As I look back on that first post I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I'm comforted by the fact that events have vindicated me somewhat, but on the other hand I'm embarrassed by my ignorance at the time. I was under the impression that they were reducing the money supply and thought it was possible to see the dinar increase substantially over time. A few months later I interviewed John Jagerson and discovered that the largest revaluation in history was barely enough to cover exchange fees for dinar investors. Currencies just don't increase that much. And in researching for my posts I eventually learned more about the importance of exchange rate stability, the history of redenominations, and the nature of managed floats or de facto pegs. Some of my readers obviously know more than I do about this stuff and have helped me considerably in getting my education. Thanks guys.
My strength isn't in economics. It's not in investing either, especially currency investing. My strength is in writing and researching. I have put my skills to work over the past two years to expose fraud and douchebaggery whenever and wherever I saw the need. I've received numerous emails thanking me for helping people to see through the lies and fraud. I can't tell you how rewarding that is. I was able to take my (self-imposed) misfortune and make something positive out of it. At the same time I have apparently somehow given some people the impression that I'm an expert on currencies and investing which I am not. People ask me about this currency or that, whether they should invest in gold or silver, where I think the world's economy is going .... etc. How should I know? LOL!!! I'm just a guru-buster. Talk to a professional. That's the biggest problem here. People want to get advice from anonymous hacks on the internet rather than establish a relationship with a qualified professional. If you wouldn't get medical advice that way why do you think you should get financial advice that way?
And now I look to the third year of this blog. I sincerely hope that I'm not still writing about this nonsense a year from now, but I'm not too optimistic. At the rate things are moving in Iraq it could be years before their currency reform is enacted, if ever. I took a break late last year and only intended to post when events warrant, but decided about six months ago that my input was still needed since my search engine ranking was slipping and people weren't getting the information they needed. How long I will remain active I can't say. There are other excellent sites that are holding the gurus accountable. MrIQD is one. Marcus Curtis' blog Iraq Currency Watch is another. One of our readers started one called Adam Montana - Not So Real RV Intel that I really enjoy. And of course John Jagerson's Learning Markets thread on the dinar scam is also great reading. Events in my life might leave me no choice eventually but to move on. Whenever and however that occurs I want to thank everybody now for their support. It has been an incredible experience to say the least. Cheers.
-Sam
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"The dinar has only increased 1/3 of 1%, despite considerable GDP growth which the gurus claimed would produce an increase in the value of the dinar."
ReplyDeleteIndeed. Some people new to Forex (ie, nearly all Dinar 'investors') falsely believe currency must act like a "stock" in the nation's economy. If that were true, the top 10 largest economies would all have the strongest currencies, and tiny nations would all be the weakest. Clearly that's not even remotely the case anywhere on the planet. A currency is a commodity that goes up & down according to supply and demand not a stock which wildly jumps around on "news" as pumpers falsely pump.
It's like saying "the price of wheat should go up if Intel produces more CPU's (because "that's good news for the country"), and huge surpluses / shortages of wheat are "irrelevant" as to its price"... LOL. Observant "investors" will have already seen Vietnam's currency fall 25% in value over the same period their economy *doubled*. Why? Because they print too much money - just like Iraq, Iran, Zimbabwe, and about 30 other countries, etc...
Happy Anniversary Sam for a much needed blog! No need to "feel embarrassed by my ignorance at the time" either. We're all new to something at some point. Heck, some people fall for the same scam every few years (I believe they're called "electoral campaigns") ;-)
Thanks, Brian. You're one of the ones I was talking about when I said that I learned from my readers. I appreciate your input.
DeleteI think this is the BEST blog going. Thank you so much for your hard work!
ReplyDeleteThanks, DC. And thanks for your efforts as well.
DeleteHappy Anniversay, Sam!
ReplyDeleteTwo years fly by when you're having fun. As much fun as it must be to expose the dinar clowns as the douchebags they are, it's a shame that there's as strong a need for this blog as ever. I'll bet you were hoping this blog wouldn't last long. Expose a few of the more notorious douchebags and the puzzle should fall nicely together for everyone. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work that way. The dinar scam seems to be much bigger than a couple of charismatic scam artists. It's an emotion. It's a religion. One preacher dies (or fades away) and two more step up to take his place. People want the MESSAGE. They don't care who delivers it. Greed and envy are powerful emotions. Breaking the hold of the message is much harder than exposing a few snake oil salesmen delivering it. You've got your work cut out for you for a while longer I'm sorry to say.
