Douchie for Aug. 12-18

Before I get to the Douchie I would like to mention that this week marks the first anniversary of The Douchies.  The first recipient was bear5642 for his bank story.  Since then bear has announced his guru retirement I'm happy to say.  But not to worry, there have been plenty to come along and take his place. 

I've enjoyed doing these weekly reminders of how none of these guys know anything, and that the dinar will never go up in value like they say it will.  It might go up a few % here and there but it's not going to $.86 or more.  If they don't lop it's possible to make money by owning dinar, but it's also quite possible to lose everything you invest in it, so you have to weigh those considerations. 

As this week marks the first anniversary this will be my last weekly Douchie post.  I might pop in from time to time to post one when somebody does something really outrageous, but after a year of this I can't imagine anything more outrageous than we've already seen.  I suppose the worst were Okie telling some guy to quit his job, and his subsequent comparison of himself to Jesus.  Then there was the plea from the "Friends of Brad Huebner" to send Brad some dinars because the IRS took his.  Then there was the time Footforward said that it had been revealed to him that trillions of dollars would pass through his hands in his lifetime, and that it will take quadrillions of dollars to fix the world's economy.  Kinda hard to surpass all of that for outrageous, huh?  Thanks for reading.  I hope you enjoyed them.



This week I'm going to grant a special award to BGG from Dinar Updates.  In a conference call on Friday BGG said:

• You gotta be careful who you listen to because some of these guys are in bed with crooked dinar dealers
• If it sounds too good to be true it probably is
• He and Poppy have a good friend who is a billionaire
• He and Poppy did a drive that raised $375,000 in pledges for cancer victims

I have to say this guy has stones.  For a blatant pumper to say what he said here is simply dumbfounding.  Congrats to BGG for winning the first ever (and probably the last) DDB Chutzpah Award.

https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/playback.asp?n=59-17-65-67-17-65-67-29-74-82-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67127117-17-65-6752;0MTAwNTkwMDY=1




And now This Week's Douchie!

(STOP THE PRESSES!!!  I was just about to post the Douchie when I read this from Eagle 1.  WOW!  At the last second he came from out of nowhere to become this week's co-Douchie.)

On Friday Eagle 1 from Frank Villa's "family" posted:

First let me provide you with some numbers and statistics so you know where I’m coming from.

According to the CIA’s statistical reports at the end of 2011 (and they provide these reports for all countries or nations of interest), the CBI held some 80 metric tons of gold in its vaults at that time. (We know, by the way, that this number has increased significantly since then; and the CIA is reporting that central banks worldwide have been purchasing massive amounts of gold for their treasuries. The Federal Reserve purchased some 400 metric tons of gold during the past quarter, just as an example.)

So that you understand the significance of these amounts, let me break it down for you.

There are 14.57 ounces of gold in a troy pound.

There are 2200 pounds in a metric ton.

That equals 32,054 ounces in a metric ton.

Multiply that by a rounded off $1600/oz. and you have a dollar value of $51,286,400 per metric ton of gold.

Now let’s pick an arbitrary number and say that the CBI is going to sell of a quarter of the gold reserves they had at the end of 2011. That works out to $1,025,728,000 (a trillion, 25 ¾ billion dollars) in cash returns to the CBI for the sale of that gold. A trillion plus dollars to add to their coffers.

Okay, for an international banker this guy really sucks at math.  $1,025,728,000 is a BILLION, 25 ¾ MILLION dollars.  So he was only off by $1,024,702,272,000. (One trillion, 24 billion, 702 million dollars.)

Why would they do this?  Let’s look at the amount of Dinar that the Central Bank has outstanding worldwide. According to the latest figures provided by Dr. Shabibi, there are between 35 – 37 trillion Dinar in circulation outside of Iraq. The U.S. Treasury holds a lion’s share of that amount, and there are many other countries that have purchased significant amounts of Dinar. China has been scarfing up Dinar (and silver) like there is no tomorrow. Italy and Greece each hold something on the order of 500 Billion Dinar.

Not so sure that Shabibi said that, but even if he did there's no evidence that the US Treasury, China, Italy, or Greece hold one stinkin' Iraqi dinar.  PROVE ME WRONG, PLEASE!!!

