October Update

It's been a month since I did a post, so I thought I should write something.  The truth is there really isn't much to talk about.  The "war" against ISIS isn't going well, but even if we could instantly eradicate them it wouldn't bring about any increase in the official value of the IQD.  The leadership in Iraq is still trying to figure out who is in charge of what and how they're going to proceed from here.  And of course the gurus are still saying "any day now".

I've been asked to comment on a couple of things.  First is this Dave Schmidt guy.  I've already given him two Douchebag of the Month awards.  The guy is a serious contender for the 2014 Dinar Douchebag of the Year.  For anybody who is on the fence about him check out the links below.

http://dinardouchebags.blogspot.com/2013/10/october-update.html

http://dinardouchebags.blogspot.com/2014/03/douche-of-month.html

http://dinardouchebags.blogspot.com/2014/04/another-douchie-for-davey.html


The second thing is the Zimbabwe dollar.  Somebody emailed me telling me that the gurus are pumping it again and that it's a scam.  NO KIDDING!?!?!?!  I know the fact that the ZWD has a ton of zeros excites people at the possibilities of a revaluation, but you have to realize that the currency is valued that low for a reason.  NOBODY WANTS IT!  Nobody except for gullible speculators, that is.  From Wikipedia:

"Despite attempts to control inflation by legislation, and three redenominations (in 2006, 2008 and 2009), use of the Zimbabwean dollar as an official currency was effectively abandoned on 12 April 2009 due to the skyrocketing inflation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zimbabwean_dollar

Just because something has a very low price doesn't mean it's undervalued.  Toothpicks are pretty cheap too.  Why not stock up on them?  Maybe the Central Bank of Toothpicks will raise the value on them and you'll get rich!  It makes about as much sense as buying Zimbabwe dollars.  As one honest ZWD dealer says "ZIMBABWE CURRENCY IS DEFUNCT AND NOT LEGAL TENDER ANYWHERE.". 


In closing, I'd like to direct you to a great post.  Jay Adkisson from Forbes did an article called "You Can't Fix Stupid - The Iraqi Dinar Scam Lives" a couple of years ago, and every month or so he updates it with his thoughts on the dinar investment.  This month he said, among other things:

"Sometimes currencies lose their value to the point where the mere size of the bills means they have become impractical. Thus, if you’re having to pay for a pack of smokes with a Dinar-10,000 bill, things are obviously out-of-whack, and the government has to re-denominate the currency so that the folks using the currency don’t lose all confidence in it and start trading in some other currency. That is what is happening to the Dinar.

But re-denomination of a currency does not, repeat NOT, change its value relative to other currencies. What actually happens with a redomination is that the government simply issues new bills, knocking a few zeros off, and then sets a deadline by which the old bills become worthless unless they are traded in by that date. So, the local resident might take in their old Dinar-10,000 bills and exchange them for new Dinar-100 bills."

http://www.forbes.com/sites/jayadkisson/2012/07/30/you-cant-fix-stupid-the-iraqi-dinar-scam-lives/  (Give the page a minute to load, and then scroll down to the bottom right before the comments.)

Now, lest anybody conclude that Jay talks about the dinar like I do, I assure you it's the other way around.  Experts like Jay and John Jagerson are responsible for my epiphany.  I learned what I know from them, from a few sharp guys who frequently comment on this blog, and from my own research.  My thanks once again to Jay for his frank analysis of this scam.  Until next time.

 

 

Three Years

My how time flies.  Three years ago this month I started this blog.  In those three years a lot has happened.  A few dinar douchebags have been arrested and convicted.  Many have been exposed as frauds.  Some have disappeared.  Others have just tweaked their presentation and kept on going.  Many people have caught on and sold their dinar.  Some have actually joined me in the cause.  And then there's Iraq.  Coalition forces left at the end of 2011.  Shabibi was removed as the governor of the CBI in October of 2012.  President Talibani was disabled by a stroke two months later.  Now in 2014 the terrorist organization ISIS has taken over about a third of Iraq, and it appears that the US is heading back into Iraq to some extent. 

Yes, a lot has happened but one thing hasn't happened.  The much heralded RV.  Oh sure, the dinar's value went from $.0008547 to $.0008576 (or 1170:1 to 1166:1) a couple of years ago but that's not the RV that the gurus were hyping and the hopeful were waiting for.  That RV will never happen.