Thanks, networth. Unfortunately I completely agree with you.
Deletekeep up the good work i love this blog
ReplyDeleteCongrats Sam on two full years of exposing douchery. I just wish I would have found this site when I was first introduced to IQD instead of finding Sheeples Dinar and all of the hype and confusion that went with it. I do think that this site as well as others that you have mentioned have created an environment where truth can be spoken free of censorship instead of the mainstream pump and hype ban loving scam artist sites like DV and others. I do also believe that this environment that you have helped to create has had an effect on the membership numbers of the scam sites as well. DV is becoming laughable as even the most brainless are starting to wake up to the lies. Its funny to see "investors" who just the week before were spouting complete and total economic ignorance with a following suddenly quit posting when they realized their stupidity. Thank goodness for sites like this one. Without it there would be nothing but misinformation, lies, deceit, and economic fantasy spewed unimpeded to starry eyed "investors" while the con men (and women) make out like the bandits that they are.
ReplyDeleteWhat I really find funny is the increase in "coming to your senses" posts at DV where this means realizing that the RV might not happen for several more years, or might happen slowly, or even might not happen at all. But, its never that the RV is a myth and never could have happened in the first place.
ReplyDeleteCongrats, Sam. You are a force for good.
ReplyDelete"[Adam Montana] .10 to $1 is realistic. $8 to $20 is not."
ReplyDeleteThis just in: Overnight currency appreciation of 116,000% is realistic, 930,000% is not.
I've seen J.J.'s credentials, and they're fairly impressive, but I'm not sure if they trump my boy Adam's:
Says he's a Harvard grad, though he's been awfully quiet on this front since part of the BHG boy's indictments included charges for lying about their background.
Says he made money on the Kuwaiti dinar, but won't give any specific details.
Says he passed the Series 7 exam.
Wrote a couple "books" about dinar that are full of nonsense and gibberish and bad math (like multiplying 1 trillion by 0.1 and coming up with 1 billion).
All the idiots that believe in $1 to $3 rates (including Adam) but scoff at the 8-20 dollar rates kill me. $8 is only 8 times higher than $1. But $1 is almost 1200 times higher than the current rate. Apparently the first 1200x increase is easy, but the last 8x is where it gets tough.
It's like saying that flying to the moon by flapping your arms is realistic, but getting there by farting vigorously is not.
Personally I think I'm going to buy a single 10,000 dinar note and then plan on each dinar being worth a million dollars. It's just as likely as each dinar being worth one dollar (without a redenomination, of course).
Oh that's a hoot! If the dinar revalues at 10 cents that values their money supply at $8.5 trillion. How does a nation with a GDP of barely $200 billion justify or support a money supply valued at $8.5 trillion? That would be the second highest money supply in the world! That's only slightly less than the money supply of the US (and our GDP is almost $17 trillion)! It's absurd. Money supply matters. Have his mind numbed followers ever thought to ask the question? I feel genuinely bad for the people that get roped into this scam every day. But as time goes on, I feel less and less sympathy for the people that continue to believe these scam artists. If common sense hasn't kicked in after a couple weeks, I'm not sure it will. And if you don't have a lick of common sense, you probably deserve to get fleeced.
Delete"It's like saying that flying to the moon by flapping your arms is realistic, but getting there by farting vigorously is not."
DeleteLMAO!!!
Gt5junkie, that was an awesome reply.....networth, I agree. It's pathetic reading members responses to trash on DV. But after seeing all their other nonsense they post about politics and conspiracy theories it doesn't surprise me. These guys are truly living on a different world.
DeleteBy the way, where's sonny? I miss his economic insights on this issue. He's reasonings for an RV are usually laughable at best. Any word from your "professor buddy" or "Middle East Econ guy" ? Lol. Oh this dinar thing is always good for a laugh. When you have a movie (Hit & Run) mocking this thing you know you're the butt of the joke. It's almost embarrassing to believe that I used to believe this nonsense but common sense kicked in and I haven't looked back since. Now I just read the site at work when I'm bored and DV is great entertainment. Keep up the good fight Sam and expose this Scam for what it is......A SCAM!
No worries Networth Adam has all the answers!
DeleteNetworth: "How does a nation with a GDP of barely $200 billion justify or support a money supply valued at $8.5 trillion? ".