According to the Year-End Report issued by Ernst & Young (December 31, 2011, and signed off as accepted by Dr. Shabibi on February 2, 2012), Iraq’s Central Bank held a total of $76T+ in monetary assets (cash on hand, foreign currencies, gold, treasury notes, silver, diamonds and other tradeable securities). I just about did a double-take when I saw that figure. $76 Trillion in monetary assets is not pocket change, folks! Iraq is one VERY RICH country!! None of these figures take into account receivables in oil revenue, oil reserves, proven gold and diamond reserves or other commodities.

$76 Trillion in monetary assets?  Really?  Seems to me with that kind of wealth they could afford to keep the lights on.  Seriously, guy.  Give us a link to back up this claim.  I read that they have 143 billion barrels of recoverable oil in their reserves.  Figuring a generous $100 a barrel that would come to about $14.3 trillion.  So you're saying that they've got over $60 trillion in other assets?

You’ll all appreciate that the U.S. military, when fighting the war against Saddam, stationed soldiers in the streets of Baghdad. When fighting broke out in the streets, soldiers began digging fox holes and trenches in the streets of the city from which to fight. As they dug, they discovered extremely rich veins of gold running through the middle of the streets. At this point, no one really knows how much gold Iraq has in the ground, but when you remember that this area was part of the Garden of Eden, it all makes sense!

Oh dear God!!! 

Back to the question of why Iraq would sell some of its gold: having been in banking, I can tell you that when bankers are faced with unknown prospects such as those the CBI faces knowing that they could very well have more folks cash in their Dinar than their statistical model indicates, they tend to be almost overly cautious. From a banker’s perspective, it is very prudent for them to increase their U.S. Dollar reserves in preparation for a potential run when the announcement is made. Last week, the IMF announced that the CBI had 130% of its minimum needed asset requirements to begin the RV. That may sound impressive, but that’s 130 percent of 15%. We can round this off and use a general figure. What the IMF was saying was that Iraq had cash reserves amounting to roughly 20 cents on every dollar (or dinar) outstanding.

That’s a whole lot better than any U.S. bank, but let’s look at that in actual numbers. Let’s assume that investors are going to cash in 5 Trillion Dinar within a two-to-four week period of the announcement, and that the initially announced rate will be $3.86. That means that the CBI will have to cough up $19 Trillion+ USD. It takes no great rocket science to see that a sudden demand for that amount of cash could easily put a strain on things – their monetary reserves notwithstanding. Apart from the USD the CBI holds in its vaults, it has something on the order of $5 Trillion in U.S. banks and around $750 Million in Canadian banks. Selling off some of their gold is a pretty smart move, and they could easily sell off half of the reserves (or 40 metric tons) if it seemed prudent to do so.

Again, if they've got so much money why can't they keep the electricity on?  What a liar!  But what do you expect from an associate of Frankie Frankie?

This is all fascinating information, but I hear the questions: namely, what does this have to do with the timing of the announcement and the rate?

Iraq’s President Talabani has just returned (according to unverified info) or will return before the end of this week. Shabibi made it clear some weeks back that he wanted Talabani to make the actual announcement of the RV. Talabani has already indicated in advance that he will be calling a public event on Sunday, August 26th. While there are possibly other reasons for this announced event, there is a general consensus among our analysts that we will have our RV announcement on that date. There is other logic for believing that.

In the last couple of days, Dr. Shabibi has announced that the CBI will release 1 Dinar, 5 Dinar and 25 Dinar coins for public use and trade on September 1. It makes no sense whatever to issue a 1 or a 5 Dinar coin if the RV has not taken place. What good is a 5 or even a 25 Dinar coin if a loaf of bread costs 3,000 Dinars (current price of a loaf, pre-RV). If indeed the plan is to release these coins for use on September 1, then August 26 makes sense for the RV announcement. (And that doesn’t mean the announcement will wait that long. It could actually occur even sooner.)

That’s it for the moment! There is another development unfolding behind the scenes but I’ll hold off on that for the moment. While it could be related to the RV, or not related, it will certainly have worldwide economic consequences. Let’s see what happens over the next ten days or so, and if it seems appropriate I’ll send out another memo for your consideration.

http://theiraqidinar.com/2012/08/18/eagle-1-ptr-81812/

Okay Eagle 1.  When September rolls around with no RV of more than 10% I want you to explain to us where your analysis went wrong.  In the meantime enjoy sharing a Douchie with Mike from the IQD Team.

