Posted on 11/24/2015 10:02:49 PM PST by amorphous
For the better part of a year, Turkey remained on the sidelines in the "fight" against ISIS.
Then, on July 20, a powerful explosion ripped through the town of Suruc. 33 people were killed including a number of Socialist Party of the Oppressed (ESP) and Socialist Youth Associations Federation (SGDF) members who planned to assist in the rebuilding of Kobani.
The attack was promptly attributed to Islamic State who took "credit" for the tragedy the next day.
To be sure, the attack came at a rather convenient time for President Tayyip Erdogan. A little over a month earlier, the ruling AKP party lost its absolute parliamentary majority in part due to a strong showing at the ballot box for the pro-Kurdish (and PKK-aligned) HDP. What happened in the wake of the Suruc bombing was nothing short of a largely successful attempt on Erdogan's part to use fear and violence to scare the electorate into restoring AKP's dominance in snap elections that took place earlier this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
How unthinkable it would have been in the 1980’s to support Russia over a NATO member.
Why don’t you tell us all why Obama has been arming and aiding ISIS than smart guy?
That article completely misunderstands both economics as well as geopolitics.
Here is a crash course on both:
#1: a strong U.S. dollar means the same U.S. money buys more foreign imports.
In turn, that means that every export nation wants a strong Dollar because that sells more of their goods abroad.
#2: breaking the petro dollar would mean a lower, weaker U.S. Dollar. That means that the USA buys fewer imported goods and instead spends more money domestically.
#3: spending more U.S. money domestically improves the USA economy and harms the economies of all export nations and also crushes emerging economies.
#4: pro USA policies are for a weak U.S. Dollar in order to discourage the purchase of imports while improving the purchases of domestic goods.
#5: a petro dollar policy props up the value of the U.S. Dollar, improving the economies of export nations at the expense of the USA economy.
Conclusion: no one wants a petro Dollar policy.
Obama has been arming and aiding ISIS as part of his de-colonization process (colloquilly: "Arab Spring").
That's why Obama has gone after pro-USA dictators in Yemen, Tunisia, Algeria, and Egypt. For "democracy" that rolls back colonialism.
Same again for neutral dictators such as Assad in Syria and Ghadafy in Libya.
Of course, Obama has failed and screwed up each area that his CIA policy of de-colonization has targeted...including his multi-Billion Dollar support of the Maiden Revolution in the Ukraine/Crimea...an area that has utterly nothing to do with any mythical "petro dollar" policy.
Same again for his efforts in Lebanon (not an oil exporter, either).
B.)The American way of life i.e. living beyond our means is now hopelessly dependent upon a large stable global demand for US dollars brought about by the petrodollar arrangement. The undoing of the arrangement will certainly have deleterious consequences, many of which can't even be anticipated.
C.) a sudden shift in the global demand for the US dollar would bring all those global dollars home (to roost so to speak). More dollars chasing the same amount of goods and services equals inflation.
D.) Syria is all about maintaining global dollar and, thus, western banking hegemony in an era of increasing anti-petrodollar forces. We need only look at the past two decades of US foreign policy actions and effects to confirm this.
E.) there is a large body of information that supports this hypothesis. I have linked to some of this information to support my hypothesis. You have offered nothing more than a snobbish patronizing attitude in support of your own theory.
Inflation?!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
No such thing.
That’s probably the dumbest rebuttal I have ever been presented with.
The Fed *wants* inflation. The ECB wants inflation. Japan wants inflation...and has begged for it since they began QE starting in 1989.
Money for decades has been printed and dropped from helicopters. No inflation.
Who has inflation today? Venezeula and Argentina.
..and they dont want it.
they want controlled stable inflation.
Inflation just means a weaker Dollar. The weaker the Dollar, the fewer imports are purchased. The fewer imports are purchased, the more money gets spent domestically...propping up the domestic economy.
They're going to pay off Obama's trillion dollar a year deficits by sucking the value out of your retirement nest egg with a printing press.
Secondly, the indirect taxation you elude to is also spread out across the globe to every nation that holds dollars in reserve to purchase petroleum so we are, in fact, able to tax most of the world via the petrodollar arrangement-another reason why we are not overly excited to see the status quo disrupted and why the rest of the world (i.e. Vladmir Putin) is less excited about the US dollar as a reserve currency.
Lastly, there's the petrodollar RECYCLING aspect of all of this to consider. Petrodollar profits are reinvested, via sovereign wealth funds, into US equities and assets. A disruption in this recycling program will have consequences.
Can't, or just don't want to?
Our nation will be fine with or without budget deficits. Government is a minority share of our GDP.
Any “petro Dollar” policy would prop up the U.S. Dollar, which encourages the purchase of more imports and harms efforts to “Buy American.”
A strong Dollar hurts the American private sector (the largest component of our GDP).
Inflation?!
Who cares. Home prices go up and debt repayal becomes trivial.
I don’t think they can anymore, certainly not without a balanced budget amendment and a massive increase in employment.
This is a bunch of BS that ignores a growing body of facts and evidence which all point to a defense of the petrodollar. I am not going to argue with you about strong dollars and weak dollars because it is just as irrelevant now as it has been for the past 40 years. The west has built the foundation of its empire out of fiat currency and that fiat currency is backed by OPEC oil and this makes the US federal reserve note the de facto global reserve currency. And for the past 40 years we have built our temple on this rock and all of western capitalism now rests on this pillar and if you think it hasn’t been a phenomenally good thing for the moneyed powers that be in the west, you’re either crazy or stupid. Vladmir Putin knows that the petrodollar is the lynchpin of western banking and has repeatedly acted against it and that’s why he and we are engaged in an escalating conflict in Syria presently. We have no other interests beyond our own.
Syria would have nothing material to do with any “petro Dollar” policy even if that tired theory was valid, which it isnt.
Inflation pays off debt cheaply, something every homeowner with a mortgage would love. A weak Dollar would mean inflation. It would also mean fewer imports and more goods purchased from American manufacturers.
Which is to say that no logic supports any mythical “petro Dollar” policy.
That sort of thinking came from a 1970’s Holywood movie called “Arbitrage.”
It isnt real.
Syria is about Russia and Russia is about the petrodollar. Nothing mythical about it. It has nothing to do with weak dollars or strong dollars or 1970s movies. The petrodollar arrangment is very real. It has been around for over 40 years-ever since we came off the gold standard.
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