to refute it entirely than Paul Krugman.
As he says: “So this particular conspiracy theory is wrong. Sorry.”
Have a read in detail why:
wws.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/oildollar.html
For those unfamiliar with PK, he is a regular op-ed columnist for the new York Times and a respected economist. He is, perhaps, the most vehement and relentless of the Bush bashers. If there was anything at all to this idea, he would have jumped on it.
There isn’t; he didn’t. That’s all.
I still think .14% of the US economy free yearly is a significant amount of money. It would pay for the US’s war in Iraq in 10 years for free.
Admitedly that is not the argument, but it’s still significant.
Ahem… 0.14% of the US GDP… significant? When growth is 3-4% a year. Weeeeeelllll… that’s a stretch… and as for
You are wrong. Because the 12-14bn is not simply reliant on oil transactions, but is due to the general role of the dollar as a reserve currency and the interest payments thereby saved. You completely missed this bit of the argument:
[quote=“paul krugman”]Moreover, would a change in OPEC settlements really affect this?
There’s probably some link between the dollar’s role as unit of account/medium of exchange and its role as store of value. But when we say that Saudi Arabia is paid in dollars, what we mean is that oil is paid for with a wire transfer from a London bank, with the sum denominated in dollars. It doesn’t mean that green pieces of paper change hands, or even that there is a stash of green paper somewhere being held to back the transaction. [/quote]
So that the war would not “pay back” in 10 years, 20 years, or a 100 years.
So, sorry, Fox, 4nr, this dog don’t hunt.
*imyourbiggestfan,
I am aware of who Paul Krugman is and have read his columns for many years. Thanks for the interesting link.
I read through the article several times to try to understand his logic and reason. Does he really refute the petrodollar theory entirely as you say? By the answers he gives, I have to say no way. I am a bit amazed that you can conclude by his statements the theory is not really part of the invasion equation. I found his remarks in the article to be basically just a whitewash.
In addition, Paul Krugman is a CFR member (since 1992) which means that he is working with people with similar goals. Just because he is a Bush basher, does not mean he is working on a different agenda. I still believe there is more to it and maybe it is Paul’s position not to open this can of worms. I’ll admit that after reading the book I mentioned a few times, I am suspect of CFR members because they are tied to the big banks.
4nr.
You and Fox make the same mistake. You equate the US dollar’s role as a reserve currency solely with the denomination of oil contracts in US dollars.
Thus, Fox’s pay-back-in-10-years calculation depends on oil being the only reason people hold US dollars. So, too, do your arguments as to why the Euro could be the reserve currency instead of the US dollar. For a start, people primarily want to hold US dollars not to pay for oil, but to pay for US goods! Or for times of crisis, to protect their exchange rate regimes…etc, simply because it is a store of value.
Crucially:
Thus, the denomination of oil contracts in US dollars is dependent on the US dollar’s use as a reserve currency. The use of the US dollar as a reserve currency is not dependent on its use in denominating oil contracts.
Re-read PK’s article. He covers this. Here are some relevant bits(my italics):
[quote=“pk, again,”]Remember the three roles of money: medium of exchange, unit of account, store of value… the dollar is a store of value: the Fed estimates that about 60 percent of US currency… is held outside the US…The US advantage comes to the extent - and only to the extent - that the international role of the dollar lets us borrow money more cheaply than we otherwise could… So the main thing is cash overseas - $300-350 billion of bills,… At an interest rate of 4 percent…this is a subsidy to the US of $12-14 billion per year…It’s not even a significant part of our current account deficit.
Moreover, would a change in OPEC settlements really affect this?
…Rumor has it that the Russian mafiya is switching to euros…; if so, that’s a much bigger deal for seignorage than pricing of Persian Gulf oil. [/quote]
Really. Drop this theory. Its toilet.
Oops…err… double post thingy. Err… now left twiddling my thumbs…
Here - something more useful to justify this post. What is so sinister about CFR (Council on Foreign Relations, I assume you mean?)
here’s a pop quiz for you, who’s more worried about the falling us dollar?
a.) bush and friends
b.) the japanese
c.) china
d.) the euros
another quiz, who benefits most from a massive shift in dollar holdings to euros?
a.) the chinese economy
b.) the american economy
c.) european economies
d.) none of the above
4nr,
do you even realize that europeans have been spending the last year screaming at the americans to keep the dollar from falling? the japanese have spent untold billions trying to tinker in the markets to support the dollar, as well. do you realize that euro appreaciation against the dollar is the stuff of nightmares for european policy makers? do you realize that a massive shift of reserves from dollars to euros would send the dollar plummeting and seal off the us as a possible export market?
i find your analysis of the dollar/euro situation incredibly flawed and colored by your prejudices against the united states and the jewish interests you suspect to secretly rule the world.
[quote=“Flipper”] do you even realize that Europeans have been spending the last year screaming at the Americans to keep the dollar from falling? the Japanese have spent untold billions trying to tinker in the markets to support the dollar, as well. do you realize that euro appreaciation against the dollar is the stuff of nightmares for European policy makers? do you realize that a massive shift of reserves from dollars to euros would send the dollar plummeting and seal off the us as a possible export market?
[/quote]
Ahh Flipper. So naive. You must be an American.
Do you really believe that European and Japanese central banking establishments are that obvious? They are playing you for a fool, my friend. What actually happened was that the European and Japanese central banks have put on a show of being afraid of a fall in the dollar. They realized that simply putting straightforward political pressure on the Fed to maintain a strong dollar would simply result in the Fed doing the opposite. So they pretended that what they were really afraid of was a weak dollar, knowing that the contrarian Mr. Greenspan would react by keeping the value of the dollar high. At the same time time, they were working behind the scenes to influence their own governments to oppose the war in Iraq.
