Posted on 05/15/2005 5:14:47 AM PDT by RaceBannon
Putin: Why Not Price Oil in Euros? By Catherine Belton Moscow Times October 10, 2003
President Vladimir Putin said Thursday Russia could switch its trade in oil from dollars to euros, a move that could have far-reaching repercussions for the global balance of power -- potentially hurting the U.S. dollar and economy and providing a massive boost to the euro zone. "We do not rule out that it is possible. That would be interesting for our European partners," Putin said at a joint news conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in the Urals town of Yekaterinburg, where the two leaders conducted two-day talks. "But this does not depend solely on us. We do not want to hurt prices on the market," he said. "Putin's putting a big card on the table," said Youssef Ibrahim, managing director of the Strategic Energy Investment Group in Dubai and a member of the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations, an influential body of leading world thinkers thought to help set the United States' foreign policy agenda. "In the context of what is happening worldwide, this statement is very important," he said.
Putin's words come in the wake of a protracted drive by the EU to attract more countries' trade and currency reserves into euros, in a bid to chip away at U.S. hegemony over the global economy and money supply. A move by Russia, as the world's second largest oil exporter, to trade oil in euros, could provoke a chain reaction among other oil producers currently mulling a switch and would further boost the euro's gradually growing share of global currency reserves. That would be a huge boon to the euro zone economy and potentially catastrophic for the United States. Dollar-based global oil trade now gives the United States carte blanche to print dollars without sparking inflation -- to fund huge expenses on wars, military build-ups, and consumer spending, as well as cut taxes and run up huge trade deficits.
Yes it is. Except for Afghanistan it shouldn't have been undertaken. Perhaps you missed this tidbit but Iraq was the only secular power in the region for years. Well that is until mob rule (democracy) was undertaken this year. Beside that, democracy has been tried there before by superpowers of the time. Want to take a guess how that worked out? Within 20-25 years at the absolute most, Iraq will be some form of religious government that will at the very best be as friendly to this nation of states as Saudi Arabia.
And if you believe any of the men you mentioned would support such a police action, I suggest you go back and read their words again. Because not a one of them would support the WOT to the extent it has gotten to.
Yes he did. If I remember correctly these brainwashed idiots were carrying out terrorist actions in other nation states, not ours. Your point? Let those nation states deal with Saddam then. This nation of states was not designed to be the world's policeman, nor should it be. Please see the end of Adams' speech, he speaks specifically to this.
If you think there haven't been any change through the Middle East in the last months, you're blind: succeeded election in Afghanistan, succeeded election in Iraq, high enlistment in the new Iraqi forces, demonstrations in Iran, Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon, reforms in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Muslims countries; and so on.
I'm sure the British and the US said the same thing as 'democracy' was established in Iraq and Iran in the 1950s as well. You should also check the histories of Islamic democracies. One out of 50 is not the most stellar of numbers
You know, a lot of people thought Japan and Germany would never become successful democracies. Or that President Reagan was a dreamer when he said the USSR may be defeated.
Except the fact that both Japan and Germany had some form of established democracies before WWII. But don't let facts get in your way. As for the USSR, I find it humorous beyond belief that Bush is criticizing Putin for a form of government that isn't that far off from the Federal Republic described in the Federalist Papers that once existed here.
Washington, Jefferson, Monroe, Madison, J. Adams, J.Q. Adams, etc. loved the USA and wouldn't let the terrorists win the current war. Since the most lethal weapon and the only one to defeat them is the spread of FREEDOM in their breeding ground, they would use it.
And so we come back to your thesis. Not founded on anything the Framers said, but rather they 'loved the USA'. News flash for you, we wouldn't have entangled ourselves in foreign affairs to the point that the terrorists, among others, dislike this nation of states if we had followed their advice. Or do you honestly believe they just hate us for our 'freedom'?
