warrengz

WOW! Here we are 9 months later after I posted this and outlook has not changed. I have refrained from posting for a good while just to keep me sane, then I see this pop up again! I have trusted in him all my life, as hard as it has been at times, and I have always felt him beside me in everything that I do and I am always blessed with what he intends for me. It's almost here folks, fret not and trust in him.

http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/the-price-of-the-iraqi-dinar-and-the-real-reason-us-combat-troops-can-withdraw-from-the-iraq-war/19611389 (Aug. 31) -- President Barack Obama will address the nation tonight to mark what his administration is calling the end of combat operations in Iraq. And already scholars are revisiting how a war once compared to the Vietnam quagmire reached this point of tentative success. Ali Al-Saadi, AFP / Getty Images An Iraqi man checks the authenticity of a 25,000-dinar bill before using it in a shop in central Baghdad. The most intriguing theory comes from Peter Berck and Jonathan Lipow, academics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Defense Resource Management Institute, respectively. In a recent paper, they argue that it was the Iraqi dinar, and its almost obscene appreciation, that played a crucial role in the decline of insurgent activity, ushering in the current period of relative peacefulness. "[The dinar] played perhaps as large a role as the Surge," Lipow tells AOL News. Prior to the invasion, sanctions imposed against Iraq kept the dinar "unusually cheap," Lipow says -- so cheap that, during the first throes of the uprising against America's presence, foreign terrorists easily used their more lucrative foreign currencies as a way to recruit insurgents. Mercenaries in Iraq received as much as $5,000 (U.S.) per attack, the study says, the equivalent of three months' income for the average Iraqi family. Terror reigned. But then the price of oil shot up. By July 2008, it had reached $134 a barrel, an increase of $107.33 from January 2004. This had an appreciative effect on the dinar. As did, frankly, the U.S.'s involvement in Iraq. The journal Military Review estimates that U.S. armed forces flooded the Iraqi economy with well over $20 billion in goods and services between 2003 and 2009. As a result, the dinar quadrupled in value, Berck and Lipow write. This really hurt the Iraqi insurgency. When the dinar rose, the spending power of foreign currencies in Iraq declined; the Saudi riyal, for instance, buys today only a quarter of what it did in 2003 in Iraq, the study says. And so the insurgent groups in the country had to rely more and more on the dinar, which meant they had to find a way to keep their operations afloat using the domestic currency. The best way for the insurgents to do that was to "tax" the locals: basically, extorting and robbing them, and sometimes killing them for failing to pay up. The locals didn't like that. And so, the authors argue, they quit supporting insurgent groups. Thereafter, the violence decreased: Average civilian fatalities declined from 72 per day in 2006 to 7.2 by the end of last year. Berck's and Lipow's conclusions raise important questions for what happens next in the country. If Iraq got to this point because of oil prices and the economic benefits of heavy U.S. involvement, what happens when the price of oil is no longer $134 a barrel and less than 50,000 U.S. troops (and the money they represent) are in country? Possibly nothing good. A depreciation in the dinar "seems almost inevitable," Berck and Lipow say in their paper, which was released in June. Indeed, it's already happened: The Wall Street Journal reported last year that Iranian imports are flooding the country, from bricks to buses to rice, because it is once more cheaper to import into Iraq. That means fewer jobs for Iraqis. The Journal quotes an Iraqi brick-factory owner predicting "bad things" will happen if he has to close his shop and lay off the young men who need to support their families. Berck and Lipow write, diplomatically, that what this means for Iraqi national security remains "unclear." Filed under: Nation, World, Top Stories Tagged: barack obama, counter insurgency, dinar, insurgents, iraq, iraq surge, iraq war, iraqi dinar, jonathan lipow, oil, oil prices, peter berck, terrorism, war on terror

NEAR THE IRAQ-KUWAIT BORDER — The last U.S. combat troops were crossing the border into Kuwait on Thursday morning, bringing to a close the active combat phase of a 7½-year war that overthrew the dictatorial regime of Saddam Hussein, forever defined the presidency of George W. Bush and left more than 4,400 American service members and tens of thousands of Iraqis dead. The final convoy of the Army’s 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, based at Fort Lewis, Wash., was about to enter Kuwait shortly after 1:30 a.m. (6:30 p.m. Wednesday ET), carrying the last of the 14,000 U.S. combat forces in Iraq, said NBC’s Richard Engel, who has been traveling with the brigade as it moved out this week. “We won! We won! It’s over! We brought democracy to Iraq!” a soldier shouted as fellow soldiers celebrated their arrival in Kuwait this week. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38744453

