A While back I wrote a piece called That’s A Fact Jack. It contained 40 facts about the Iraqi dinar. It seemed that this article made its way around the dinar community. It has been copied into forums and blogs alike. It made its way to websites too. I am totally fine with that because with me it’s about the information getting out there. The dinar community will address the areas that they do not agree with. I welcome that as my quest is more about finding the truth.
This article seemed to spark some pretty deep debate. Baghdad Invest was the first place to post a copy. A debate broke out in the comment area. There is a man who comments on Baghdad Invest who goes by the name of Jack. His comments are truthful, respectful, and accurate. He is really knowledgeable about the dinar and economics in general. He has gained my respect and I enjoy reading what he has to say. I have found myself hunting for his comments just to see what he has to say. He could very easily have his own blog site. Here is a sample of the exchange that happened in the comment area at Baghdad Invest
Posted by Knight January 28, 2014
Why don’t they post the M 0 money supply which is actually hard currency on hand. This figure is not reported. M 1 money supply is physical cash plus any asset that can be converted to cash. We do not know how much physical currency they have in circulation because they do not list this figure. Someone says they have done their homework when. The M 0 number is the most important. I don’t have a clue if this will ever happen but I have done my due diligence to the point where if you started crunching numbers you can’t because they don’t supply all the info and it seems to done by design.
Jack’s response was great
Posted by Jack January 28, 2014
Knight – “Why don’t they post the M 0 money supply which is actually hard currency on hand. This figure is not reported.”
Iraq M0 = 70.9tn Dinar
Iraq M1 = 71.3tn Dinar
http://www.tradingeconomics.com/iraq/money-supply-m0
They certainly do report it. The reason guru’s won’t repost it is obvious – Iraq still has over 71tn physical banknotes alone and there is little difference between M0 and M1 due to the primitive nature of Iraq’s banking system.
Your M1 definition is also off. M1 = checking account bank deposits which actually is cash still since it can be instantly withdrawn or electronically spent / exchanged at any time. Time deposit bonds, savings accounts, etc, are M2 not M1 but even then they are still “liquid” enough to be converted to cash within a very short time-frame. The longer-term less liquid stuff (money market funds, 10 year bonds, etc) is actually M3 and Iraq has very few of those either.
Jack responds with 15 more facts to add to the list of 40 Facts
Posted by Jack January 25, 2014
15 more facts:-
41. Forex is a zero sum game. If one person pays 1000 Dinar for $1 then “RV’s”, then the other person suddenly will end up paying 1,000x more for the same Dinar’s (except they won’t because knowing they’ll be 1,000x poorer they simply wouldn’t make the trade)! People who say “everyone’s a winner” are really just admitting they have absolutely no clue whatsoever about how currencies work and completely ignore the “flip-side” of the transaction because they’re obsessed solely with “me and my banknotes”. If I lend you €731 ($1,000 worth) of Euro’s in exchange for $1,000, and a year later you come back and give my the €731 back but demand I now pay $1m instead of $1,000, are we both “winners”? Of course not. Because you’re now demanding I bankrupt myself in order to make you a millionaire!
The “RV” scam is the same – it essentially demands the CBI be forced to acquire 1,000-3,500x more $ than it actually has to “buy back” everyone’s Dinar for 1,000-3,500x more. It wouldn’t make Iraq “winners” – it would totally bankrupt every bank in Iraq up to and including the CBI within 48hrs!
42. There is no “special rate” for Iraqi oil. The USA pays exactly the same for Iraqi oil as it does every other Gulf country. And it’s still actually cheaper for the USA to import South American oil than OPEC’s due to obviously lower shipping costs:-
Click to access pmmtab21.pdf
43. Out of the daily 7.37m barrels of oil imported into the USA, and out of the 2.7m barrels of oil exported out of Iraq, only 226k barrels flow from Iraq to the USA:-
Click to access table53.pdf
At $100 oil prices, that’s just $22.6m per day (or $8.25bn per year), which would take 10,317 years to “support” a $1 rate “RV”, 36,112 years to “support” a $3.5 rate “RV” or 361,123 years to “support” a $35 rate “RV”. These above facts alone completely destroy the completely delusional “oil credits” Guru made-up fantasy.