I've gotta agree with billbears here:
Sadam was the secular superpower in the region and therefore no threat at all to the U.S. I mean, so what if he was harboring every terrorist with an anti-U.S. bent that he could reach out to? You don't KNOW that Salman Pak was a training ground for airplane hijacking (and that never hurt anyone anyways, right?). What if it was just a little school so that arabs would feel more comfortable on planes. Or maybe they wanted to be flight attendents? There's no evidence that Saddam was a dangerous sociopath (aside from the plastic shredders, rape rooms, child prisons, and all that gruesome footage). We shoulda left him in place, we'd be safer that way.
I mean, okay, yeah, there were the weapons labs and plants, but didja ever consider that maybe Saddam was going to use those reference strains to work on VACCINES for, say, Congo Crimean Hemoragic Fever? Maybe that's what the missles were for, to innoculate his neighbors.
I believe, as does, billbears apparently, that in the face of 9-11, John Adams would not have been able to determine the difference between The Congo and Iraq as far as threats go. I mean, some guy with a machette executing the tribal wars that have raged since man first figured out how to put an edge on a tool, that's no different than a country that's capable of unleashing a dirty bomb or a bio weapon on U.S. soil.
The Adams quote is an apt one too. W should have listened. After all, do you know how long it would take to sail across the Atlantic? It's a proven fact that two oceans protect us from foreign menace. There's no way a terrorist could get ahold of a schooner big enough to cross the ocean. Anyway, a sea monster might eat him anyway.
As for our citizens being targeted and killed in Israel, I agree with billbears again. Tough. You leave the U.S., you're on your own. Let Israel do what it wants. Saddam's sponsoring homicide bombers? Let Israel nuke Baghdad. That'll work out just fine. We have no interests in that region. I think it would be just hunky dory for the whole region to decend into chaos. Who cares how many lives are lost, if they don't have American passports, they're not even human in my book.
Yup, the WOT should be fought either by reacting after Chicago gets hit with a Sarin attack, or better yet, just cover your eyes and put in some ear plugs.
Owl_Eagle(If what I just wrote makes you sad or angry,
The "trade balance", in lieu of our rate of GDP growth (3-4%), low inflation (nil), low unemployment (5.1-5.2%) and growth rate of American productivity simply means that we can afford to buy more goods and services from other countries than we sell to other countries. Other countries must export more than they import, simply to have enough foreign reserves to buy what they import. The "balance" of it all does not occur within a single factor (trade) of a single nation (US). The balance occurs through (1) stronger economies' ability to absorb the trade difference internally (due to all the strenghts cited above) and (2) through the international system of exchange rates and currency flows between nations.
Whenever the U.S. economy actually "must have" lower imports, it will be achieved by the continued, dynamic balancing of international trade and money - the U.S. dollar will go down in value, suggesting to domestic consumers and manufactures that they need to buy fewer imports (as import prices go up) and simultaneously, U.S. exports of manufactured goods will go up - as the lower dollar makes them more competitive. Meanwhile, it is the continued strength and diversity of the U.S. economy - with miniscule central planning - that will allow this economy to adjust and continue to grow.
All of that versus the EU with its two major western members (France and Germany) with 8% and 13% unemployment, respectively, with GDP growth below 2%, with productivity growth (manhours needed to produce 1 Euro of goods and services) continuing in a thirty-year lag behind the U.S., with population growth in the negative range, with worse immigration and cultural disparities and anxieties than in the U.S.; and most EU solutions adding to the centralized-socialist controls that have contributed to their current lag behind the U.S. - only on a trans-national level this time. The parts of the EU that are growing best are in the east, where they have been throwing off the central-controls, relaxing wage regulations, inviting capital investment, cutting back on huge benefit excesses and where the people remain skeptical of the motives of the political classes in both France and Germany (they were not exactly rushing to push the Soviets out in the 1980s).
The entire EU project is, was and always has been a elitist project of the Marxist-leaning political classes in the EU countries. It has never been a grass-roots mandated ambition from the people. Thankfully, as it fails - which it will - those that pushed it the most - the left - will be those who suffer from changes the people will finally demand.
"We went to war to prevent a global change in currency, which would have impoverished the USA in a matter of a couple of years if not just months."
