Carrello

Thank you Wingsofhope. This is a great read and very informative historical background that should give us a better understanding of the challenges Iraq faces as a country. We think the RV should happen NOW, but this report outlines the complexities of what they face in order to move forward. I read the summary and skimmed the report, but did not find a reference to dinar or revalue. Is there information cited in the report regarding the value and/or revalue of the currency, or is your RV values your own opinion? Thank you for the report. Technically, we are investors, and this is the type of information that investors study in order to be successful.

I am sure Palin could get us out of this.

IMO I do not believe that the GOI is in control of this thing AT ALL. The strings are being pulled outside of Iraq, and I image the biggest string is in the White House. They have not been able to form a GOI, much less as a GOI control anything of this magnitude. As a country, we have such an investment, in so many ways, that we are not going to let Iraq fail over this. We have so much at stake. There would be a quick assassination and replacement with A before you knew it. I might be incorrect about A....but you get my drift, or my plot! I think they have every possibility to get one million people in Baghdad on February 25th. When you have people that are desperate and hungry in so many ways - one million - no problem. I am very exited and believe that we have less than a week now. My biggest hope is that the Iraqi people get help and that every US soldier invested makes just a ton of money. Thank you Sonny1 for sharing your intel with us. I would like to buy you two fruit drinks with umbrellas! Sonny1 said he does not ready blogs, but I am hopeful that Mr. Rich will pass on our sincere thanks from the DV members, if I may.

The rest of what?

GET EXCITED!!!

It only makes you a pumper if your mother didn't love you......

I hope you have a chair near by because you are not going to have any legs real soon....

Gadaffi canceled the meeting because he thinks he might be 'tied up' on the scheduled dates.

WF and lots of cash....where is my mask and toy gun.

Am I the only one that got more out of Doc's comment about not being able to buy IQD at 1170 on Monday? In this scenario, that would mean the RV had taken place, or about to. Maybe I am seeing nothing but dates and rates, but this was a very significant message, IMHO. Thank you, Doc, for all that you do!

Hurricane, I could read it until they brought in Glen Beck......I think that the entire post was very much a Glen Beck moment.

The country continues to crumble, the people are starving, and this will continue for two more years because of a "system." I don't think so. At that point, the Chinese would just invade and take the oil (just kidding).

We live in a world of idiotic world where people make sweeping generalizations and make moronic decisions, i.e., Kadafi makes a decision to cancel the Arab summit without discussing with other participants, and the minus 1 that a DV member gave to k98 for posting the article. Both actions are moronic..... Thank you k98 for all of the work and time you spend to provide us with news every morning. I will give you a plus 1 back to even you out. Carrello What are you talking about? Kadafi, you know, from Libya, canceled the meeting. No one in Iraq canceled the summit. Please see a previous post of mine on this subject for a few verbs you might think about.

Ditto... Thank you...

Did you not see anything more important in the post, as in no more discussion on the budget, just a vote, or was just the scheduling time of the meeting the most important item for you?

People tend to work on different schedules when their temperatures get up to 130 degrees.

To all of you that have said that the article did not have anything to do with the dinar, touche'. It did not. The point is look at where you get your news. All media slants the news. You need to get the news from many sources to get the real picture. So many members trash Obama - they trash Hillarious and that seems to be okay. Tell me bashers, where do you get your news? All of you that think that our taxes have gone up since Obama took office, where do you get your news? All of you that think TARP was initiated by Obama, where do you get your news? Obama's birth certificate has not been authenticated? And I was bashed for being a liberal....I am an American and I have been registered as a Republican since 1972, although I vote for whomever I believe will do the best job for America. Thank you. This was great sport! Many of you proved the University of Maryland's survey to be true.

Slaydadea, thank you for the initiative to make that phone call. That step will save so many hours of speculation back and forth as to what this meant. One of the signs we are ready to RV is supposed to be the unavailability of IQDs. So you really ruined a lot of fun for the pumpers. Thanks again. You get a +1 from me.