Adam Montana 9/25/13 "Iraq is still working on a WTO membership which will do wonderful things for the ability of Iraq to increase the value of their currency, in my opinion to as high as a dollar... but realistically that is the top end of where they would come out."
Just how the WTO is going to arrange this economic impossibility is of course not stated (perhaps arm flapping AND farting??).
Network: "That's only slightly less than the money supply of the US (and our GDP is almost $17 trillion)! It's absurd. Money supply matters. Have his mind numbed followers ever thought to ask the question? "
Not only that, but he has in fact answered it!
Adam Montana 8/21/13: "Hi DB, thanks for the question The Iraqi currency is set by the CBI - basically, whatever the CBI says the value is - that's what it is. I know that might sound overly simple, but it literally IS that simple. If the CBI says they will pay .10 for the Dinar, then it's worth .10. If they say they will pay $2 for it - the rate is $2.""
The money supply just doesn't enter into it (that's the meaning of a fiat currency according to Adam). How the CBI would actually DO what they say in this silly case, is also of course not mentioned. In classic scam fashion as the scam wears on and folks start to see through the lies, the grifter has to tell bigger and bigger whoppers to stay in the game.
jrg, I appreciate you guys keeping track of the idiocy going on at Montana's site. It's too infuriating for me. I don't have the patience. If the CBI says they will pay 10 cents for each dinar, which Montana claims is perfectly reasonable, where are they going to get $8.5 trillion to do it? If they redeem just 10 percent of their dinar for 10 cents each, where are they going to get $850 billion? The CBI makes the market in dinar but they don't make the market in US dollars (or euros or yen). Their currency reserves are less than $80 billion and the entire annual GDP or Iraq is only $210 billion. The ignorance over there drives me absolutely nuts. I just can't stand it. But thanks for keeping me posted.
DeleteI'm not defending Adam by any means, but I think what he and others believe is that there's nothing backing the USD so nothing needs to back the IQD. The flaw in that thinking is that the USD represent the world's largest economy and the government behind it has survived for over two centuries. A country as unstable as Iraq with a government that is so fractured could never have a currency that isn't backed with something. In time they might not have to back it 100% if thing improve sufficiently, but they will always need to back it to a certain extent until they've built an economy as diverse as the US, with a similar infrastructure, with a similarly educated populace, with a similarly stable form of government and international demand for their currency. That's many decades down the road. At a minimum. The idea that they can just quit backing it and declare whatever value they want is rubbish. They either back it (probably 100% but at least 25%) or they free float it and let the market determine its value, and they're not about to risk that. ; - )
DeleteNetworth: Yea I know what you mean. Flagrant displays of idiocy are indeed infuriating, especially when prevented from countering them (i.e. banned from that site). Oh well, you an only do what you can do :-)
ReplyDeleteI read the other day that the US drilled a well in the gulf recently that has over 1.7 trillion dollars worth of oil in it. IN ONE WELL. When can the US RV the dollar to whatever it says it is worth? How about 1 dollar equals 15 Euros? Does that sound reasonable to Adam? That's basically what he is saying is going on in Iraq. Adam is only telling his sheep what they want to hear. He knows good and well RVs are fantasy.
ReplyDeleteIts funny how everyone on DV compares the USD to the IQD when talking about nothing backing it but when you ask them about why the US doesn't RV by 1000s of percent they come back with the good ole.......the dinar is pegged and the dollar floats so it cant RV nonsense.
lol, now the big holdup is Obamacare, as per Okie.
ReplyDeleteWow! A series of car bombs overnight around Iraq brought the September death toll from sectarian violence to 790. So far this year, 4,600 people have died in sectarian and factional violence in Iraq. Not good. Iraq appears to be growing increasingly chaotic and violent.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/09/deadly-suicide-bombings-hit-iraq-2013929155747759953.html
Congrats on two years Sam....I remember when you first started the site and have enjoyed catching up on all of the crazy claims...my favorite may be when you were accused of causing SWFG's sad and untimely passing. Keep up the good work
ReplyDeleteThanks jmw. And for the record I have confirmed his death from two trusted sources so I hope this will end the suspicion. Very sad, agreed.
DeleteExactly what was all that about Sam? I don't "keep my ear to the ground" on RV forums anymore. How did he die?
DeleteI don't know, Brian. To my knowledge the cause of death hasn't been officially determined and the investigation is ongoing. Obviously the family wishes to keep this a private matter and I'm going to respect that.
Delete