My Assessment of Where We Are as of 8/4/2010 As I suspected nothing of any consequence occurred today in spite of the fact that Melkert had promised a “surprise” related to the formation of the new government when he gave his report today at the UNSC. Of course he gave his report, but there was no surprise regarding the formation of the new government, unfortunately. As many of you may know I started retranslating many of the Arabic to English articles the last couple of days. In some cases I have also added my own comments after the retranslations. Hopefully this will prove helpful to you all in understanding these strange documents, and will give you a better understanding of the political scene as it exists today. I’d like to take a few moments to give you all a summary of where I believe the political situation lies at this point. While I cannot conclude that the government is formed, naturally, I do believe that there might be some light at the end of this long tunnel we have found ourselves in. First, let’s identify the major players. This may seem a little basic for many of you but if you aren’t familiar with the players everything I say hereafter will seem as if it were Greek instead of English. The winner of the election, technically, was Ayad Allawi. I will refer to him as Allawi from here on. His alliance is known as the Iraqiya List. The Iraqiya List, often called “the List” in the articles, won 91 seats in the new parliament, coming in first. While the Iraqiya List itself is largely Sunni, there are some Shiites and even some Christians in the coalition. Allawi himself is a Shiite, but he is a secularist, meaning that his religious affiliation does not impact his political activity. Coming in second in the Election was the State of Law alliance. This alliance is headed by Nuri Al-Maliki, the prime minister of Iraq for the last 4 years. I will refer to him as Maliki from now on. He still is acting as an interim prime minister with the blessing of Mr. Talabani, about whom I will speak shortly. This alliance won 89 seats in the election. It is entirely Shiite in its conformation. Coming in third in the election is the Iraq National Alliance, called the INA, which is what I will call them. This group won 70 seats in the parliament. This group is also Shiite in its configuration. It has not identified a single leader up to this point but Jafaari and Mahdi have been mentioned, as well as three other lesser known persons. Muqtada Al-Sadr, the cleric who was living in Iran until recently but now is in Syria, leads a portion of the INA. He hates America and has the backing of Iran. The US does not, therefore, want the INA to be heading the new government, although it would not mind the INA being a part of a larger super coalition. The fourth group is the Kurdish Alliance, also know as KA. This alliance has several people who speak for it, but the best known is Talabani who was the President of the Republic for the last for years and is the current interim President of the Republic by order of the Supreme court recently. It is Talabani who has given the “ok” to Maliki to remain in office for the time being. The KA got only 43 seats in the parliament. Now here is why there are so many problems getting the government formed. The first is that Maliki just won’t accept anything other than himself as the new Prime Minister. He formed a larger alliance on May 4 with the INA and his own State of Law. This alliance is known as the National Allicance. The combined alliance has 159 votes, just 4 short of a majority in parliament. He was able to get the Supreme Court to reinterpret Article 76 of the constitution to allow the National Alliance to be able to form the new government since it will come into parliament as the largest block. However, Allawi, who came in first at the election, is disputing this interpretation. He has shown with documentation that the coalition with the largest votes at the election has the right to form the government. This is where the impasse started, and as of today this has not been resolved. The UN has come out with a statement that Allawi has the right to form the government. Maliki is ignoring this statement as of today. The Kurds have stated from the beginning that they will participate only if all four coalitions have a place in the new government. They were the first to suggest this and are finally being called upon to offer a proposal to get the government formed. In the meantime the US has stuck its finger into the pie with two proposals, both of which have been rejected. The first proposal was for Allawi and Maliki to share the prime minister position, with each of them serving 2 years. Of course they both wanted to have the second 2 year period, which would be when the economy was humming along nicely and also which period is closest to the next election, giving the person in power then the best shot at being re-elected. Since neither would give in the proposal fell apart. This was the proposal that Biden offered on July 4. More recently the US has suggested that Maliki remain as prime minister and that a new Presidential position be created for Allawi in which he would be in charge of the military, Iraqi security, and some other ministries. As we would expect, Allawi has rejected this proposal because he came in first and believes that he should have the right to form the government and therefore be the prime minister. Therefore this proposal was also rejected. We are now seeing from the articles that it is the Kurds who have been quietly working in the background to get the government formed. Even though there is an article out today in which a Kurdish representative stated that they hadn’t gotten involved yet because it is too early, this is a smokescreen. They have been involved from the beginning, and this was admitted by Melkert of the UN. We know, for instance, that when the US delegation came to Iraq this last week that they met with the Kurdish leadership. Why would they do that if the Kurds were not involved. The Kurds have finally come out with a proposal that may have merit. They have suggested that the State of Law break out of the National Alliance. It is clear that this alliance was crumbling anyway, and all talks between the INA and State of Law were suspended some weeks ago. So for the Kurds to make this suggestion is not disturbing. The Kurds then go on to suggest that Allawi of the Iraqiya List and Maliki of State of Law join forces and form a united coalition. This is asking a lot, but it could happen. The big question here would be how they would determine who is going to be the prime minister. However, Maliki has been shown to be quite vulnerable and he might be open to another presidency in exchange for having a big seat at the new government table. By joining forces these two would have 91 plus 89 seats for a total of 180 seats in parliament, a clear majority. Therefore the government could be formed. The Kurds then suggest that after this alliance is formed that the new alliance then invite the Kurdish Alliance and the INA to participate in a super coalition which would then consist of all four parties. Presumably the table scraps would go to these 3rd and 4th place finishers. If Allawi and Maliki are seriously considering this proposal a new alliance could be made in short order, even before Ramadan. Then the invitation to the other two coalitions would follow in short order as well, also conceivably before Ramadan. Therefore, if cooler heads prevail, this could still get done before Ramadan. On the other hand, based on what happened today at the UN, it is also possible that Ban-Ki-Moon is getting frustrated and that he may go ahead an install an interim government. If he does, I would suggest that he would also do this before Ramadan. In either case above, I believe that the RI could occur shortly after the announcement of the new government or the interim government. Of course I could be wrong. Steve