44. Iraq’s 2.7m daily oil exports make up just 3% of Earth’s total 90m barrels per day. It’s totally irrational to pretend Iraq’s going to “save” the $80,000bn annual global economy with $100bn annual oil revenue…
45. Iraq’s $210bn GDP is about 10% smaller than Greece or Finland, and roughly the same size as Portugal, Algeria & Ireland. This is a 0.26% share of the $80tn global economy.
46. With 85,122bn Dinar in circulation, if Iraq “RV’d” to $1, they’d end up with 1.06x planet Earth’s worth of money (but still have only a 0.26% share of the planet’s economy). If they “RV’d” to $3.5, they’d end up with 3.72x planet Earth’s worth of money (but still have only a 0.26% share of the planet’s economy). If they “RV’d” to $35, they’d end up with 37.2x planet Earth’s worth of money (but still have only a 0.26% share of the planet’s economy)! Can anyone seriously sit there with a straight face and say it’s “unfair” that a country with a 0.26% share of the global economy doesn’t have 360%-3,600% more money than everyone on Earth combined? Or that Iraq “should” have 1,418-14,180x more money than the size of its economy and that all that money “should” be immune to inflation for no reason whatsoever?
47. Iraq’s 140bn oil reserves is half that of Venezuela’s 298bn, who redenominated / lopped 3-zeros from 2,150:1 to 2.15:1 in 2008.
48. Similarly occupied by the West Afghanistan also redenominated / lopped from 4300:1 to 4.3:1 in 2002-2003.
49. The current NID notes you hold have *never* had a market rate anywhere near $3.22 The “$3.22″ rate bandied about applies only to the non-inflated demonetized “Swiss Dinar” which has already been corrected back in 2003 when they were redenominated at a rate of 150:1 vs the NID (New Iraq Dinar), ie, Iraqi’s who held the non-inflated Dinar’s have already been given 150 for every 1 held to match the value of the inflated NID (and the price of everything in Kurdish regions were adjusted upwards by 150x too) was – LONG before the Dinar hype started up. The “correction” people are waiting for not only doesn’t apply to the current banknotes, it has already taken place in 2003 for the banknotes it did apply to!
50. Oil reserves have ZERO effect on the currency as to include them would be trying to sell the same product twice – once when you find it, and a second time when you dig it up and actually sell it! The same is true of the “GCR” fantasy whose bogus economics are based on countries “factoring in” natural resources twice over (counting reserves then counting them again as exports). The real world doesn’t work like that. The only thing that possibly has any impact on currency values is exports (and only then by using the revenue for increased currency reserves). Oil reserves have ZERO impact. See Russia, Nigeria, Kazakhstan, Angola, Algeria, pre-lop Venezuela, etc (all top-20 oil exporting countries with weak currencies).
51. All most people do is keep confusing “economy” with “currency”. They are not interchangeable. It’s possible to have a strong currency and weak economy (Greece, Portugal, Fiji, etc) – and it’s possible to have a weak currency and strong economy (China, South Korea, Japan, etc). Currency is not a “stock” in the GDP
52. Currency and debt are also not the same thing. Greece is drowning in debt yet is still 1:1.37 vs the $. Conversely, Vietnam’s debt is only a fraction of its GDP yet its ultra-weak currency 21,060:1 is because they have printed several QUADRILLION Dong.
53. “Iraq wants a strong currency because they plan to export more” is totally backwards! All the major exporters WANT weaker currencies because it makes them more relatively competitive vs peer countries. Exporters benefit more from weaker currencies (their products are more competitively priced – see China’s UNDER-pegging of the Yuan vs the USD), and importers benefit more from stronger ones (it allows them to buy import more per $).
