sgmunson

It's up! Yay team!

Has anyone seen this article (attached)? http://www.mriguide.com/Iraq030512.pdf Iraq030512.pdf

An interesting contest, and an interesting story on which it's based.... As to flaws, there are a number of them. 1.) hotel vs. motel - this could be just a typo, and besides, there are more serious ones. 2.) hooker provides services on credit - this one is just not realistic, no matter how small the town, however, larger flaws exist, and for the sake of the story, one can allow for this without affecting the overall story. 3.) Cycle-time - also unrealistic to expect that $100 to travel fast enough to make it back to the hotel.motel in time, but again, more basic and larger flaws exist, and this can be allowed for. 4.) Reliance on 100% cycling - this one is major - no one spends 100% of a windfall on debt. EVER... without a court order to do so staring them in the face. Not only is this unrealistic, it's unsustainable. There are ALWAYS other costs, and most especially taxes. However, for the sake of the story, one can make allowance for it. 5.) The initial $100 is stolen money the moment the hotel/motel guy uses it to pay his debt, and while this seems to be a flaw, theft is certainly a common enough event, so actually, this is NOT a flaw. Additionally, the guy at the Co-Op is stealing the funds to go pay a debt that is clearly a personal debt and not a Co-Op debt, so apparently, theft in this town of Pump Handle may just be rampant. In the case of the story, however, there's a reliance on two people thieving 100 bucks, so it makes the story a lot less appealing from the point of view of trying to use it as a viable example, but again, for the sake of the story, not critical. 6.) Anyone leaving $100 on the table to go "inspect a room" at a lodging facility is probably going to see the hooker, so that's not too realistic either, but for the sake of the story, not a killer. 7,) Driving through town with deserted streets - making that argument is just a bunch of semantics and gets nowhere. 8.) The tourist is the only one with cash - again, semantics. 9.) Likening this story to true stimulus packages as enacted by liberal democrats - while the story certainly bears a striking resemblance to the reality of the Obama stimulus funds, that, in and of itself, is not a flaw. 10.) The MOST SIGNIFICANT flaw is that there are so many things wrong with it. No one thing, on it's own, kills it - it's the accumulated level of unbelievability - a virtual stack of white lies so tall that even the most lenient would seek to tumble the entire stack and lay things bare. Many have identified any one given flaw, but taken separately, the individual flaws could all be "accounted for" in that is IS a STORY, not a real-life scenario, and all such scenarios are usually designed to make a point. This particular story does it particularly poorly, despite the fact that after most folks have read it, they are likely to have A) enjoyed the story, and ignored the flaws. It's the swiss cheese nature of it that is it's most significant flaw. Steve (aka sgmunson)

Not sure if this thought has been covered or not, as I just don't have time for 4 pages worth of response to rumor, but anyway, doesn't anyone think it a tad unrealistic for a currency to suddently acquire an aggregrate value that at a $6 to $7 to 1 dinar RV, would value all IQD that the CBI can account for at over 180 TRILLION US DOLLARS ??? There simply isn't that much money in all the currency in existence worldwide, so I have to wonder just what kind of fuzzy math is the rumor poster using? My basis for this calc is the published by CBI spreadsheet that indicates there are roughly 30 TRILLION dinar in existence. That was as of some time ago now, so the number could well be quite a bit higher by now, which of course, only makes things worse for TK's $6 to $7 figures, Sorry if this rains on anyone's parade, but gee whiz, folks, can't we get a little more realistic? Heck, at a nickel, every million dinar is worth 50 grand, and given that's about 50 times what you pay for it these days on EBay, that's a pretty extraordinary return. Even that makes for quite a valuation stretch, as it turns $30 billion worth of dinar into $9 TRILLION. For perspecitve, the USA has 300 million people and about $6 TRILLION in circulating physical currency, while Iraq has about 25 to 27 million people.... Your thoughts? Steve (aka sgmunson)