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bamastorm

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  1. and we are still in Iraq, my son who stationed there just sent me a picture of him being served christmas dinner by his commander at the mess hall. We have several boots on the ground there.
  2. This burns my ass too, On June 28, 2005 I lost my bother. He was shot down by the Taliban on a rescue mission of a Navy Seal team. All of the American blood that was spilled in that country for nothing!
  3. Agree with Officallytook. When I lived in Germany in the 80's and 90's the exchange rate between the dollar and the german mark changed every day sometimes dramatically. 1980 1.713 1981 1.975 1982 2.242 1983 2.374 1984 2.761 1985 3.173 1986 2.438 1987 1.918 1988 1.585 1989 1.764 1990 1.709 1991 1.490 1992 1.528 1993 1.637 1994 1.742 1995 1.554 1996 1.435 1997 1.541 1998 1.789 1999 1.655
  4. First of all, I want to say that I have been in this investment for over 10 years now and firmly believe that one day something will happen. When who knows? How much who knows? I have a good understanding on how fiat currencies work. Tomorrow we could wake up and see 1:1 exchange rate on the CBI site and electronically it is done. The part that I cannot wrap my head around is what happens with the non-electronic commerce? How will it be adjusted quickly to adapt to the new rate? Let’s take Joe the camel trader out in the sticks of Iraq. He sells used camels for 1000 dinar or 1 Us dollar. So, the rate change happens and now Joe could sell camels for 1 dinar or 1 dollar. But does he? I can see several scenarios here. 1. Joe has a cash business and could be unaware that the rate has changed and does not adjust his prices to reflect could be months before he is aware. 2. Joe is a smart business man and is in touch with world. He adjusts his prices and life goes on. Assuming he has LD’s in hand or uses US dollars to make change. 3. Joe knows the rate has changed and hopes that his customers do not. “ I have big sell now! Camel are 500 dinars! No I am not taking US Dollars” 4. Joe does not know but his customers do, no business, arguments ect…. Until Joe figures it out. I know the above sounds silly but so form of it will happen in Iraq when this happens. How much chaos will this cause?
  5. is possum still around? Have not heard from him or mama.
  6. I never post but a long time member (voyeur) and want to thank you Ron. You have been part of my morning routine for many years. My early morning coffee, cruising the new section, your guru opinions and then only on Sundays laugh through the rumor section. Joe B please quit disturbing the peace.
  7. Please do not think I agree with this article, just posted it because it was an opinion from a so-called "expert" from Forbes. Just brought it over for discussion. I am hoping that he will have to post an update for March or April stating that he was wrong.
  8. I hope this guy will have to make a retraction statement soon!!!!!!!!!!! This is from Forbes In the words of popular comedian Ron White, “You can’t fix stupid.” That phrase, as elegant in its simplicity as it is frankly true, applies with special fervor to those who continue to believe that they are about to make millions, billions, or even trillions by investing in Iraqi dinars. Yes, I know this has been written about before. Fellow Forbes’ contributorJohn Wasik wrote about this scam last January athttp://www.forbes.com/sites/johnwasik/2012/01/19/the-curse-of-saddam-iraqi-dinar-deals/ And even various law enforcement agencies are publicly warning about this scam, such as that of the Washington State Department of Financial Institutions at http://www.dfi.wa.gov/consumers/alerts/iraqi-dinar-scams.htm Yet this scam continues to persist, and hardly a week goes by that some sucker or another doesn’t call my office to inquire about asset protection planning for the untold riches that he or she is about to receive when the Dinar finally re-valuates by 100 times or more. Of course, they can’t pay my legal fees now for such planning because every last cent is invested in the Dinars. But they can pay me when they finally reap their great reward. Which is never. Scams involving the arbitrage of foreign currencies have been around as long as there have been, well, foreign currencies. In the modern age, many pyramid schemes have been disguised as sophisticated “FOREX trading programs” — but in fact, the scammers weren’t doing any trading at all, but simply paying old investors with the money from new investors. Charles Ponzi, the modern Father of such schemes, would be proud. In fact, FOREX scams became so widespread in the 1990s — playing on the speculation regarding the then-new Euro — that the U.S. Commodities Futures Trading Commission was compelled to put out a great deal of warnings about these scams. There exists an entire army of FOREX scammers who spend their entire days looking for suckers, which unfortunately include