All the News That's Fit To Print

I read a great article by Molly Ivans about stories that are not being covered and one of them is Iran trading oil in Euros instead of dollars.

She led me to this article. Be afraid, be very afraid.

One of the major unstated reasons the United States invaded Iraq was to stop Saddam Hussein from trading oil for euros, which he had begun in 2000. Hussein actually made more money selling oil for euros, as the euro appreciated 17 percent against the dollar between 2000 and 2003. Other countries in the region, particulary Iran and Syria, began public musing about switching from dollars to euros around the same time.

All three countries were subject to a barrage of threats from the United States government, but only Iraq went through with the switch, and it was summarily invaded. One of the US government's first acts in Iraq was to switch oil sales back to dollars.

Now, Iran plans not just to sell oil for euros, but to create an exchange market for parties to trade oil for euros. The oil bourse will provide a euro-based price standard, the way West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) and North Sea Brent crude do today. To the extent that the balance of reserve holdings starts to shift from dollars to euros, that's very bad news for America's system of dollar hegemony.

This is news. This is a harbinger of a recession in the best case scenario. This is what we should be talking about.