54. The effect of Iraq appreciating the Dinar 100,000-3,500,000% vs every other country is exactly the same as the Dinar remaining static against EVERY other country depreciating their currencies by 1,000-3,500,000! Think of the negative effect that would have on trade! If everything moved 1,000x fold without any redenomination, then quite obviously every Iraqi product will suddenly become 1,000x more expensive for non-Iraqi’s to import as the obvious flip side to the 1166:1 to 1.166:1 “RV exchange” would be that today 1 Dinar = $0.00085 and tomorrow that same 1 Dinar would become $0.85 (or it would cost non-Iraqi’s 1,000x more to import Iraqi goods as it would take 1,000x more USD’s to buy the same number of Dinars!) It’s shocking that people never see the obvious common sense “flip-side” that if the Dinar magically appreciated 1,000x vs the $ overnight, the effect would be exactly the same as if Obama devalued the USD 1,000x against a static Dinar! NO-ONE would trade with Iraq and Iraq’s export economy would collapse overnight!
55. The CBI has $80bn of currency reserves ($1.2bn gold bullion + mostly USD’s) to back 85,122bn over-printed Dinar (less than $1 worth of assets for every 1064 Dinar). In reality, this gives them 10% lee-way though they actually want a slight buffer as a tool against internal inflation (as explained in last year’s IMF report):-
– If it “RV’d” to $1, the CBI would run out of Dollars & Gold before exchanging even 0.1% of everyone’s banknotes.
– If it “RV’d” to $3.5, the CBI would run out of Dollars & Gold before exchanging even 0.027% of everyone’s banknotes.
– If it “RV’d” to $35, the CBI would run out of Dollars & Gold before exchanging even 0.0027% of everyone’s banknotes.
No matter what “rate” you pick, the +100,000% Dinar “RV” is a mathematically & economically impossible scam, always has been & always will be.
From this point the real debate began. I am not going into what everyone said. I just want to highlight a few things that I found interesting.
Posted by Hitherunto January 25, 2014
Man, I wish I had an hour to address all of these ‘facts!’ Couple of quick observations:
1. Your M1 figures are based on 2012 CBI data, they have spent more than 18 months repatriating IQD from circulation.
2. I’ve lost count how many prominent, respected commentaries I’ve read that point to a shift away from petrodollar reserve platform, towards an SDR platform based on a formulaic approach to sovereign-state commodity value. I’m not just referring to Glenn Beck or Jim Willie, who many think are looney – Jim Sinclair, Jim Grant, Peter Schiff, WEF founder, Jim Rogers, Marc Faber, Doug Casey (and many more) all see a shift from West to East with respect to a global reserve currency framework. You can believe what you want, but I kinda take the word of those guys with conviction. All the talk about the impossibility of a currency increasing in value by 10000% is kinda silly, since we’re talking about inversely-correlated pairings. Take a forex 101 class, it’ll start to make some sense. If you don’t believe there will be an economic reset of correlated currencies, there isn’t much to discuss. 😉
I’ll try to come back later and address the numerous facts you’ve listed – it’s some great research, but many are not facts at all, or are based on some pretty old data points. For the record, I have no idea if the dinar will revalue at a high rate. The info you posted on dollar pegging, on M1, on future IQD value needing to be based on USD affixing value…man, the info is one bubble off plumb…
This is Jack’s Reply,
Posted by Jack January 25, 2014
“Your M1 figures are based on 2012 CBI data, they have spent more than 18 months repatriating IQD from circulation.”
1. Rubbish. People have been pumping this “Iraq have secretly been taking all the banknotes out of circulation” guru nonsense every year since around “Okie Oil Man’s” original 2007 comedy act, and every year it’s proven wrong, again & again. You can almost set your calendar by it, LOL. In Dec 2012, Iraq’s M1 was 63,736bn Dinar. Figures from Q4 2013 show that Iraq’s M1 is still 71,777bn Dinar. Iraq is NOT reducing their money supply at all. Quite the opposite, between 2012-2013 they increased it by around 12.5%.