the most vulnerable in our society such as the elderly. For those folks in or nearing retirement whose ordinary investments didn’t quite get them where they needed to be, these scam artists are ready, willing and able to divest them of their remaining wealth with promises of high “risk free” returns trading in FOREX. But that money is just disappearing to banks in Belize or elsewhere. The FOREX scams didn’t involve any actual purchases of foreign currency, but simply scam artists running utterly bogus “statements” off their printers that showed huge returns, right up until the time that the scammers disappeared. Some of the Dinar scams operate the same way: You don’t actually get any Dinars, but instead just a statement showing that you have Dinars or some sort of phony-baloney “Certificate” of ownership. But — and this is why the Dinar scam has been largely successful — with the Dinar scam you can actually get the cold hard Dinars if you want them. Yep, suckers around America have their closets and garages full of bales of Dinars, just waiting for that glorious day when they will re-valuate. Which is never. To help sell the scam, the scam artists have set up all sorts of websites and bulletin boards and newsletter and social media and you-name-it to try to create the impression that the Dinars are valuable and are about to re-valuate at any moment. I’ve had people tell me that their Dinars are going to re-valuate “within the week” or “by the end of the month”, and they’ve been telling me for years. All of this reminds me of the “Magic Bean Scheme” which was a pyramid scheme run in my native Oklahoma by some creative scammers. The idea was that you could buy from the scammers a certain type of expensive bean that when left in a jar of water for a couple of weeks would produce valuable “bean juice” that could then be re-sold for a large profit. The key was, according to the scammers, you had to shake the jars every few hours to get the desired result. Of course, the scammers threw some of their own money in to get the scam started. The first few people made some good money selling their bean juice, and of course they told their friends and family about this new sure-fire way to make a fortune. Soon enough many folks in Oklahoma were brewing “bean juice” in their garages, going out every couple of hours to shake the jars so that the bean juice would form faster. “Honey, it’s 4:00 a.m., and you turn to shake the jars.” Then, one day after selling enough of the expensive beans, the scammers vamoosed and there were a lot of folks in Oklahoma with closets and garages full of jars of worthless beans and juice in them — turned out the beans were just ordinary navy beans. My guess is that there are still people out there who have never given up on the beans, still turning them, and still expecting that bean juice to result in untold riches. Ditto for the Dinars, the bales of which some suckers having in their closets and garages, taking up space and waiting for the day when they finally re-valuate. Which is never. Unfortunately, a bad thing about human nature is that once folks believe in a story, they refuse to believe they have been scammed. Often they are embarrassed, and figure that to admit they were wrong is worse than simply keeping their useless whatevers in the closet or out in the garage. But others are really, truly convinced that their initial investment was a good one, and no amount of proof or logic can dissuade them. Even after Charles Ponzi died, some of his followers bought OUIJA boards and tried to channel his dead soul to find out when their utterly worthless investments would become valuable as he promised. Time and time again, I’ve watched as the victims of pyramid schemes continue to believe that they are about to get rich even as the perpetrators went to jail. For me, after telling these folks they’ve been scammed and hearing their denials, I’ve been betting these folks who call me up to $5,000 in free legal work if the Dinar re-valuates in 30 days, against a gift certificate from a steakhouse. Suffice it to say that I’m going to be in good beef for some time. Which brings me back to Ron White, who is absolutely right: “You can’t fix stupid.“ And that goes for the Dinars, and the idea that they will soon re-valuate, thus leading current investors to great riches. Which is never. So, why is this a scam? It is a scam because the Dinar has no chance or significant appreciation, i.e., appreciation that would make buying Dinars worthwhile. First, there is the political uncertainty — who would invest in the currency of a government that is still fighting a significant insurgency and might not be around the next year, any year? Second, and much more importantly, there are so many Dinars floating around that even if Iraq discovered the world’s largest gold mine tomorrow, the value of the Dinar would not significantly appreciate. The scam artists say, “But look at Kuwait!” After the first Gulf War, the