Saudi Oil, Attacks, Dollars and Iran

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Saudi Oil, Attacks, Dollars and Iran

The recent drone strike on Saudi Oil fields, which is currently blamed on Iran has thrown another monkeywrench in the messes in the world mix.

The following recent video by Glenn Beck breaks all this down with a clarity I have not seen anywhere else.

I still don't trust Glenn because of the way power went to his head, but he seems to be straightening out a little and, based on this video, I have subscribed to his YouTube channel again.

When he is good, he is very, very good,
But when he is bad, he is...

Er...

He sucks the bigass green weenie.

Back to point, I believe this Middle East state of affairs has the potential to trigger a major war.

We need to keep an eye on it.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

I don't think Saudi production costs are $80/barrel. I think they need $80.

The danger to the dollar is a minor issue. War is the major danger.

Sanctions are an act of war. They are hurting the Iranian people, not their rulers. It makes them stronger.

We are instigating a war. Doing it all wrong. The stronger the Iranian people the relatively weaker the rulers.

When they seriously start to take those rulers down we jump in with whatever to give them the advantage.

FDR knew he was provoking war with Japan so he could go fight Hitler. Today nobody knows shit.

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

16 hours ago, Brant Gaede said:

The danger to the dollar is a minor issue.

Brant,

I'm not so sure. International payments used to be in British Pound or French Francs. After the Bretton Woods agreement (1944. where the World Bank, IMF, etc., were established), this changed to the American dollar. I always thought this change was due to some kind of treaty or something.

But trading US protection of Saudi Arabia for it doing all its foreign oil business in dollars makes a lot of sense. I imagine Saudi Arabia brought all the Sunni Muslim countries with it.

And that would be the risk of the dollar. If Saudi Arabia feels betrayed by the US and the other Sunni Islamic countries goes with it, meaning if a new currency starts being used for international agreements, all those dollars the world over will start being sold off and coming back to the US. Then you will see inflation like you have never seen in your life. The US has used its privileged currency position to export inflation for decades and decades (by printing oodles of money to pay some government bills and favor some cronies, then sending the rest abroad.

I'm not worried, though. President Trump is a great deal maker.

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

True enough, but the dollar is not backed by oil. It's a world of fiat currencies priced against each other. The defacto credit worthiness of the dollar is unsurpassed. Still, the dollar is not a store of wealth. Assets are stores of wealth. In a hundred years today's buck, if it still exists, will be worth 2 to 5 cents. Gold could be about the same value as today. A share in the S and P 500 (or 2000)--low cost Vanguard--50 to 100 times today's purchasing power. Etc. 

--Brant

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I am very close to this thinking:

Glenn is one of the few people out there who sees Iran through a religious/ideological lens--the kind that motivated the communists and Nazis. Except in the case of Iran, their ideology is tied up with a particular interpretation of Islam.

The top people there, the Twelvers, actually do believe they will aid Allah's plan of sending the Twelfth Imam back by setting the world on fire.

I think the probability of this being their main motivation is way above 50%. The good news is that the probability that this is a popular position with the Iranian people is way, way, way below 50%.

Michael

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

40 minutes ago, Brant Gaede said:

True enough, but the dollar is not backed by oil. It's a world of fiat currencies priced against each other.

Brant,

I used to think this way, but now I'm contemplating a new idea. I'm considering the possibility that this oil base of international import and export currency is like the housing subprime mortgage bubble, with sliced-diced derivatives, collapse.

That things was a scam, granted, but everything was going fine until the bankers got greedy and actually tried to foreclose on the mortgages (the dogshit) they were using to prop up partytime. Those mortgages could have been bought by very forgiving profiteers of the derivatives explosion without even putting a dent in their profits. They would simply let the people stay in the houses, but take over the loans and payments and structure them for chump change payments for the next 100 years, thus keeping the mortgages as healthy, but noooooooooo... They got greedy and wanted to roast the goose that laid the golden eggs and eat the damn thing. Then they wondered why no more eggs bundled and packaged derivatives.

I think if oil falls as the main reason to preserve the dollar for international payments of imports and exports the world over, in the jockeying to fill the breach from major countries that do currency manipulation, particularly China, the whole thing will fall apart in a similar manner and the price of the dollar against other fiat currencies will end up in the toilet, leading said fiat currencies to follow close behind (including China and whoever else is playing).

Michael

[Brant Gaede]

True enough except no they won't ,

--Brant

[Jon Letendre]

The Gang’s current attempt at WWIII through their controlled puppet Iran will fizzle and fail just like the attempt in Syria and then again North Korea. Trump will use the attempt as pretext for kinetics that end The Gang’s presence there.

[Peter]

Fox News. An Iranian oil tanker cruising 60 miles off the coast of Saudi Arabia was rocked by a pair of missiles Friday, briefly causing an oil leak and more broadly threatening to further inflame fraught regional tensions between the two heavyweight Muslim nations.

We are sending 2000 additional troops, fighter squadrons and Patriot missiles to Saudi Arabia.