Sooooo what about this.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STdoCfIYofs&feature=player_embedded if u ask me, the "military that got him into this" and then got him out of this, made him make a rebuttable and close his mouth!

THIS IS THE RIGHT ATTITUDE!!! Remember, attitude is everything! How u feel about something determines your choices. If you are a "spectator" investor, then you can just sell it back as he mentions here for a small loss. Real investors see the great confidence in this currency and know how to "sit on it". Patience is a virtue, and as with any investment, this one is a true test of it. Thx SuperFly!!!

You do know you can search the forums before you post right??? Search for the key words of your article and it will bring up all the older posts about what you are searching for.

Whoops sorry seen in your other post woody, of course I shoulda known better!

I didn't see that this was focused on Iraq's financials.

Correct! Traders make their money on the 'spread' of the rate they get from their source and then sale to you. Thats where their money is made. Makes no difference what the monetary value of the particular currency is or will be, their obligation is to trade it (it is a law/requirement for them to be traders). They will continue to sale right up to RV and even after RV.

OK, this is for all of you lop-sters, dollar failing, no RV, new guys, low rate, people. STOP! If you are having doubts or believe any of the articles about any of the above things happening, then just stop your investment. Sell your dinars and move on. It's that simple. DON'T bring your negativity to TRUE investors who understand the risks and returns involved with such a world wide event. There's no need for it. There are TONS of RUMORS, and that is exactly what this this site is, right, a rumor site, that people take as truth or reality and live their lives by it. You're wasting your time worrying and possibly hurting yourselves. Even if it RV's at .10, that's over a 1000% return. Better than most investments over a period of 6 years, since this all began! So you will still be in the black, which is more than most stock traders can say. Instead of worrying bout all these negative "RUMORS" and wasting your time, why not do your own research. If you spend that 'wasted' time looking into this INVESTMENT, you will answer SOOO many of your own questions and have a totally different feeling about everything you hear. Treat this escapade exactly what it is, an investment. Would you be feeding into all the RUMORS and bad info and opinions of people who waste their time trying to be negative about your hedge fund or retirement plan? NO, you would leave it there and wait for it to do what it is going to do as you should your dinar. Don't buy more based on what you hear as RUMOR, but only based on what you discover as you do your own diligence. Above all else, leave it in God's hand. It will happen when he is ready for it to happen and it will come out at the rate he intends for it. He has brought you this far and into this investment by however he intended for you to learn of this opportunity for his own reasons. Now, be thankful he has presented this to you in your life and wait for it's outcome the way he sees fit. And again, if you choose to be negative and disbelieve what God has brought into your life, then simply sell and I wish you all the best. God bless you all!