But even all of this was just another ruse. In fact, the mysterious cabal controlling the Euro and the Yen were aware that the US Federal Reserve is not so easily fooled. The Europeans knew that by asking for a strong dollar, the Fed would think that what they really wanted was a weak dollar. At this point there were certain Europeans (generally the more pragmatic but less whiley and sophisticated northerners) who argued that the best course of action would thus be to ask for a weak dollar knowing that the Fed would think that the Europeans wanted the Fed to think that Europeans wanted a strong dollar and therefore give them a weak dollar. Fortunately more crafty minds prevailed and they ended up lobbying for a strong dollar, secure in the knowledge that the Fed would think that the Europeans would think that the Fed would think what the Europeans really wanted was a strong dollar and would therefore create monetary policy resulting in a weak dollar.
All makes perfect sense so far right? Well if you think so, then you just fell for ruse within the ruse! This is actually the story that the people who were actually pulling the strings wanted you to think!
In fact, the European and Japanese central banks had long ago been infiltrated by sleeper agents placed abroad when they were babies by the Citibank/JP Morgan “Black Hand” syndicate. These agents convinced the foreign central banks to lobby for a strong dollar in order to convince the Fed would that the Europeans tought that the Fed thought that what the Europeans really wanted was a strong dollar and that this would create a weak dollar. Actually their other sleeper agent network was awakened from cryogenic sleep just in time to manipulate Greenspan’s response. At the same time, they activated the control chips in their neoconservative drones in the United States (who were not actually human beings at all but actually advanced “cyborpols” created by AT&T and Bell Labs in the late 70s who had switched bodies with the human Cheneys, Rumsfelds etc. (who were assasinated by freelance alien hitmen brought in from Roswell, New Mexico) to manipulate the United States into attacking Iraq.
Are things becoming clear to you now? If so, they you just fell for the propaganda, AGAIN!
All of the above did, of course, happen. But unknown to everyone outside of the secret circle, every actor in this entire plot been little more than puppets. The puppetmasters? You may have already guessed. Yes, a top-secret joint project carried out by the Springfield and Tel Aviv chapters of the Stonecutters Guild!
[b]Well there you have it, Flipper. The curtain has been pulled back for you. You are, of course, free to believe that the war in Iraq happened because Bush (along with Saddam Hussein and virtually every intelligence agency in the world) thought that Iraq either had WMDs or would soon develope them if left in power.
You are welcome to think that. But those of us “in the know” can assure you with utmost confidence … that it was the Stonecutters.[/b]
Cheers,
Hobbes
IYBF,
I realise what PK is saying relates only to currency held in reserve which effectively places 350 billion dollars of the world economy on perminant loan to the US, unless those reserves are somehow diminished by let’s say holders of this currency dumping it for an alternative store of wealth. As the money is held in cash reserves as apposed to interest bearing bonds the US need not pay interest on it. Hence, it is a free loan to the US at an opportunity cost of non-paid interest-PK’s estimate 4%.
I can read IYBF.
However, that rate of saved interest payments would cover the value of the WAR in Iraq in 10 years. That is my point. Hence, it is a significant amount of money. In addition, PF neglects to mention the fact that as long as holders of that curreny don’t convert back out of it the US has a perminant windfall of 350 billion dollars one off and rising annually. Wouldn’t it?
I agree that the oil bills argument isn’t so valid, as oil whilst denominated in dollars isn’t paid for in greenbacks. I simply think that .14% of the US’s economy is significant and indicate that by pointing out that the saved interest rate alone on expatriated greenbacks would pay for the War in Iraq in 10 years. I’m not arguing that it’s the motivation.
However, I do believe oil is the motivation for different reasons as we have argued adnauseum.
*Flipper,
Of course I realize the dollar is artificially lowered to help the US economy. Please don’t be so condescending all the time with your comments. I started this thread to create an interesting discussion, not to prove who is smarter than one another. It
[quote=“4nr”]*Flipper,
Of course I realize the dollar is artificially lowered to help the US economy. Please don’t be so condescending all the time with your comments. I started this thread to create an interesting discussion, not to prove who is smarter than one another. It’s only a forum post.
[/quote]
the dollar is artifically lowered? how is it artificial? once again, your own political views taint any attempt at an economic analysis. your economic arguments are laughable and inconsistent.
instead of whining about other posters being mean to you, why don’t you defend your own arguments?
[quote]Lastly, It seems like anytime anyone writes something about the reality of politics, the person gets slammed as a Jewish conspiracy /Masonic leftwing political nutcase. Please, enough. The reason I mentioned the book is that I found it to be very well documented about the history of banks and money in the US. (and Europe). Most intelligent readers will figure out what are facts and what is fiction/theory. It’s just a fascinating book that makes you think.
[/quote]
you don’t even know anything about the author of the book you’re quoting. marrs is a journalist from texas who was obsessed with the jfk assasination. his first book concerned jfk and he pretty much fit the description of the conspiracy theorist to a tee.
after the jfk conspiracy, his second book was about aliens and how he believes they are walking around on earth and living amongst us.
the book you’re so interested in is his third conspiracy theory work about how the jews secretly control the world. he doesn’t even research the numbers himself. instead, he gets them from other well-known conspiracy theorists.
i can think of very few people in the world who fit the description of paranoid right-wing conspiracy theorist as well as marrs.
and you wonder why i don’t accept his assertions whole-heartedly.
if you want a history of banking and monetary policy in the us, why not read something by a economic historian?