Will OPEC dump the dollar?

[simuvac]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hale-stewart/will-opec-dump-the-dollar_b_73181.html

From the AP: (http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/071118/opec.html)
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said Sunday that OPEC's members have expressed interest in converting their cash reserves into a currency other than the depreciating U.S. dollar, which he called a "worthless piece of paper."
The hardline Iranian leader's comments also highlighted the growing challenge that Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer, faces from Iran and its ally Venezuela within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.


"They get our oil and give us a worthless piece of paper," Ahmadinejad told reporters after the close of the summit in the Saudi capital of Riyadh. He blamed U.S. President George W. Bush's policies for the decline of the dollar and its negative effect on other countries.

"All participating leaders showed an interest in changing their hard currency reserves to a credible hard currency," Ahmadinejad said. "Some said producing countries should designate a single hard currency aside from the U.S. dollar ... to form the basis of our oil trade."


Earlier this week there was a story that Saudi Arabia had rejected a proposal to dump the dollar at OPEC's latest meeting.

I can't speak to the various political games being played within the OPEC meeting. However, Iran and Venezuela are OPEC members and neither like the US. In addition, there is a strong argument for OPEC to dump the dollar. Here is a yearly chart of the dollar.

http://i17.photobucket.com/albums/b84/bonddad/charts/dollar.png

This is a bear chart, no doubt about it. Notice the following.

1.) The dollar has been dropping in value for the last two years.

2.) The simple moving averages (SMAs) are all heading lower.

3.) The shorter SMAs are below the longer SMAs

4.) Prices are below all the SMAs.

In short, this chart says sell me.

OPEC is getting paid in a continually devaluing currency, which no one wants. In addition, as the dollar has dropped, oil has risen over about the last month partially as an inflation hedge. That means oil has been rising because the dollar is falling.

In short, OPEC has a damn good point in getting rid of the dollar. The only reason to keep the dollar is Saudi Arabia will prevent the move, not out of economic interest but out of political will.

[AuGmENTor]

Move over Dollar, the neocons introduce the AMERO!!!!

[dMole]

I found the Amero link a while back, but does anyone know about this Hal Turner guy? I've never heard of him.

http://www.halturnershow.com/AmeroCoinArrives.html

Snopes seems to think he's full of mierda...

I know firsthand that DIA (the airport) was a pretty F'd up place some years ago, but it has been redecorated from what I could tell (with obvious recent construction). Looks like Denver is HQ of FEMA Region VIII.

http://www.fema.gov/about/regions/regionviii/

[simuvac]

I found the Amero link a while back, but does anyone know about this Hal Turner guy? I've never heard of him.

Hal Turner is a racist wingnut:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner

Harold "Hal" Turner is an American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States), self-described white nationalist (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism) Internet radio (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_radio) talk show (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk_show) host from North Bergen, New Jersey (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Bergen%2C_New_Jersey). His program, The Hal Turner Show, is webcast from his home. Turner also operates a website called halturnershow.com, which features his views on racial and political issues.

Identifying himself as "Hal from North Bergen", he achieved notoriety in local conservative circles as a frequent caller to the WABC-AM (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WABC-AM) radio talk show hosted by Bob Grant (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Grant).[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-0) Turner parlayed this fame into a role as the northern New Jersey coordinator for Patrick J. Buchanan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_J._Buchanan)'s 1992 presidential campaign. He went on to serve as campaign manager for Libertarian (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_%28United_States%29) Murray Sabrin (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murray_Sabrin&action=edit) in a number of campaigns in New Jersey in the 1990s, including a 1997 gubernatorial campaign.[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-2)

After Bob Grant's program was taken off the air for racist content, Turner established a friendship with his replacement, Sean Hannity (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sean_Hannity), on whose program he was a frequent presence. Turner then became a talk radio host himself, joining fellow regular callers Frank from Queens and John from Staten Island to form "The Right Perspective (http://www.therightperspective.com/);" Turner left the program in 2002 citing "artistic differences." In 2002, Turner became a solo host, purchasing a time slot on a shortwave radio station called WBCQ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WBCQ), over which he broadcast for approximately four years. He gave up this show, he has said, after seeing Mel Gibson (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mel_Gibson)'s film The Passion of the Christ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Passion_of_the_Christ), stating that the station was owned by a Jew and he "would no longer do business with Jews".