Annnd also, its right on too! There is NO plan to increase value to 1000 IQD to 1 USD, cuz the plan is to give the country back it's international standing and a 170 increase does not do that.

Use ur common sense here people. What kind of logical explanation is this obviously mis leading, uncredited article? What's the difference here, let's break it down, 1170-1000 = 170. Okay so ur telling me that a 170 dinar difference is going to miraculously make it easier to store the smaller denoms in an ATM? How simple is that to understand right there? Nowt mentioning the fact that the country would not benefit at ALL from this move and not give any significate purchasing power to the average Iraqi citizen. There so many other reasons why they simply can't do this. Don't say u hope I'm right, or u just agree cuz it eases you mind now, look at all the facts! They say it all. This statement, made by some hand puppet at the CBI, is a retraction of letting out too much of the truth. Just think about it!

Those were my first reactive thoughts when I read the article. Seems that they are back tracking trying to explain what's already been released and send mis direction to keep us off track. Like oops, we let that skeleton bone fall out so let's bury it again. Better to trust our first instinctive reaction.

Hello? Anyone actually doing any research? If u are then first thing you would notice is that this has been happening for awhile now with the floating system. So do you also remember this little thing called the ERM? Look it up, not going to explain, but these systems are put into place to control supply and demand of a currency. Now is there a demand for worthless currency? Ah now ur thinkin, and what kind of supply do they have. Hmmmmm. And why would they want to control an untradeable and worthless rate? GET IT? because it's NOT going to be worthless and untradeable! Reality check, quit living ur life on this thing and wait for it. Its coming FAST!

Dont really have any "soures" of intel, but heard the same thing. Even heard the IMF director announced on TV but I cannot find any links to anything. Again, just what I HEARD.

(CNN) -- Days ahead of national elections, Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has announced plans to rehire 20,000 former Iraqi army officers who served under former leader Saddam Hussein. The officers will be reinstated into the new Iraqi army, said an official with the ministry of defense. The move garnered criticism as being a political ploy and was surprising in some circles after al-Maliki's campaign rhetoric against Hussein's Baath Party. Several candidates who planned to stand in the upcoming election have been banned by the country's Accountability and Justice Commission because of evidence of them "glorifying" the Baath Party. Kurdish lawmaker Mahmoud Othman said al-Maliki was simply trying to secure more votes. http://cnn.org/2010/WORLD/meast/02/26/iraq.army.officers/index.html?hpt=Sbin Maliki playing some chess!

crap try this link to read article http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2420894020100224

UPDATE 1-IMF approves $3.6 billion loan for Iraq Wed Feb 24, 2010 10:07pm GMT WASHINGTON, Feb 24 (Reuters) - The International Monetary Fund on Wednesday approved a $3.6 billion loan program for Iraq to cover balance of payments needs. The IMF said it would immediately disburse about $455 million of the loan to the Iraqi authorities and comes as Iraq faces a crucial parliamentary elections on March 7. The country has had two previous IMF arrangements of less than $1 billion each. Iraqi officials said last year the government was seeking a $5.5. billion loan program from the Fund, when oil prices were lower. The country relies on oil export for more than 95 percent of state revenues and desperately needs funds to rebuild after years of conflict and an insurgency triggered by a 2003 U.S. invasion. http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKN2 ... 20894020100224

Perspectively look at it like this, dealers and foreign exchanges at banks are in the business of exchanging currency. It does not matter which one it is and what it exchanges for. They are providing a service that you would not normally be able to do yourself unless you were in that particular country. They are licensed and bonded in their trade and must adhere to a specific set of rules and regulations no matter what information or rumors exist about any change of value. They will continue to do business as usual and still have their services and products available after any value change to any currency they deal in.

Hyper may god bless you your family and friends. Everything is in his hands and we will have to just pray for forgiveness and blessings for the world. My family and I will make sure we keep you and your mother in our prayers as well. God bless you.

Hmmmm, where are the emails? Who are they from? Let's get some credibility to these rumor claims guys!

Had to have stents put in to prevent heart attack. Cbsnews.com

Iran Nuclear Capability http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,585461,00.html

Yep, there are not new people. Even the coins, although rare, are still not new. The old site is still up and shows the 50 & 250 but no 500 or anything lower. And do u guys remember the speculation that all the space left at the top of this section was for the smaller denoms? Here's the old one http://www.cbi.iq/banknotesandcoins.html. So good start I guess and revamped site is about all, but nothing to get overly excited about! Also explains why the site did not update the auction sales for about a week.