There are many opinions regarding where we will be regarding taxation. If you go to forex.com you can find additional and sites for information on taxation of forex trades. It seems the IRS has conflicting tax codes. Forex Taxation Taxation of forex is confusing and uncertain in the tax code and that makes tax filings difficult for forex traders. The tax problem is that some types of forex are treated as IRC 1256 contracts with lower 60/40 tax treatment and other types of forex are treated as IRC 988 foreign currency transactions with ordinary gain or loss treatment. Plus, IRC 1256 and IRC 988 are conflicting tax-code sections. An article by Robert A. Green, CPA of GreenTraderTax CPAs written in February, 2008. I hope this helps. The Bush tax-cuts were just renewed last month. You can refer to them at the Obama tax-cuts now.

I found this Salt Lake City Tribune report (a very red state) piece of the State of Maryland study on Fox News very interesting. I had read many other studies stating the same information regarding Fox. I need to be more diverse when it comes to the news and get two sides to the story. If I have learned nothing else in life, there are always two sides to a story. Fox News Misinforms Fox News misinforms First published Jan 10 2011 12:20AM Updated Jan 10, 2011 12:20AM A recent University of Maryland study confirms that those who watch Fox News daily are significantly more likely than those who never watch it to believe that: • Most economists estimate the stimulus caused job losses. (It has created millions of jobs.) • Most economists estimate that the health care bill will worsen the deficit. (Most estimate it will reduce the deficit.) • The economy is getting worse. (It is improving.) • Most scientists do not agree that climate change is occurring. (Scientists are at near consensus that it is.) • The stimulus did not include tax cuts. (Forty percent of it was in tax cuts to the middle class and small businesses.) • Their own income taxes have gone up. (They have gone down.) • The auto bailout only occurred under President Barack Obama. (The program was initiated by President George W. Bush.) • Most Republican congressmen opposed TARP, the Troubled Asset Relief Program. (Republicans overwhelmingly voted for it.) • It is not clear that Obama was born in the United States. (His birth certificate has been authenticated by experts.) Fox News intentionally misinforms. It can better advance its far-right agenda when its viewers are ignorant. Jim Sargent Salt Lake City Copyright 2011 The Salt Lake Tribune. All rights reserved.

