lakedreamer

Reinman, I love the wheel!

How's about they open one in downtown Tampa, and we won't need to use Wells Fargo to cash in?

This man has more lives than a cat.

I guess I haven't been keeping up enough. Is it true that Maliki is eligible for reelection in 2014 if he so chooses? If he is reelected, what might that mean for monetary reform?

Nice job, Mr. Barzani! Per month, no less! Looking for a third term? Anyway, one day years from now the rest of Iraq will catch on and be able to do this too. They're just going to need a little more time to get their act together.

This is just another Maliki Yes Man trying to earn some brownie points before the election.

This is another blow to the dollar. I just hope Iraq RVs before the dollar loses so much value our return is basically worthless. I'd like to buy some stuff with my dinar exchange before it costs $100 for a loaf of bread.

That's also a thought. Either way, they probably want to keep up the sham until after the elections.

This could be very easily solved by having the man say hello to all his followers on a video or even have him smile a crooked smile for a picture. Just make it an up to date one, not some crummy picture from 2 years ago. Me thinks he's dead.

How can it RD this year? Didn't they say it would have to be done at the beginning of a year? Maybe 2014. Then we could get lucky and the rate could drift way up, first!

All in favor of letting Fib out of the tank, say aye!

Well, if he is dead they forgot to tell Kuwait.

I'm only here for the cookies. I love cookies!

I'm home today making chicken soup, and while cutting up the vegetables, I watched the video that Zigmeister put up from the Aspen Institute. It was very good! I think the President should watch this. It might help him with his Middle Eastern foreign policies. These are the people he should be talking to, not the usual yes men in the cabinet. Great find Zig!

Why would Maliki stage a prison break and make himself look bad? If he wanted all those people out he could have just given them a reprieve. After all, he's the one who put most of them in there in the first place.

Everyone in Parliament needs to have citizenship in another country so they can embezzle public funds now, and when the SHTF they can all leave and live like kings.

From what I understand, a redenomination is a rather involved process, that has to have the banking system with certain processes in place to have it run smoothly. And don't forget; Iraq's banking system was stuck in the middle ages. They have only had 10 years to bring their banks into the 21st century. They have had a tremendous amount of work to do to build banks and ATMs, install computers and train people in their use, develop the smart cards and work on educating the populace to use these things. They have done a tremendous job catapulting themselves into a position to take a place in the modern banking world. And, this is just my opinion, but there are probably very few people in the country who have as good a handle on banking and economics as Dr. Shabibi did. And he's not there right now. Perhaps this back and forth in the news is part of the growth process in the country. The Iraqi Parliament is on a learning curve, too. I'm dying for a nice hefty return on my money, but I'm beginning to understand why it's taking so long.

Private banks in Iraq will be a good investment on the ISX over the next 10 years I bet.

They could fly like eagles!

What would happen if every country in the world received, say, a 20% debt forgiveness from everybody else...or a 50% debt forgiveness. The United States could surely use that. Would that help reset the global economy at all? Would that decrease inflation if everybody in the world did it? Any thoughts?

No matter what kind of currency reform Iraq decides on, the main entities that will profit are the banks.

At this point redenomination may be the best thing for the Iraqi people. They are going to pass the pension law and the minimum monthly pension will be 400 million Dinars. Move the exchange rate to 1000 Dinars to one US Dollar and drop the zeros. The next day the Iraqis wake up and have 400 Dinars per month with the buying power of $400 US Dollars on their Smart Cards. At least. That is the smallest pension. The poverty levels are reduced overnight. The Iraqis have more buying power and over the next year or two there are more things to buy. Not as good for us speculators, but at least we get most of our money back. Maybe now that Citibank is in there we won't have to go through a dealer to exchange outside of Iraq so there will be a smaller spread. Just do something. Please!

That was nice. Thank you.

I think Lady Grace's Daddy got it right when he said "bragging rights". I had never concentrated on financial news at all until I got involved with the Iraqi dinar, but it seems as if there are an awful lot of news articles coming out of Iraq concerning how much money the CBI has. Does the Fed brag about what we have? My guess is probably not. Perhaps all these statements from Turki and even Shabbibi, have been for the benefit of the Iraqi people only. They feel they need to brag a little to keep the electorate engaged and positive about the process. Exact numbers really don't matter and probably should not be believed. Could we perhaps be looking at this with a too Westernized perspective?

Could it possibly be due to the decline in the value of the dollar? Or maybe they had to pay a parking fee. Or maybe they were just rounding up to make it look better.