Kuwaiti Dinar did show significant appreciation. But that is an Apples and Orangutans comparison. First, Kuwait is significantly richer than Iraq with significantly larger oil reserves — it is forgotten that the Iraq invaded Kuwait to get the latter’s oil reserves, not because Iraq had enough of its own. Second, the Kuwaiti population is much smaller — 3 million compared to the 33 million living in Iraq. This means that Iraq has to take care of ten times as many people as Kuwait, as well as attempt to rebuild an infrastructure racked by a decade of civil war, with less money than Kuwait. Third, and even more telling, the Iraq government even now has to borrow about $100 million per year to provide basic services. No country which is borrowing money is going to have an “imminent revaluation” (the term often used by the scam artists to sell Dinars) anytime soon! Fourth, Kuwait had a stable government before the War that simply fled Kuwait until order was restored, and then returned to be a stable government. By contrast, Iraq’s government is new and whether it survives is anybody’s guess. The point is that there is absolutely no reason to believe that the Iraqi Dinar will significantly appreciate in the long term, and it utterly insane to believe that the Iraqi Dinar will significantly appreciate in the short term, i.e., within 10 years. And there is the scam: The scam artists sell Iraqi Dinars to suckers based on the false story that the Iraqi Dinars are about to become very valuable, when they are not. You might as well buy bags of sand, because they are going to appreciate more quickly than the Iraqi Dinar. Or just go down to the bank and buy rolls of pennies and hide them in the attic. Someday the U.S. government will get rid of pennies, and then the pennies will become rare and valuable — in about two hundred years. That is about how quickly the Iraqi Dinar is going to appreciate too. Which is never. Update 30 August 2012 After this article was published, I had numerous e-mails to the effect that I didn’t know what the hell I was talking about, and that the Iraqi Dinar would absolutely, positively re-valuate within a few days and the buyers thereof would become fabulously wealthy. Well, here we are 30 days later, and . . . the . . . Dinar . . . hasn’t . . . gone . . . anywhere. If you think the Iraqi Dinar will make you rich, you must be listening to Baghdad Bob! The only thing that did happen of interest is that Justin Rohrlich wrote this article: http://www.minyanville.com/business-news/editors-pick/articles/iraqi-dinar-scam-currency-investment-tampadinar/8/30/2012/id/43627 I’ll update again in another 30 days, and for those of you who are still wondering, I don’t suggest the Dinar will substantially revaluate by that time either. Update September 30, 2012 Well, surprise, surprise, surprise, the Iraqi Dinar did not re-valuate upwards in September, but we did see some interesting news on the Dinar front. Such as this article, “Prosecutor: Fake Iraq Veteran Sold Fake Hedge Funds” at http://www.finalternatives.com/node/21635 Or this article, “2 Who Bought Iraqi Currency Bring Suit Against Indicted Sellers, Firm” at http://www.toledoblade.com/local/2012/09/22/2-who-bought-Iraqi-currency-file-suit-against-indicted-sellers-firms.html I’ll update again in 30 days — during which time the Iraqi Dinar will not have revaluated then either. But there will still be lots of suckers in denial at having been scammed sitting around thinking they are gazillionaires. This article at http://onforb.es/T1sOnq and http://goo.gl/GwfJM Update October 31, 2012 Nothing new to report. The Iraqi Dinar is as far from an upwards re-valuation as ever — you might as well wish for Jack’s Magic Beanstock to take the Dinar upwards. But, lots of seriously deluded folks still continue to believe they are going to get enormously rich off the bales of Dinar’s socked away in their attics and garages through America. My guess is that pretty quick you’ll be able to buy as many Dinars as you want at garage sales. Update January 31, 2013 Well, I must apologize to everybody for not updating at the end of November and December, 2012, but I got very busy with clients’ year-end planning . . . and frankly nothing was going on with the Iraqi Dinar anyway. So let me take this opportunity to update you on what has been happening with the Iraqi Dinar through January 31, 2013, which is: Nothing, Absolutely Nothing. I have noticed, however, that sellers of Iraqi Dinar are starting to offer “free gifts” to suckers who buy that currency from them, sort of like “Buy 1 Trillion Iraqi Dinar And Get A Free Pinata” or some such (the Vietnamese Dong, a currency of sorts, seems to be a popular give-a-way with purchases of Iraqi Dinar). The Better Business Bureau warns about the Dinar Scam at http://www.central-northern-western-arizona.bbb.org/article/iraqi-dinar-investments-opportunity-or-scam-34951 This expose of the Dinar Scam is pretty good too – http://www.learningmarkets.com/the-iraqi-dinar-scam/
