Now this is REALLY messed up...

[PaulC]

What happened to the Rules on this Board..

Classic Finn

Cheers
Paul

[angib]

Oil (per barrel) is not sold or futured at the American dollar price in other countries – it is sold at the currency of the purchasing market, with each market brokering for itself.

Generally, the price of oil contracts is fixed in US dollars even when the trade is between two non-dollar countries. As the dominant world economy, the US dollar was just the most stable way for a non-dollar buyer and a non-dollar seller to agree the price - if they used any other currency, either the buyer or the seller was taking an additional currency risk.

What currency is used to pay for oil isn't very important, since they are all (except for a few oddballs) freely exchangeable with each other - what is important is the currency used to fix the price. Sure Iran and Venezuela are just making a political point, but for the oil sellers the way the US dollar has declined in value recently does have an impact - if I agree to sell you oil at $100/barrel in a month's time and in that month the US dollar drops 5%, then I just lost $5 of each barrel.

I don't think changing the currency used to fix the price of oil makes much difference to the value of the US dollar: it's the other way around - lack of confidence in the value of the dollar is what's making people want to fix the price in other currencies.

For a sensible outsider's view, here is an article on the future of the dollar from my British newspaper last week.

And a weak dollar isn't always a bad thing - for example, it makes foreign imports more expensive to American consumers and makes American exports more competitive elsewhere, so it can be good news for some of US industry.

Andrew

[madjack]

What happened to the Rules on this Board..

Classic Finn

Heikki, there is only one true rule on this board...NO FIGHTING....of course the proposals to use nukes MIGHT be considered fighting but as long as noone here throws one, all is well .............
madjack

[Laredo]

madjack,
thanks.

i refrained from answering those "dip the oil out of the glass" posts for a reason.

women, children, and (some rare and exotic, endangered and beautiful) animals also inhabit the middle east. not everybody over there is as stupid as our administration wants us to believe, and it is just as wrong to assume that people who live there because they were born there and lack the resources to leave are necessarily in love with their government as it is to make that assumption about United States citizens.

[madjack]

madjack,
thanks.

i refrained from answering those "dip the oil out of the glass" posts for a reason.

women, children, and (some rare and exotic, endangered and beautiful) animals also inhabit the middle east. not everybody over there is as stupid as our administration wants us to believe, and it is just as wrong to assume that people who live there because they were born there and lack the resources to leave are necessarily in love with their government as it is to make that assumption about United States citizens.

...errrrrr, OK, your welcome...my only point was that we(the USA) is in the shape we are in because we have a VERY bad habit of sticking our noses into other peoples bizzness...our leaders (and many of us) should read George Washington's farewell letters to the Congress about embroiling ourselves in other countries problems and take them to heart...........
madjack

[sledge]

Ok, good deal MJ , I think we should vote for MaryK for president , and then we'll get this thing fixed............and I'll help anyway I can.

[Miriam C.]

This just really chapped my ass. I had to share it. And we call Saudi Arabia our "friend."

Saudis defend punishment for rape victim
1 hour, 38 minutes ago

The Saudi judiciary on Tuesday defended a court verdict that sentenced a 19-year-old victim of a gang rape to six months in jail and 200 lashes because she was with an unrelated male when they were attacked.

The Shiite Muslim woman had initially been sentenced to 90 lashes after being convicted of violating Saudi Arabia's rigid Islamic law requiring segregation of the sexes.

But in considering her appeal of the verdict, the Saudi General Court increased the punishment. It also roughly doubled prison sentences for the seven men convicted of raping the woman, Saudi news media said last week.
Snip Snip

YOUGOBOY! Heavily armed men! NUFF SAID.

As much as I know I will agree with all said here please keep it civil and-----well you know.

the Book of Leviticus in the Judeo-Christian tradition calls for rape victims to be punished. But, our modern western societies have come to realize that these practices are barbaric.

Oh yeah, wasn't that if she didn't fight back and was alone or raped by her escort.

Date rape still happens and the woman in this country could be sued or put in jail for making a false police report if she can't prove it.

It is garbage we have no influence. We gave the women of Afghanistan back to barbaric rule and the UN enforces it.