I found this article from December 2010 Financial Times interesting and indicates the hurdles the system is up against, and why the RV may be taking longer than we think it should: Calls for Bank Reform Calls for bank reform to unlock Iraq’s potential By Andrew England Published: December 13 2010 17:46 | Last updated: December 13 2010 17:46 Iraqis shop at a super market with an ATM machine Iraq got its first ATM in 2005. Credit cards remain an alien concept Being a banker in Iraq can be a challenging and dangerous occupation. In the first place, there are the obvious security threats. This year alone, the central bank and the government-owned Trade Bank of Iraq have been targeted by suicide bombers. A single movement of cash in Baghdad can cost $5,000 to $6,000 because of security requirements. “I would say [security] probably costs $1m to $2m, in terms of our cost base per annum,” says one banker. Then the banks find themselves working in a predominantly cash-based economy with little transparency and outdated infrastructure. The first ATM was only introduced in 2005 and the machines remain scarce. Credit cards are an alien concept. EDITOR’S CHOICE Shuaa Capital seeks to rebuild reputation - Jan-10 Islamic finance searches its soul - Dec-08 Comment: Basel boost for Gulf central banks - Sep-29 Appeal of sukuk spreads beyond strongholds - Aug-18 Dubai bank's deal resurrects securitisation - Aug-09 Bahrain bank faces rocky road to recovery - Aug-02 At the institutional level, there is no credit bureau or established auditing system and the private sector lacks sophistication in terms of disclosure and providing business plans. The result is banks have to rely only on the reputations of the companies with which they do business and loan-to-deposit ratios range from negligible percentages to the low-20s at best, says the banker, who did not want to be identified for security reasons. Trade Bank, which was set up in 2003 to facilitate foreign trade after the US-led invasion, at the end of last year had total loans of $2.4bn compared with deposits of $11.4bn. In spite of the challenges, bankers still talk up the potential of a country that has some of the largest proved oil reserves in the world and massive development requirements. But the banking sector is also in dire need of faster reform, the bankers say. There are 43 banks in Iraq with the sector dominated by seven inefficient, outdated state-owned institutions, while the private sector accounts for just 10-15 per cent of deposits. In a country of 30m people there are only 700-800 branches. Private banks were permitted in the late 1990s under Saddam Hussein in a sector that had been nationalised since the 1960s. But many are small, family-run entities that do limited business. Hussein al-Uzri, chairman of Trade Bank, says both private and state-run banks need to develop. “State-owned banks stopped improvements and modernisation from the late 1980s after the war with Iran started and then the sanctions [against Iraq] came and nearly killed them,” he says. “They need to modernise not just their infrastructure, but also their systems, their employees, their banking practices and enact credit policies and risk management.” Mr Uzri says private banks need to expand beyond fee-paying business to providing loans and project finance. The hope is that new capital requirements will bring consolidation, increased investment and more interest from foreign banks, he says. The central bank wants the current minimum requirement of ID50bn ($43m) raised to ID100bn by the end of June, ID150bn by the end of June 2012 and ID250bn 12 months later. Some foreign banks have already acquired stakes in Iraqi institutions. HSBC owns 70 per cent of Dar es Salaam Bank, and National Bank of Kuwait has a 75 per cent stake in Credit Bank of Iraq. They hope to benefit if the country stabilises sufficiently to allow genuine development. Foreign investment has been trickling in, but has been focused on the oil and energy sectors and is meagre compared with the needs and potential of the country. In 2008, foreign direct investment reached a high of $1.8bn, nearly four times that of 2005, but dropped to $1bn last year, according to the UN – less than in neighbouring Syria. The political crisis has further stalled development and damaged fragile investor confidence. The next government will be crucial for the nation’s prospects. Nouri al-Maliki, prime minister, was asked to form a government within 30 days at the end of last month. But given the bitter wrangling between rival parties there are concerns about how effective the next administration will be. “I think the fundamentals are still there and we were very encouraged by some of the oil sector activity that we saw over the last two to three months,” says the banker who did not want to be identified. But, the banker adds, “there was a lot of credibility lost in the last couple of months and what happens over the next 30 days is quite critical”. After elections in 2005, cabinet posts were divvied up along political lines, resulting in, bankers say, unqualified ministers and conflict plaguing a government of rival parties. The fear is that history could be repeated. “This looks like it’s going to be a very weak sort of compromise government and all the noises we are hearing are that it will be nonstop consensus building,” the banker says. “It will be very difficult to see whether any firm process can be taken in the short term.” Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2011.

I have a thought and please someone let me know if I am right or wrong: The first RV takes places and comes in low. We have all seen the comments from DV members saying they would take .26 and be gone with the wind and not look back. This would get a tremendous amount of IQD off the street and Iraq pays a very small amount for the exchange. Would that not drive up the value of the remaining dinars on the street if that happened. Then a second RV takes place at a much higher, reasonable (IMO) rate. Between the higher value and fewer IQD on the street, the expense of the second RV is cheaper. Right or wrong - straighten me out on my thinking.

I don't like Reasonman's post for apparent reasons - if he is correct, I look like a fool. But, let's keep one thing straight. He did not say that he had friends that were high ups, but said he would be contacting them. Well, I can contact the White House too. I can say I am going to talk to the President and Secretary Clinton about the RV situation. That doesn't mean a thing - other than having a phone and a couple of phone numbers. I just wonder why someone with 28 years of currency experience would bother to come to a blog like this with all of us common folk. If you do not believe in the RV, why are you combing our site, reading our comments, and bothering to comment on something you do not believe in? If we are so naive and ignorant of the facts, why are you hanging with us? Is it because you care so much about us and want to make sure we understand that the RV will never happen and want to save us from ourselves and the cruel dinar traders? I don't understand why anyone would bother....oh, maybe I do, and the answer is pretty sad.

Cardinal Sin, how could it be understood that the limo driver owned dinars? You never stated that and it was not implied. Although, if he know so much about the dinars and dirty floats, I would think he would be a much larger owner of IQD than any of us, and that his limo driving days would be numbered, like not after June. When you post life stories, you need to plug all of the holes, or you will get blasted. Just some advice. I hope your gig was fun in Tampa....

There is a reason: Phoenix that used to be on dinar vets.