  9. ERBIL, Kurdistan Region- Kurdish members of Iraqi Parliament’s Finance Committee have denied that there is currently any proposed law regarding the removal of zeros on the Iraqi banknote. Ahmad Faizulla, an MP from the Kurdistan alliance in Iraqi parliament and member of the finance committee, dismissed claims that their committee has prepared and drafted a law to alter the currency. “The finance committee cannot make such a decision,” he said. “We can only suggest projects. The drafted projects will be presented to parliament for discussions for voting. This is something that must go through legal channels.” Heitham Jiburry, a member of the finance committee, announced last week that eliminating zeros on Iraqi banknotes will be implemented early next year. “It is expected that the process of printing new currency will start next August,” he said. Jiburry also remarked, “The process of replacing the old currency to the new one will continue throughout next year. The old currency will completely be gone in the first 6 months of 2014.” In April, the chief of staff of Iraqi Council of Ministries suspended the process indefinitely. Fazil Nabi, Iraq’s deputy finance minister, previously told Rudaw that eliminating zeros on Iraq’s currency will not increase the value of Iraqi dinars. However, Jiburry said, the process will make the Iraqi dinar more stable and reduce demands for foreign currency among people. Nabi told Rudaw, “Implementing this process is related to the central bank. I always believed that this wouldn’t work at least at this stage.” Economists believe Iraq is not ready to eliminate zeros on its currency, and that for the process to be successful security, political and economic stability is needed. But Shorsh Haji, an Iraqi MP from the Change Movement (Gorran) maintained that there is indeed a proposal to modify the currency. “Such an idea to eliminate zeros on Iraqi currency does exist,” Haji said. “The process of withdrawing all the old bills and replacing them with new ones needs a special budget, which was not designated from the 2012 budget. It is believed that this budget will be designated in 2013.” Regarding possible economic benefits of a currency change, Haji said, “The benefit would be more in appearance. Currently, the value of the Iraqi dinar has dropped and is unstable. After removing zeros instead of saying 123,000 IQD is equal to US$100 we will say 123 Dinars is equal to US$100. It is just to show that Iraq has a strong economy.” Making changes in Iraq’s banknotes may add to already heightened tensions between Baghdad and Erbil. Kurdish MPs in Baghdad say that if such a law is passed in parliament, the new bills must have Kurdish alongside Arabic script on them, as stipulated by the constitution. “So far, there has not been any designs for the new bills,” Haji noted. “Without a doubt, having Kurdish written on the new bills will be our pre-condition.” According to Article 4 of the Constitution, Kurdish and Arabic are the official languages of Iraq and both languages must appear on Iraqi banknotes. Section two of the article says, “Use of both languages is enjoined by the principle of equality such as banknotes, passports, and stamps.” Haji is optimistic about the future use of the Kurdish language on Iraqi official documents. “I don’t expect that this constitutional right will be ignored or cause more tensions between Baghdad and Erbil,” he said. “This is a legal and constitutional subject. There are also Kurdish-Arabic interpreters in Parliament. Kurdish MPs can speak Kurdish if they want. However, it has become a habit for them to speak Arabic in the Parliament.” MP Faizulla is more skeptical, saying, “Many constitutional articles and rights have already been violated. This will depend on agreements between the political parties. If the political parties don’t agree, it most likely won’t happen.” Does mean an exchange rate of 0.81 ??? 123 Dinars equal 100 dollars? LINK http://www.rudaw.net/english/news/iraq/4770.html
  10. Not running to Breitling's defense but he never forced anyone to open a Warka account or buy lower denoms. I personally have a Warka accoount and have made money with the interest from the desposits. Have larger denoms as well never bought lower denoms because I did not think it was worth it.
  11. Wow! For a Newbie that is a very brave post ! (I can say that because I am one too!) Hope you got thick skin!
  12. O has signed the doc; best to take 15% package before the 45th day expiration. Details available tomorrow on many sites ???????????????????? http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/signed-legislation Nothing here about taxes, dinar, or currency http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/presidential-actions/executive-orders Same here http://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/pending-legislation Nothing Pending Either, hmmm
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