The IQD Team did a call on Sunday where they insisted that pressure is mounting on the Iraqi government to increase the value of the dinar because people are paying too much for food.  78 minutes into the call a caller asks about the worst case scenario.  "Straight-talking Mike" responds that the worst that could happen is that you get back just a few more dollars than you invested.  He then says that with the increase in their foreign currency reserves (now reportedly at $67 billion) they have to add value to their currency.  Well their reserves have been growing steadily since 2009 and the dinar has gone up a whopping third of 1%, so I'd say maybe they don't have to add value to their currency.  They might just print more money like they've been doing.  Yeah, I think that's probably what they'll do.  They'll do what they've been doing.  They'll either print more money or reflect the growth in the reserves with electronic currency or bonds or something.  I look for the M2 figure to rise from 71 trillion to 75 or more within a month or two. 

About 88 minutes in a caller asks where the money is coming from to pay us for the RV.  Mike gives him the typical "Fed creates money out of thin air and uses it in fractional reserve banking" response.  He goes on to dish out more douchebaggery saying:

• Kuwait RV'd like this (presumably 100,00% - That's a pumper lie.  The street value went down for a few months but the offical value never did.  After Saddam's forces left Kuwait they issued a new currency at the same offical rate.  There was NO RV IN KUWAIT!!!)
• They're not gonna lop ANYTHING (How many times have they said that they're going to redenominate, Mike?  That's what a lop is, guy.  http://www.iraq-businessnews.com/2011/06/27/iraq-prepares-to-redenominate-its-currency/  http://www.rferl.org/content/iraq_said_planning_currency_overhaul_redenomination/24245867.html  http://www.xe.com/currency/iqd-iraqi-dinar#additionalinfo )
• "Deleting the Zeros" means they're pulling in the notes with 3 zeros in anticipation of the RV when they will issue the new lower notes. (BS!  It's always meant lop and it means lop this time and they're not pulling in the larger notes.  Their money supply wouldn't be growing if they were.)

https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/playback.asp?n=-13-75-126-8976-17-65-6722072-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67104-17-65-67;0Mzg1MTEzMjA=1


Mike followed up this rubbish with a conference call on Friday where he insisted on linking a story about a plan to build a showroom for big cars and trucks featuring Mercedes-Benz to the forthcoming RV.  (I kid you not, folks.  About 43 minutes in.)  The location for this project would be in the Al-Basra region near the port of Um Qasr by the Persian Gulf about an hour away from Kuwait City and near the border with southern Iran.  The story even talks about the booming agricultural and industrial economies of southern Iran as being one of the driving forces behind the plan.  So picture this.  They're going to build a showroom and maintenance facility for expensive cars and trucks near the Persian Gulf and Kuwait City and southern Iran which would be a convenient location for people to come from the entire Gulf region, and somehow Mike reads RV into this???  Can you say REACHING???

Mike then states during Q&A that the CBI website tells us that the dinar was devalued in 2002 or 2003, and that up until then the dinar was valued at $2.44. (84 min. in)  Now either Mike is lying or he can't read.  Here's what the CBI website says. 

"After the Gulf War in 1991, and due to the economic blockade, the previously used Swiss printing technology was no longer available. A new, inferior quality notes issue was produced. The previous issue became known as the Swiss dinar and continued to circulate in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Due to excessive government printing of the new notes issue, the dinar devalued quickly, and in late 1995, US$1 was valued at 3,000 dinars."

http://www.cbi.iq/index.php?pid=History


$1 divided by 3000 dinars would equal about $.000333 according to my math.  Not $2.44.

"Straight-Talking Mike" goes on to say that Saddam was a Kurd (he was a Sunni, but Mike admittedly wasn't too sure about this one) and proceeds to tell an 82 year old woman who thinks that an RV to $.86 is too good to be true that she's lucky to find out about the dinar, because "we weren't supposed to find out about this".

I couldn't help but notice all the Skype noises in the background as Mike is saying this crap.  Being the suspicious bugger that I am I have to wonder if maybe some master pumper isn't feeding him these lines?  Instead of "Straight-talking Mike" maybe he should go by "Jive-Talkin' Mike".  Congrats, DB.

https://www.freeconferencecallhd.com/playback.asp?n=32-55-75117-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-671118067-17-65-67791-17-65-67-17-65-67-17-65-67;0Mzg1MTEzMjA=1 

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