More Here it Comes

Asia Times published a reprint of Toni Straka's Prudent Investor blogpost from yesterday about the proposed Iranian Oil Bourse:

Could the proposed Iranian oil bourse (IOB) become the catalyst for a significant blow to the influential position the US dollar enjoys? Manifold supply fears have driven the price of crude oil to its recent high of US$67.10 - only a notch below its highest price in inflation-adjusted dollar terms.

...Non-US-dollar holders so far have been the victim of additional transaction costs in the oil trade. The necessary conversion of local currencies into oil-buying greenbacks can be considered a hidden tax, charged and enjoyed by the international banking sector. The IOB, by eliminating this transaction cost, will become a factor that could unsettle the dollar's dominant position.

The last time someone (Iraq) proposed such a thing, they were invaded by the United States and Great Britain.

Until now, oil has been solely priced, traded and paid for in the greenback on markets in both London and New York. But monthly worldwide oil revenues of over $110 billion (on a 20-trading-day basis) - a third of which ends up with OPEC (Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries) members - raise the question of what happens to these cash mountains. According to the most recent data from the US Treasury Department, OPEC members have parked only a skimpy $120 billion in direct dollar holdings, which are almost equally split between equities and American debt paper. This is a clear indication that oil producers are investing their windfalls elsewhere. The yield spread between US and EU debt papers in favor of the EU is another hint where the petrodollars might be heading.

...The proposal to set up a petroleum bourse was first voiced in Iran's development plan for 2000-2005. Last July, Heydar Mostakhdemin-Hosseini, who heads the board of directors of the Iranian Stock Exchange council, said authorities had agreed in principle to the establishment of the IOB, where petrochemicals, crude oil and oil and gas products will be traded. The oil exchange would strive to make Iran the main hub for oil deals in the region and most deals will be conducted via the Internet.

Experts from London's International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) and the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) have reportedly confirmed the feasibility of the project. The IOB can count on two sharp arrows in its holster. It can - and probably will - lure European buyers with oil prices quoted in euros, saving them dollar transaction costs. And it can strike barter deals with oil-hungry giants like China and India who have a lot of products and commodities to offer. One doubts whether American hamburgers and legal services will be considered adequate collateral for the world's most after-sought resource.

Worse than an Iranian nuclear attack?

Weaned off the almighty commodity, the US dollar can have a deeper impact on the US economy than a direct nuclear attack by Iran. The permanent demand for dollar-denominated paper stems substantially from the fact that until now almost all resources of the world are quoted in it. While this led to the eurodollar (US dollar-denominated deposits at foreign banks or foreign branches of American banks) market in the 1970s, the new terms of trade could ring in the demise of the dollar as the premier reserve currency.

It would be hard to overestimate the effects on the U.S. economy, already teetering on the brink of total collapse, of a move to price oil in currencies other than the dollar.

As this development poses a very real danger to the superior status of the greenback and the interests of the US, the "president of war" can be expected to take a strong line against the winds blowing from the Middle East. One may be reminded that Saddam Hussein had entered into discreet talks with the EU, proposing to sell his oil for euros. That was in the year before the first oil war of this century.

With the Bush gang and their allies in Israel and Great Britain determined to widen the war to Iran, the world stands at the edge of the abyss.