The above is simply economic ignorance. It falsely presuposses that the strength of the U.S. economy is based on the higher value of its currency, when in fact the truth is the opposite - the strength of the U.S. currency is based on the strength of its economy - to produce, and adapt, and produce, and adjust and produce and grow; decade after decade after decade. The strength of the U.S. currency is based on the strength of its large, diverse and constantly dynamic domestic economy; that is so strong that it continually absorbs, and pays for, the worlds exports.
This will not change if political motivations draw other countries to dictate the adoption of the Euro for trade. It is the countries of the EU that will suffer the most. As more and more countries need to buy Euros, the value of the Euro will rise dramatically. As it does, exports of manufactured goods from the EU - and jobs - will plummet, as the higher Euro will price those goods out of world market competition. Imports and large-scale deflation of consumer prices (and profits) will combined with large-scale bubbles in fixed asset investments, like property. The politically motivated currency change will be a disaster for the EU.
Meanwhile, with a lower dollar, U.S. exports of manufactured goods will increase dramatically as will capital investment in the U.S. as an economic place to locate manufacturing facilities (depressed EU with mushrooming property values will see capital flight).
Maybe, since the whole idea of switching world trade to the Euro comes from the left, they are actually seeking a EU depression; maybe as a cause with which they would push to merge the new EU with Putin's mobocracy, as the "final solution".
You left out Palestine. Unless Palestine election and State are accepted, all the others won't matter.
"There is one trump card that is held by the US, in case of dire necessity, the US can seize the oil fields of the ME. If that were to happen, there is nothing anyone could do about it."
1. The U.S. has no "necessity" for such an action. The U.S. and Russia, on their own have either the resources (Russia) or the adaptability (U.S.) to absorb and adjust for a major, even long term, change in oil deliveries from the ME. Europe and China cannot. 2. Yet western Europe might think that they have a necessity (to seize the fields, given some unexpected political catastrophe in the ME. 3. But, China, Russia AND THE U.S. would not sit by and let the western Europe do that.
It is speculation worthy only of a novel.
Since the end of WWII, the U.S. position in the ME has done much more for world trade as whole, and particularly for western Europe and Japan, than it has for the U.S. directly. It is the economic world market system of trade throughout the west that has benefited from the U.S. (protective) role in the ME.
This is the key. Although the $ amount of oil imported into this nation is a minuscule part of the daily transactions taking place re trade ( a fact, btw, the authors of these scare pieces conveniently neglect), Even if a currency collapse as envisioned by the more hopeful among the anti American pundits were to occur it would only seek to decimate the economies of our largest trading partners along with our own.
Of course, this is information by the same intelligence that told us all troops would be practically tripping over WMDs by the day. How'd that work out? Oh, I forgot RNC talking points. They're in Syria, Iran, Syria, fill me in here, who is the next 'dire threat' again?
Germany and Japan didn't have any strong democracy before. You know, in Afghanistan, Iraq, and some other Arab or Muslim countries they had elections in the past. In the pre-Baathist Iraq, they had a sort of democracy, like in the other countries. But they were weak democracies, like the Japanese and German's democracy was before.
The British government re-established rule and a British form of government in 1941. Direct parliamentary elections occurred in the early 1950s for a few years. As for your statement that German democracy was 'weak', how exactly did it exist from the end of WWI until the rise of Hitler with no major difficulties? What exactly do you consider a 'strong' democracy? And why as a supposed conservative would you even be arguing for democracy in the first place? Those men of which it is becoming more apparent by the post you haven't read warned strongly against democracy. And yet you are advocating spreading it around the world.
Are you a Michael Moore's supporter? Or an appeaser? America hasn't done anything bad against Islam. The USA is hated by them because the terrorists hate freedom. Period. Why did the USSR hate USA? For the same reason.
And you have factual evidence to back this up? Statements by the Islamic peoples? Something? And for the record I am not a Michael Moore supporter or an appeaser. I am clearly what the Republican party has forgotten exists. An Old Right conservative. The Republican party is becoming nothing more than hawkish with domestic FDR leanings
Again, you have your economics backwards. People can try (and they do) to game the system out of political motivations, but in the end they cause themselves a whole raft of other problems that replace the ones they thought they helped.