In 2000 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections%2 C_2000#New_Jersey), Turner sought, and failed to receive, the Republican Party (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29) nomination for election to the United States Congress (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Congress) from New Jersey's 13th congressional district, losing to Theresa de Leon (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Theresa_de_Leon&action=edit).[4] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-3) [5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-4) Turner has identified himself as the "Chairman of the Republican Party of Hudson County, NJ Corp," a group which has no connection to the official Hudson County (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hudson_County%2C_NJ) Republican Party recognized by the state and national GOP. According to news reports, Hudson County Republican officials have stated that Turner's party is a "paper corporation with little or no membership".[6] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-5)

Turner's website and radio program is largely devoted to a digest of news concerning crimes committed by minorities, which Turner describes using racist epithets. He supports strict limits on immigration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration); advocates the hunting and killing of illegal immigrants [7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-6); promotes anti-Semitism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism) including rounding up and killing Jews; and opposes the existence of the State of Israel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel). [8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-7) He also authors and promotes Holocaust denial (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_denial) material.[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-8) Turner advocates political assassination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination) and overthrowing the government, because, he says, the current United States (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States) government is corrupt beyond repair. However, he has also endorsed Ron Paul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul) for president in 2008.[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hal_Turner#_note-9) His website serves as a virtual meeting place for fellow white supremacists, via its comment pages.

[dMole]

I didn't even know they had that kind in NJ- I thought they were all down south hanging out with David Duke or something. He sounds like a real piece of "work"...

[dMole]

CNBC London was talking about the Amero around April 2007. MSM credibility= you do your own math...

http://www.livevideo.com/video/9DB0A967BB2F447291619BCA3EA96C77/the-amero-north-american-cur.aspx?lastvcid=427925

[simuvac]

Apparently, Hal Turner is more than just a racist wingnut (see above).... He's also an FBI informant.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/74255/
(http://www.alternet.org/rights/74255/)
Computer Hackers Allege That Notorious Neo-Nazi Radio Host Is on FBI Payroll

By Mark Potok, Hate Watch
Posted on January 19, 2008, Printed on January 19, 2008
http://www.alternet.org/story/74255/

New Jersey radio host Hal Turner (http://www.splcenter.org/intel/intelreport/article.jsp?pid=215#35) is well known as one of the most vicious neo-Nazis in America, a man who routinely suggests killing his enemies.

Railing against President Bush, he told his audience last June that "a well-placed bullet can solve a lot of problems." He has written that "we need to start SHOOTING AND KILLING Mexicans as they cross the border" and argued that killing certain federal judges "may be illegal, but it wouldn't be wrong." In 2006, after he published an attack on New Jersey Supreme Court justices that also included several of their home addresses, state police massively beefed up security for the members of the court, checking on one justice's house more than 200 times.

Hal Turner is one serious extremist. He may also be on the FBI payroll.

On Jan. 1, unidentified hackers electronically confronted Turner in the forum of his website for "The Hal Turner Show." After a heated exchange, they told Turner that they had successfully hacked into his server and found correspondence with an FBI agent who is apparently Turner's handler. Then they posted (http://pastebin.com/f640d724d) an alleged July 7 E-mail to the agent in which Turner hands over a message from someone who sent in a death threat against Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wisc.). "Once again," Turner writes to his handler, "my fierce rhetoric has served to flush out a possible crazy." In what is allegedly a portion of another E-mail, Turner discusses the money he is paid.

On Thursday, as the E-mail exchange was heatedly discussed on a major neo-Nazi website, Turner suddenly announced he was quitting political work. "I hereby separate from the 'pro-White' movement," he said, adding that he was ending his radio show immediately. "I will no longer involve myself in any aspect of it."