[PaulC]

Let's keep this rational. You have your laws and they have theirs, just like we have ours. It's the way of the world that different races are going to disagree on what should, or should not be, invoked.
Just because one country's way of life does not agree with you, does that make it all the more wrong?
And, to add more perspective, you(USA-some states) still execute people for crimes committed and we (Australia) do not. Does that make it wrong or right?
Cheers
Paul

[Classic Finn]

[PaulC]

:roll:

I couldn't help myself, Heikki

Cheers
Paul

[Miriam C.]

:roll:

I couldn't help myself, Heikki

Cheers
Paul

Paul, if the women of Saudi had a VOICE and a simple majority agreed with the law I might agree with you. As they do not it is up to those of us with a voice to speak up.




Yeah I know

[caseydog]

Let's keep this rational. You have your laws and they have theirs, just like we have ours. It's the way of the world that different races are going to disagree on what should, or should not be, invoked.
Just because one country's way of life does not agree with you, does that make it all the more wrong?
And, to add more perspective, you(USA-some states) still execute people for crimes committed and we (Australia) do not. Does that make it wrong or right?
Cheers
Paul

I understand what you're saying, and agree to some degree. I don't think we should be the world's morality police, but, I guess what bugs some of us, including me, is that we overthrow one backwards dictatorship in the name of spreading democracy, and then call another backwards dictatorship our "friend" and look the other way when they do things we use as justification for sanctioning yet another backwards dictatorship.

It's the double standard I don't like.

CD

[PaulC]

Let's keep this rational. You have your laws and they have theirs, just like we have ours. It's the way of the world that different races are going to disagree on what should, or should not be, invoked.
Just because one country's way of life does not agree with you, does that make it all the more wrong?
And, to add more perspective, you(USA-some states) still execute people for crimes committed and we (Australia) do not. Does that make it wrong or right?
Cheers
Paul

I understand what you're saying, and agree to some degree. I don't think we should be the world's morality police, but, I guess what bugs some of us, including me, is that we overthrow one backwards dictatorship in the name of spreading democracy, and then call another backwards dictatorship our "friend" and look the other way when they do things we use as justification for sanctioning yet another backwards dictatorship.

It's the double standard I don't like.

CD

CD, I know what you mean. we have the same stuff going on down here. Indonesia, East Timor, Papua New Guinea to name a few. The point I'm trying to make is that these people have lived their lives, under these sorts of rules, for a couple of thousand years.
We, as relatively new nations in comparison, will have about the same chance as a snowball does in he11 of changing their ways. It doesn't matter how much yelling we "liberated" people do, they will always consider us to be inferior to them.
Bear in mind also, that the media no longer report on the barbaric rules they have in relation to stealing etc. They, the media, do know how to gee up the hoi polloi with a story that goes against our grain.
Cheers
Paul

[Claw]

Do you suppose the oil which the 1st world needs and which is controlled by people with an arcaic mentality might be the reason we would want to have a new friend with lots of oil in the middle east, namely Iraq? Then oil pressure, read money, could be placed upon others to reform their culture. We however have little power to expect cultural reform without a secure source of oil.

Personally I say exploit the oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Oil prices would drop and the ME oil cartel would be begging and make cultural reforms, if demanded, before we pumped one barrel out of those wells.

So who is preventing us from this?

[Podunkfla]

Do you suppose the oil which the 1st world needs and which is controlled by people with an arcaic mentality might be the reason we would want to have a new friend with lots of oil in the middle east, namely Iraq? Then oil pressure, read money, could be placed upon others to reform their culture. We however have little power to expect cultural reform without a secure source of oil.

Personally I say exploit the oil in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. Oil prices would drop and the ME oil cartel would be begging and make cultural reforms, if demanded, before we pumped one barrel out of those wells.

So who is preventing us from this?

We could have begun to wean our country from foreign oil way back in the 70's... But we didn't? There is just no good incentive for "big oil" to do so. Why should they invest in developing domestic oil when they can make more money buying foreign oil? They haven't even built any significant new refineries in the last 20+ years... Yet they are making record profits every year. They don't really care what the price of crude oil is. They are going to mark it up and make their profits anyway... Particularly since we have shown $4. gas isn't going to slow us down much... We keep right on buying big SUV's anyway. In time we will prolly see $7. gas just like Europe. Hang on to your hats folks, it's only gonna get worse.