The U.S. currency value is not at the value it is because we simply set it there, or because other nations use it as a means of international exchange. It is where it is because of the strength of our domestic economy, and the long-term history of that strenghth, not the other way around. The amount of currency needed to affect international trade is taken into consideration as the Fed adjusts what it calls M1 - one of the guages of the money supply (how many dollars are in circulation).
When there are large scale changes in international trade, the Fed adjusts for it - adds to or takes money out of circulation, which reduces the impact those trade adjustments have on the value of the currency.
When the need for (downward) adjustments is very quick or very heavy, the lag in the M1 (money supply) adjustment causes a (temporary) lower value of the currency (too few buyers chasing too many dollars). Until the M1 rate is adjusted, trade itself starts to adjust for it, by raising U.S. exports (they become cheaper) and lowering U.S. imports. The Fed will either let the trade process work out the adjustments or intervene (print less money) in order to keep the M1 rate (and the currency value) fairly stable.
After months (or a couple years) of adjustments, it is again the strength of the internal domestic economies - not politically set currency regimes - that determine where and why capital flows to the most productive sources of either investment or goods. In as much those underlying fundamental factors of the U.S. economy have continually out-performed the EU, whatever adjustments that come from any new currency regime will be minor, to the U.S., in the long run.
If the EU and Putin try to play games together with the Euro, it will be the EU zone that will be hurt the most, in the short and long term - not the U.S.
Adams quote (below) is a nice quote for proof texting (trying to substantiate an argument by simply finding a quote somewhere that you think agrees with your argument) but the test is whether or not the argument holds up, which in the case of Adams' quote (below) does not.
/i/"She well knows that by once enlisting under other banners than her own, were they even the banners of foreign independence, she would involve herself beyond the power of extrication, in all the wars of interest and intrigue, of individual avarice, envy, and ambition, which assume the colors and usurp the standard of freedom. The fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force...."/i/
Though the "independence" of the Iraqi people, in their own democratic political system, is a goal we have in Iraq, it is neither proved nor can it be assumed that that goal places us "beyond the power of extrication"; no matter how slow the progress of the Iraqi people seems, from day to day.
Neither is there any evidence of any national objective of "avarice, envy or ambition" that "usurp the standard of freedom" for either ourselves or the people of Iraq - in fact, quite the opposite. "The fundamental maxim of our policy" has not been a change from "liberty to force", but a judicious use of force in the service of liberty - for us and for the people of Iraq, as has been (not ambition or avarice or envy) our goals.
Off the coasts of Malaysia (destroyers and carriers) and Indonesia (submarine base), the Sudan (resupply) and they are trying to persuade the Phillipines to join them in "joint security" arrangements. They are also building air bases in western China near the Thai-Burma borders, from which they don't have to fly over or around India to get from their own land bases to the ME.
It is not, and never was, a question of whether or not the U.S. was "attacked" by Iraq.
Though, in one sense, you could say that the "U.S was being 'attacked' by Iraq" every day. There was no peace treaty ending the hostilities from the first gulf war, because Sadaam Hussein had never abided by all the terms he agreed to in order to get a halt in the fighting. He needed to complete those terms in order to have a peace treaty. He was still under international judgement, and default of the truce, for which U.S. and British airmen still patrolled Iraqi skies to enforce parts of that agreement and for which they were fired on by Iraqi missles all the time.
In the history of war and international law, the first gulf war had never officially ended. As in all such situations, the "plaintiffs" in that agreement could, by law, resume the military engagement of which the terms had been abrogated (repeatedly) by the belligerent. Kofi Annan is not a "world king" and his thoughts do not make themselves law simply because he speaks them.
More importantly, no one was required to find WMDs in Iraq - not the U.S. and not the U.N. All of the pertinent UN resolutions made it Sadaam's obligation (not ours) to show, transparently, unequivocably, without hestitation and with totally unfettered co-operation that he did not have them and was not producing them or attempting to produce them.
