LEAP/2020 is a French organization. I say - F... the French. We bailed them out in WWII and this BS is our thanks?
It will be interesting to see what happens in March. I know will be long the euro and short the dollar if the bourse opens up. Anyone who believes this nonsense care to share the reasons why they believe this? Because the French wrote it, is not an acceptable answer.
The chances are that nothing so dramatic will happen in March, but a serious crisis is inevitable considering the irresponsible nature of the US government and the Fed. Anyone who thinks that the M3 statistic is being dropped for reasons other than to facilitate the acceleration of debt monetization has got their heads buried deep in the sand IMO. The only politician currently out there with an ounce of integrity is Ron Paul: http://www.house.gov/paul/congrec/congrec2006/cr021506.htm I hope that his bill on the continuation of the M3 publication is passed http://www.house.gov/paul/press/press2006/pr021506.htm so that politicians (as well at the French) can be put back in their place and hopefully the powers that be can address the problems that the US faces now rather than hide them from us and watch them compound later.
Seems to me these Frenchies are just the latest in a long line to get excited about Iran's euro bourse. George Ure (Urban Survival), the Financial Sense Online folk, and other so-called "doom and gloomers" (I prefer to think of them as unsentimental realists) have been mentioning it for some time, as have geopolitical commentators like those at From The Wilderness Publications. Energybulletin.net is another good domain to back-search for analysis of this development. Interestingly, William Clark's 2005 book "Petrodollar Warfare" has a chart in it which suggests that OPEC has been pricing oil in euros since 2001. Figures quoted on page 140: 2001: US Import 3.5b @ $21.40/barrel. Avg exchange USD/EUR = 0.8952. Euro price per barrel = 23.91 2002: US Import 3.4b @ $22.61/barrel. Avg exchange USD/EUR = 0.9454. Euro price per barrel = 23.92 2003: US Import 3.7b @ $26.97/barrel. Avg exchange USD/EUR = 1.1321. Euro price per barrel = 23.82 Anyone want to run the figures on 2004-2005? Now back to this French Institute. No matter how hilarious their faux-scientific presentation, they should probably have speculated as to the anticipated volume of this oil market. They say it will be available to all oil producers in the region. Can't see the House of Saud openly abandoning the U.S. dollar somehow, and an occupied Iraq clearly will not return to the late-Saddam-era policy of pricing their oil in Euros. Syria will come to the party but they produce a paltry 500,000 bpd. So, with Iran's 4m bpd, that's a little over 5% of world production, currently worth about $250 billion USD/year (roughly 210b euro). In my opinion this won't immediately do much to destabilize plans for a CONTROLLED demolition of the USD. It'll take time for this market to gain regional support, if it ever does, to bring it up to a level where it is a serious competitor to the London and NY markets. US threats, intimidation, and carefully orchestrated "mistakes" should be enough to delay things. An invasion is unnecessary -- securing the Khuzestan oilfields in the southwest may even be logistically beyond the capability of the US military + ally. On the other hand, perhaps a few dozen well placed EMPs may be all it would take to reduce Iran to the desired state of economic serfdom and send an appropriate message to the rebel scum in Europe and beyond. "Fire up those printing presses, we're going shopping!"
. February 28, 2006 SouthAmerica: Chavez might start pricing Venezuela's oil based on Euros. He saying as well that Venezuela might stop selling its oil to the United States - which would have a bigger effect on the price of oil in the USA. .
From energy bulletin.net "When in 1970-1971 foreigners demanded payment for their dollars in gold, The U.S. Government defaulted on its payment on August 15, 1971. While the popular spin told the story of âsevering the link between the dollar and goldâ, in reality the denial to pay back in gold was an act of bankruptcy by the U.S. Government. Essentially, the U.S. declared itself an Empire. It had extracted an enormous amount of economic goods from the rest of the world, with no intention or ability to return those goods, and the world was powerless to respondâ the world was taxed and it could not do anything about it. From that point on, to sustain the American Empire and to continue to tax the rest of the world, the United States had to force the world to continue to accept ever-depreciating dollars in exchange for economic goods and to have the world hold more and more of those depreciating dollars. It had to give the world an economic reason to hold them, and that reason was oil. In 1971, as it became clearer and clearer that the U.S Government would not be able to buy back its dollars in gold, it made in 1972-73 an iron-clad arrangement with Saudi Arabia to support the power of the House of Saud in exchange for accepting only U.S. dollars for its oil. The rest of OPEC was to follow suit and also accept only dollars. Because the world had to buy oil from the Arab oil countries, it had the reason to hold dollars as payment for oil. Because the world needed ever increasing quantities of oil at ever increasing oil prices, the worldâs demand for dollars could only increase. Even though dollars could no longer be exchanged for gold, they were now exchangeable for oil." The undeniable fact is that this will no longer be true