Posted on 08/28/2005 12:30:52 PM PDT by FairOpinion
In a nation plagued by bombings, kidnappings and political strife, a trading floor struggles to survive. Come spend a day in Baghdad’s financial trenches: the Iraq Stock Exchange.
Ahmed Abdul Karim, 52, turns on the spin as quickly as any talking head on Power Lunch. “I want to say that Dar Es Salaam bank is a very good investment because of the HSBC joint venture. Please tell all the foreign companies to invest in Iraqi banks,” Karim says, impressively managing to plug both his stock and the Iraqi economy at the same time.
“Before the war, we had a trading volume of 500 million dinars,” Amin says. “When the new market opened in 2004, the trading volume doubled, to more than 1 billion dinars. I expect it to go up to 5 billion, but the problem is that we don’t have computers. We are like a tank with a Volkswagen engine.”
“I know of a man who bought 1.5 million shares of Dar Es Salaam at one dinar before the war,” Amin says. “Since the market reopened, there have been two splits, and he now owns 6 million shares of Dar Es Salaam without having to pay anything.”
This man’s investment would now be worth about a quarter of a million dollars, a king’s ransom in this country. Best of all for the Dar Es Salaam investor, Iraq has no capital-gains tax, so if he chooses to take his profit, he gets to keep all of it. Unfortunately, these days he’d have to live somewhere else to really enjoy it.
(Excerpt) Read more at biz.yahoo.com ...
I wish there was a way for businesses to donate to them their surplus computers.
Also note, that in one respect they are more captialistic, than we are: NO CAPITAL GAINS TAX!!!
They're not destitute. They can buy computers.
It might help, though, if they could get some computer guys to work for a piece of the action.
Related thread: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472158/posts
I missed it! And when I went to look at it, I think I know why -- I think I was in news and searched it, and since yours wasn't listed in the news category, it didn't come up.
But it's pretty neat news, isn't it?
Also found here.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1472158/posts
what suprises me is these havn't gotten more people reading them.
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