It was Sadaam's failure to carryout that obligation that led to the war. As much as the final UN report had many elements it could not bring to conclusion, it had one conclusion that it was sure of - Sadaam was making a concerted effort to make it impossible for inspections to come to definitive conclusions. Add to that that the intelligence, as poor as it was, was agreed to by all the western intelligence agencies and the UN, the UN and the US were left with Sadaam's demand that he simply be trusted. With no basis for that trust, Britain and the US resumed the unfinished business of the first gulf war, acknowledging Sadaam's continued abrogation of the terms for which hostilities had been halted and acknowledging that their was no actions from Sadaam in sight that would lead to those terms being lived up to by Sadaam. The unanswered questions could no longer be left idle on the table.
Everything about the resumption of the war against Sadaam was within international law.
So all 'attacks' are outside the borders of this nation of states. Some idiot threw a dud grenade at one of Bush's speech in Eastern Europe a week or so ago. Should we level Eastern Europe? Never mind, I know the neocon argument for that...
Ansar-al-Islam imposed a 'talibanization' (burqas, shariah, and so on) of its territory before the liberation of Iraq
And again you have yet to provide a valid argument for interfering with the internal affairs of other nation states that do not represent a direct and present threat to our borders. Or does sovereignty only apply when we speak of this nation of states? I could care less how other nations handle their internal affairs or affairs with other nation states
A consolidated democracy or republic, such as the USA, Great Britain, Australia, Israel, and so on.
Ah, so a western form of government. And at the top of that list one that failed to uphold its own form of republic (USA) and has devolved into a democracy and one that is a limited monarchy leaning toward socialism. Has it ever occurred to you of the 'nation building' leaning (something Bush promised in 2000 that he wouldn't engage in) that perhaps democracy doesn't always travel well? And perhaps not everyone believes the same as we do?
OBL, Al Zarqawi, Al Zawahri and other terrorist leaders have attacked the western concept of freedom many times
Again, they have attacked intervention into their nations and homelands more than they have attacked our abundance of ATM machines on every street corner.
Actually you're following the anti-American DNC/media/DU talking points. Maybe Dan Rather is now a FReeper...
Sad really. Because I am not hawkish and would choose rather to follow the Framers' view of foreign policy, I am the one that is following 'anti-American' talking points.
/i/"The WOT is different war from the rest." Yes it is. Except for Afghanistan it shouldn't have been undertaken./i/
The WOT should not have been undertaken in Pakistan, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordon, Malaysia, Indonesia, Europe or the U.S. - all of which are presently in the WOT, in some fashion? Nonsense.
The idea that history can repeat itself is not an argument that history will repeat itself. To make such an argument is in fact a denial of the necessity to acknowledge circumstances and conditions that have changed, and of how different actions today can be applied to those changed factors, leading to a different result. You can prognosticate all you want, you are not proving anything.
Heck, why limit it to the Mideast and Europe? Let's carry out the WOT worldwide!! Even if the terrorists aren't actually attacking US territory. I can't wait to see how many troops that will require. Let's put a US base in every country to be on the safe side eh? The absolute gall that it is this nation's business to determine how other nation states handle their affairs internally and with each other is the exact thing Adams was warning against. Here's a shocker for you. It's not and it never was intended to be.
The idea that history can repeat itself is not an argument that history will repeat itself. To make such an argument is in fact a denial of the necessity to acknowledge circumstances and conditions that have changed, and of how different actions today can be applied to those changed factors, leading to a different result. You can prognosticate all you want, you are not proving anything.
I am arguing for the negative in the discussion. Therefore I am not required to prove anything. I restate the status quo as before the war applies. The fact is that no WMDs were found in Iraq and Iraq had no ties to 9/11. Because of this Iraq did not present a direct and present threat to the borders of this nation of states. How they handle their internal affairs is their sovereign right. Do I like Hussein? Hell, no he was a SOB. But you know what? At one time, he was 'our' SOB (little Iran/Iraq war back in the '80s?) and the fact is I'd rather have a crazed nut that was deluded into thinking he had things he didn't than a nutty Islamic on a mission to spread Islam, democraticallly or otherwise.
And the simple issue that you don't see the parallels of history repeating itself is disturbing. Of course, it's the US doing it this time, so this time it will be different. Because 'we' are in the right!! I'm sure the Brits once said that, and the Romans before them, the Greeks before them, the Persians before them,....
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