Most important political news in some time

[andrewducker]

Not Saddam Hussein's execution (likely to change very little), nor the illicit video of him being taunted by guards (not likely to shock anyone). Not even George Bush shouting "Victory Will Be Mine!" and throwing more troops into Iraq in the vague hope that he can salvage the current mess before the next election.

Nope - the most interesting thing to happen in ages is that Iran just dropped the dollar as their currency of choice, and switched to using the Euro for its currency reserves, commercial transactions and selling oil. Which, as I'm sure you all know, is what Iraq did, a short while before we popped over to relieve them of their Weapons of Mass Destruction.

So, yes, if anyone wants me, I'll be hiding under my desk, waiting for George Bush to open a third active front in The War On Terror.

Link here - and thanks to octopoid_horror for the link.

Comments

Slight tangent

[hfnuala.livejournal.com]

Petrol euros are bad for the british and especially the euro economy because at the moment we've been protected from the worst effects of oil price rises by the weakness of the dollar. Once oil is priced in a curency that is more expensive for us, we'll be in for a shock.

Re: Slight tangent

[andrewducker]

Of course, it's even worse for the Americans.

An interesting question is, of course, how much has petrol price actually varied, if you price it in Euros rather than Dollars - i.e. has the price variance largely been down to a weak dollar, or because of underlying scarcity?

[0olong.livejournal.com]

It seems like a sensible move for them, leaving aside the possibility that it might nettle the Americans into attempting war with them (which one rather suspects Ahmedinejad would quite enjoy, but which Bush probably isn't really quite stupid enough to try). I certainly wouldn't want to be in any way reliant on the currency of a country waging a mutual vendetta against mine...

[andrewducker]

Oh, it's a great idea from their point of view. And it will really piss off the Americans. And it might incite other OPEC countries that hate the US (like Venezuela) to shift over too...

[octopoid-horror.livejournal.com]

The last couple of months have seen Tony Blair especially getting more confrontational in things he's said about Iran.

And odds are getting more likely that the US economy/the dollar will crash spectacularly soon... Apparently there was a last minute saving grace down that route a few months back.