The FBI declined comment. "Longstanding FBI policy prohibits disclosing who may or may not provide information," Agent Richard Kolko of the agency's press unit said. Reached in New Jersey, Turner also declined all comment.

The apparent revelation set off a torrent of criticism from experts in criminology and the use of informants. "This is clearly over the line," said James Nolan, an associate sociology professor at West Virginia University who is an expert in police procedure and a former unit chief in the FBI's Crime Analysis, Research and Development Unit. "Informants may be involved in drugs, and you overlook that because of the greater good. However, these are viable threats -- they could be carried out -- that the FBI clearly knows about. I want to see the FBI stop it."

Informants, of course, are commonly used by law enforcement agencies that have no other way of proving suspected criminal activity. "These are frightening groups whose members deserve to be investigated and infiltrated," said Jack Levin, a criminology professor and expert on the radical right at Northeastern University. "My concern is that Turner's methods actually are more dangerous and destructive than the evil they are seeking to cure. His threatening messages may actually inspire neo-Nazis to up the ante, to engage in even more destructive behavior."

Turner, 45, has developed a reputation as one of the hardest-line racists on the radical right since starting up his radio show seven years ago. He has routinely ranted about such things as a "Portable Nigger Lyncher" machine and slimed those he hates as "savage Negro beasts," "bull-dyke lesbians," "faggots" and worse.

But it is his threats that are legendary.

In 2006, Turner told his audience to "clean your guns, have plenty of ammunition ... [and] then do what has to be done" to undocumented workers. Around the same time, he suggested that half the U.S. Congress "may have to be assassinated." A year earlier, he suggested "drawing up lists of yeshivas," or Jewish religious schools. He once started a website called www.killtheenemy.com (http://www.killtheenemy.com) for the purpose of posting photos and names of those who marched in favor of immigrant rights. Hearing that anti-racist activist Floyd Cochran was visiting Newark, N.J., last June, Turner said he had "arranged for a group of guys to physically intercept" Cochran and added that Cochran would likely "get such a beating that his next stop is going to be University Hospital." In a July letter, Turner wrote to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which publishes the Intelligence Report: "If you do not change your stance soon, you will face a wrath of fury that you will never be able to defend yourself against. We have the ability to reach out and touch someone."

Last July, Turner posted photographs of a pro-immigrant activist being taken away by an ambulance outside Turner's North Bergen home. "Click the images below to see how I kicked the shit out of one such douchebag," he wrote.

Reaction on the radical right to the apparent revelation was mixed, as activists tried to figure out if Turner really was an informant. But to many, there was little question it was Turner, based on the style of writing in the E-mails. "It does sound like Hal," wrote "Varg" on the Vanguard News Network, a neo-Nazi website. "I agree," responded "Yankee Jim." "The Email definitely sounds like Hal."

Turner's alleged E-mail to his FBI handler is also addressed to a detective sergeant with the New Jersey State Police who trained with the FBI Police Executive Fellowship Program in 2004. Interestingly, as long ago as May 2006, Turner wrote of a visit paid to him by the two men, saying they had come to his house to warn him that "Washington has instructed us to close you down." In that same posting on his website, Turner described himself as the type to inspire "a whole slew of potential Timothy McVeighs. I don't make bombs," he added, "I make bombers."

"It's become so routine," Turner said of FBI visits in a 2005 interview with The (Hackensack, N.J.) Record, "they are like my private FBI agents."

Hate Watch is the blog written by the staff of the Intelligence Report, an investigative magazine published by the Alabama-based civil rights group Southern Poverty Law Center (http://splcenter.org/), edited by Mark Potok.

© 2008 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/74255/

[PhilosophyGenius]

Donald Trump made an intersting point, that without the US they're nothing because America is protecting them.

And aside from Saddam and now Adminajad, they're all pretty friendly with the US establishment.