http://www.news.com/2300-11389_3-6219329-2.html?tag=ne.gall.pg

 

It's been called a worthless piece of paper (the dollar).

Woggy, that's a wooden car.

...nice wooden car though!

Oh fuck, I did mean to post that as well actually. Hmm where's the opec link.

 

(Car must weigh a bloody tonne).

http://money.cnn.com/2007/11/19/news/international/oil_opec/?postversion=2007112006

 

Seems like Iran and Venezuela want to switch, but Saudi Arabia are blocking it (for political, rather than economic, reasons).

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1685270,00.html

Switch to wooden cars?

You can bet that when Bush bombs 'strategic' targets in Iran (which he almost certainly will), the Iranian Oil Bourse (stock exchange) currently under construction will be among them.

America does NOT want the Euro (or indeed the RMB) to become the new oil trading currency. When the US defaulted on exchanging the dollar for gold in the seventies (completing a decoupling from gold started after the depression), they coupled it up to oil through a deal with Saudi Arabia that Gulf oil should be traded exclusively in dollars. This has effectively allowed the US to print money more or less ad lib ever since, without any fear of devaluing the currency.

If the dollar was to lose its place as effectively the only currency in which oil is traded in any quantity, then it would devalue catastrophically.

It's potentially the ultimate terror weapon for oil-rich Islamic states. Hence the calculated policy of supporting US-friendly totalitarian rulers across the gulf states and turning a blind eye to their human rights eccentricities and quaint corruption, and deposing the existant governments of less friendly countries on the flimsiest of pretexts in order to replace them with puppets.

Unfortunately, while GWB and all those who voted for him and continue to féte him richly deserve to have their beloved dollar suffer the same fate as the 1930s Deutschmark, if it did crash it would almost certainly take the global economy with it.

Aye: there's the rub.

I read a pretty good essay about that exact thing a while back, I'm pretty sure it was you who posted the link to it. That's whay I posted about the impossible being talked about.

 

Like Rendle said, it would fuck the world economy. Maybe it would be worth it to get rid of the American oil strangle hold?

Yes! Definitely! And make it dependant on China :Y