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Strategies & Market Trends : 2026 TeoTwawKi ... 2032 Darkest Interregnum -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: GoldBull no bug here who wrote (25474)	11/20/2007 3:34:20 AM
From: elmatador	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 217574

"humanity as essentially bestial and the city of Berlin as a sink of depravity and deprivation, its streets crowded with unprincipled profiteers, prostitutes, war-crippled dregs and a variety of perverts." The above shows a set of circumstances. Cut for the post war period and see how a different set of circumstances transformed this people into: Hard working, Honest, law abiding and democratic. And MQ keep saying that is DNA that counts... Laughable. You can transform those Africans in Hard working, Honest, law abiding and democratic in a flash... just provide the right set of circumstance... That's what being provided just now.

To: GoldBull no bug here who wrote (25474)	11/20/2007 4:14:40 AM
From: elmatador	Respond to of 217574

Opec’s dollars: dominant male in a pride of lions has an easy life – as long as he shows no weakness Opec’s dollars Published: November 19 2007 22:26 \| Last updated: November 19 2007 22:26 The dominant male in a pride of lions has an easy life – as long as he shows no weakness. The US economy has long been in a similar position, yet the increasing vulnerability of the dollar is creating a risk that others will lose confidence and turn on the dominant currency. Comments from Opec, the oil cartel, and Wen Jiabao, Chinese premier, suggest that other lions are restless. Opec ministers discussed the weak dollar at their summit over the weekend. There are two things they could do, one meaningless and the other highly significant. The first option, pricing oil in a currency or basket of currencies other than the dollar, matters little. All countries ultimately pay for oil in their own currency – Japan in yen, India in rupees, the US in dollars – no matter what currency the contract is denominated in. That is reflected in the dollar price of oil, which has gone up as the dollar has gone down. Pricing in euros, for example, might hit confidence in the US currency, but should have no other effect on the oil price. The change therefore has most appeal to those such as Venezuela or Iran, who would like to embarrass and undermine the US. The more serious policy choice will be made by individual Opec members such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates or Qatar: whether they should abandon or revalue their currency pegs to the dollar. The oil price has created a boom in those countries yet, via their currency pegs, they are importing interest rate cuts from the US. The simple and predictable result is rapid inflation: above 10 per cent in the UAE, where real interest rates are negative. Currency revaluation is a cheaper and easier way to adjust to the higher oil price than inflation. In the long run everyone will benefit if oil exporters revalue against the dollar, but given the pressure the US currency is under, now is the worst possible time. If possible, the oil states should act gradually. The hundreds of billions of dollars in official and private US assets held by states such as Saudi Arabia, which will lose value if its riyal appreciates, are an incentive to do so. Yet nervous dollar holders will worry that others might sell their Treasury bonds and revalue first. Those who move last will lose most. The dollar still has its supports. US exports are recovering, and as Mr Wen made clear, any Chinese revaluation will be gradual. Yet as the monetary consequences of the falling dollar worsen for those countries pegged to it, the risk of revaluations and subsequent flight from dollar assets gets higher. A dollar rout is still a danger.