When I started the blog a lot of people got mad at me for calling gurus "douchebags" and insisting that nobody would get rich by owning dinar.  Since then the hatred has waned as people started waking up.  Today almost all of the sites are bashing gurus to one extent or another.  In fact I hear some of what I've said being repeated in conference calls and posted in forums. 

Since September of 2011 this blog has had 850,000 hits.  By my estimate it should hit 1 million next summer if the blog is still up.  Considering how little traffic I had the first few weeks that's just amazing to me.  A lot of that is due to the word of mouth advertising done by my readers, and for that I am truly grateful. 

I have started another blog and have moved on for the most part, but this experience will always be with me.  The one thing I've proven to myself is that one person can make a difference.  You should never be afraid to respond when you see an injustice taking place.  You should never refuse to try just because the odds are against you.  When you hear yourself saying "why doesn't somebody do something about this?" stop and ask yourself if you might be that somebody.  And don't ever be intimidated into silence, thinking that you don't know enough to have a valid opinion or to voice those opinions.  I have learned more since I started the blog than I did before I started it, but I started with what I knew and proceeded from there.

I'm certainly not taking all of the credit.  John Jagerson was the voice in the wilderness two years before I came along.  Others like DaveD and Brian Simpson were debunking guru BS on various forums for years.  Marcus Curtis revamped his pro-RV blog and denounced the dinar scam two years ago.  Baghdad Invest joined in the fun for awhile, even trapping the gurus with a fake RV story which they later admitted was a hoax to see how many gurus "confirmed" their intel.  They've now returned to their true passion which is updating people on the events in Iraq.  We wish them well.

All of us have contributed to the decline in dinar sales and dinar site traffic.  All of us have been vindicated over time.  All of us have helped to curb the hype and irrational exuberance that was prevalent in the dinar world a few years ago.

As for the dinar, I'm afraid the future's not too bright.  If it survives at all the value is likely to remain below 1/10 of a penny.  I still maintain that nobody will get rich from owning the IQD or the VND.  You will probably lose money on both.  If you haven't figured that out by now I can't help you. 

Thanks again everybody, and best wishes to all!    

 

In Memory of Chuckles

Early on in the life of this blog I conducted interviews with members of the dinar community. My purpose in doing this frankly was to provide content for the search engines (which apparently worked), but it was also to provide examples to the dinar community of people who had stories to tell about how their views on the dinar had evolved since they first invested. One interview that I conducted was with a dinar forum owner known affectionately as Chuckles.

Chuckles was kicked out of several dinar forums for "being a troublemaker", so he started his own forum where people were free to discuss the dinar from all viewpoints. Nobody was banned for being negative or a "lopper". There were no ads and no paid membership or post-RV programs. He paid the monthly expenses out of his own pocket just because he wanted to provide an environment that was needed.

For the first few months there wasn't much traffic to his forum, but when a mod revolt occurred at Dinar Vets a couple thousand people found their way over to his Dinar Dater site.  ("Dater" was his tongue in cheek reference to the "RV Monday" BS from dinar gurus who are perpetually setting dates and rates, but when the site became well known some of the other forum owners started ignorantly referring to it as a dating site.)  The site became a popular location for some well known people in the dinar community, and because of that Chuckles was able to find some of the answers that he had been looking for about this "investment".  In time he sold off his dinar and denounced it as a scam.  The forum closed down in late 2012.

Chuckles took his name from his love of comedy and his incredible sense of humour.  He loved to make people laugh, and even mentioned his wish to try his hand at doing standup.  The photo below is one he provided for me when I posted my interview with him.
 

In that interview Chuckles said that he learned about the dinar from his father who was approached by a member of the BH Group.  They sold him on the possibility of a huge payout and like many of us who have since learned better he quickly bought a few million, thinking that he didn't have time to do sufficient research.  When he told Chuckles about the dinar he also bought a few million "just in case", but he was always trying to figure out just how Iraq was going to pull this off.  That set him on a quest for the facts, and that quest eventually led him to this blog.  He was then able to direct his father to accurate information and his dad sold off his dinar.  Shortly after that his dad's acquaintances in the BH Group were indicted, and he expressed his gratitude to Chuckles for getting him out of this scam.

Tragically, we lost Chuckles in July to a medical condition that had plagued him for some time.  He leaves behind a wife and daughter along with many friends from his days of playing in bands and his years of working in IT.  He also leaves behind a thankful dinar crowd whom he welcomed into his forum at no expense to them and with no pressure to conform.  He will be missed. 

http://dinardouchebags.blogspot.com/2012/03/interview-with-chuckles.html

http://www.heavensguest.com/chrisearl.html