OIL BOURSE
While a regional Oil Exchange attempted by Dubai
failed, partly because they play by international rules and monetary
exchange norms, Iran's Bourse, in Euros or in barter trade agreements and
Hojatieh willingness to sacrifice the world and its own people to achieve its
religious ends of bringing back their 12th Imam, presents a special set
of givens. Specifically in the area of damage to world financial stability,
as opposed to a conventionally deemed "successful", venture for
Iran
.
Experts from the International Petroleum Exchange
(IPE) and
New York
Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) have apparently already confirmed the
feasibility of the project, bearing in mind
Iran
's much greater reserves of petroleum products with which to operate and weight
the market.
Realistic argument posits that the Iranian oil fields are
old and require huge investments to continue production or to keep them at
anywhere near current levels. New oil fields will take time to come online and
hamper the speed of
Iran
's negative activity. In addition, Iran's natural gas fields, the second largest
reserve in the world after Russia, have yet to be developed fully and cannot
provide a big enough supply to make a significant immediate difference in the
markets.
Because U.S. sanctions on the sale of American
technology to Iran, the most modern systems for effective, large scale
liquefaction of natural gas have been denied to Iran and hampers their
ability to bring important liquid natural gas prominently into the mix.
While the Bourse may be wishful thinking as a
constructive revenue source for
Iran
, according to Western standards of logic and assessment of success, missing
from the equation of production targets and capability is that oil-currency -
not oil or natural gas itself - is the principle fulcrum and danger factor.
If the Euro became the reserve currency and choice of
oil producing countries, the U.S. would have to purchase Euros to purchase oil,
the reverse being the case today with countries having to pay a "Dollar
Tax" to buy oil in dollars.
Experts agree the effect over only a very few years
would be devastating to the status of the dollar globally. Then, Euros (in
their role as petro-currency) would affect the U.S. Dollar, U.S. economy and the
interest rates
America
must offer to attract buyers. Former U.S. Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker has
already placed the likelihood for a Dollar crash in the next five years at 75%.
The Iranian Oil Bourse's trade in Euros instead of
dollars could possibly hasten the crash and the percentage of likelihood.
Some feel Volcker was unable to assess Federal Reserve matters knowledgeably but
with experts like George Soros and Warren Buffet putting their own billions
into betting against the dollar, Volcker's comments gather strength.
If major oil and natural gas supply and trade
quantities become easily available only in Euros or barter, Central Banks will
have ever less reason to overstock their portfolios with U.S. currency and
will eventually begin replacing unwanted Dollars with necessary Euros,
unleashing a dollar decline of great proportions.
Any crash would bring Iran, with a wealth of oil
and natural gas reserves with which to barter with China, Russia, India and Far
East nations, to the fore as a new superpower, in a future scenario where
money or devalued currencies might have much less, little or even no value.
The latest flavor of Islamic Republic would suffer
only tangentially and try to obtain all their needs through barter or exchange.
Their life styles would remain similar to what they had until very recently as
military men and whether the populace is unhappy – preferably so for the
Hojatieh – means little or nothing in their big picture.
At very best, the
USA
would enter another Carter administration era financial pattern:
1. Interest rates were so high nobody could afford to
finance a house, so this market sector, like many other big-ticket items
such as automobiles, slowed to almost a halt in some instances.
2. Grocery items had multiple superimposed price stickers as the cost of
goods rose faster than customers bought them. Imported retail merchandise normally
sells or distributes through national chains like Walmart or food chains, so a
drop in the dollar makes these more expensive for the buyer and leads to
layoffs as the retail chains find their sales volumes and profit margins
eroded.
3. The price of energy shot up so much people resorted to wood burning
stoves to stay warm at a price they could afford. The quality of life went
down.
4. People on fixed incomes could no longer afford to live and the more
solvent could not keep abreast of rising prices and interest rates. A drop in
the dollar immediately cuts into the value of saved money.
5. Running a business became almost impossible as the price of goods and
materials skyrocketed. Sales to a greatly less solvent market plummeted and
marketing assumptions needed for advertising, budgeting and planning became wild
guesses at best.
What might happen if the dollar
devalued rapidly? Global ruin.
With economies so interdependent and interwoven, a
global not just American Depression would occur with a domino effect
throwing the rest of world economies into poverty. Markets for acutely less
expensive
US
exports would never materialize.
The result, some SME's estimate, might be as many as
200 million Americans out of work and starving on the streets with nobody
and nothing able to rescue or aid them, contrary to the 1920/30 Great Depression
through soup kitchens and charitable support efforts.
Iran
would most likely intentionally sabotage any return
to stability and market balance/adjustment with their fossil fuels; their
newfound nuclear deterrent probably discouraging use of force against them until
too late.
A close look shows Ahmadi-Nejad holds the key to
throwing the world into the tribulations of the
Weimar
Republic
of
Germany
after
World
War
I.
High inflation and interest rates drove the value of the Mark into the
ground and allowed Hitler to present himself as a savior.
To provide an adequate cash flow to the working class,
Hitler promised to pay them once a week, then twice a week, then once a day.
When this failed, he allowed workers two hours off work every day to trundle
wheelbarrows full of German currency, which barely sufficed to buy a loaf of
bread.
Iran succeeding in unlinking the Dollar as the primary
currency for oil purchases, were it to occur, creates the same outcome for the
USA and consequently within short time frames for the rest of the civilized
world.
To deny history repeating itself with
Ahmadi-Nejad's Hojatieh minded governing group filling in for Hitler, suggests
a refusal to face and counteract an indescribable menace beyond the reach of
Western logic but totally in alignment with this specific brand of Islamic
fervor to intentionally create an apocalypse. Then to impose Islamic rule on
a shattered world.
CONCLUSION
Apart from the use of nuclear arms by the West to
bring down the new regime in Iran, only an internal effort by the
old-guard Ayatollahs to overcome Ahmadi-Nejad and his allies, at the clear
risk of a civil war they would lose, has a hope of preventing a potential
global Depression.
Few other counter measures come to mind. Mostly
because of the shortcoming of the global "family" of nations to
withstand mindless nihilism and an untrammeled desire to destroy in the name of
their 12th Imam.
When
Iran
's lately announced pull back from subsidizing refined gas prices
domestically and import of this fuel takes hold on the population, who will
suddenly be unable to afford to operate vehicles, the dissatisfaction could
translate into riots and open a new window to remove the Islamic regime of
whatever flavor.
In-depth bombing, specifically of all Iranian military
and nuclear facilities at that time – possibly the 5,000 locations
mentioned above – would weaken or remove any government ability to suppress
the riots and allow a smooth overthrow of the current regime.
The unanswered question – as was the case in
Gulf War I with
Iraq
and Saddam Hussain – will be with what or with whom to replace it.
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