jerome's explanation is linear, and there is a lot more psychology behind this, imo, in the dollar staying the de facto 'petro-currency', than in the dry accounting factor.
we are talking about a dollar that's stretched extremely thin by debt and profligate non-productive weaponisation, with a disproportionate amount of military bully-force swaggering behind the diplomacy.
superpowers tend not to let go of iconic symbols easily, and the dollar sure is that, and the petrodollar more so.
is it coincidence that saddam was going to change over before he got taken down?
by this diary's arguments, it would appear so.
or am i missing something?
i heard he would have saved a bunch of 'money' by switching.
if that's true,(please correct me someone if i'm wrong), why wouldn't iran set up a bourse in euros.
if they gain on ther balance sheet by saving money by trading in euros, where would the loss come from?
am i out to lunch? ~"When an inner situation is not made conscious, it appears outside as fate." Karl Jung~
no real profit made unless you assume Saddam held euros, then converted to dollars when the Euro went from 83 cts to 1.35 (and now 1.19) over a multi year period.
Of course, holding euros has nothing to do with selling oil but rather how one holds any leftovers after expenses. This "20% profit" line of argument assumes the cash was just hanging about and that Saddam was lining up to purchase something else in USD anyway. For all I know, Saddam's purchases were all in Euros (since we were boycotting him) leaving no foreign exchange profit at all.