2a. As for “SDR’s”, first of all, Iraq has only 1.188bn SDR’s (worth all of $1.829bn).
b. SDR’s are almost half $ anyway : 41.9% USD / 37.4% EUR / 11.3% GBP / 9.4% JPY. An SDR is a basket of 4 currencies and spreading the 100% USD risk across more Euro currencies. In no way shape or form will that result in any significant “RV” because the Dinar is still not undervalued vs the Euro at 1590:1 or the GBP at 1917:1 or the Yen at 11.37:1. It’s laughable people predict the “collapse of the West” then pump SDR’s which are comprised of 90.6% Western currencies (or 100% if you call Japan “Western”) … 🙂
It doesn’t matter how many countries reduce 100% pure USD reserves for a mix of 42% USD / 37% Euro’s, etc (SDR’s), as the IQD is still not undervalued vs any of them both individually or the SDR as a whole, given the tens of trillions worth of Dinar they’ve created. This will continue to be the true until they redenominate.
Hitherunto said,
Posted by Hitherunto January 25, 2014
Jack, at some point you will allow the scales to be removed from your eyes. I’m not talking about Iraq’s SDRs…and if you think USD will comprise half of the SDR framework, there’s no point in continuing the conversation. Every single time anyone mentions a transition away from US petrodollar framework, you shut down emotionally. The line forms to the left with economists way smarter than me or you than understand the global shift. Do you even comprehend how BRICS possess more gold than all other countries combined, or how both the IMF and BIS have stated – on record – that voting rights for SDR platform will see a shrinkage in Western influence? The instant you lifted your leg on commentary by Jim Willie, I figured you had another agenda. Either your a Keynsesian or blindly loyal to US economic dominance – in either case, you’re in for a rude awakening, brotha…
This is Jack’s Reply,
Posted by Jack January 25, 2014
Hitherunto, you’re the one who believes every contradictory “rumor” you read without even checking basic easily verifiable facts, and now you’re just upset & embarrassed that that’s been pointed out. “The CBI took half of Iraqi’s money away from them in 2013, it’s true I read it on the net!”. Enough said as to the “quality” of your “intel”…
“Do you even comprehend how BRICS possess more gold than all other countries combined” being another perfect example of an outrageously false claim. BRICS have certainly been importing more gold but over half of what they import gets consumed in industrial use & demand for jewellery:-
“In 2013, the country [China] produced 342t of gold and consumed 840t, importing 498t”. That isn’t even remotely the same as the lie “China has been secretly adding 498t to their currency reserves every year” that you seem to be pumping… Same is true of India – they use nearly all of what they import in jewelry. That’s why the Indian govt slapped on a 10% duty on gold bullion but a 15% import duty for gold jewelry. Most gold in Asia is going to private citizens not banks. Combined Eurozone gold reserves alone are more than the combined BRICS reserves, so that’s another lie you’ve told.
As for “revaluing national currencies based on Gold in a global reset”, here’s Gold’s share of national reserves by country:-
84% Portugal
76% Greece
70% USA
66% Germany
65% France
65% Italy
52% Netherlands
48% Austria
33% Belgium
23% Spain
12% UK
10% South Africa
7% India
2% Iraq
2% Saudi Arabia
1% China
1% Brazil
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gold_reserves#Officially_reported_gold_holdings
http://www.imf.org/external/np/sta/ir/IRProcessWeb/colist.aspx
99% Of China & Brazil’s wealth is holding other countries paper money (trillions of paper USD’s). 98% of Iraq’s is USD paper. 93% of India is again paper money. It really is time to drop the total mental delusion that a. We’re going back on a 100% full reserve gold standard. There simply isn’t enough gold in the world which is why we came off it in the first place! The entire combined GLOBAL reserves is around 32,000 tons or around $1.2tn worth (compare that to the $80tn global economy), and b. That doing so will cause Iraq to soar and the USA to plummet because Iraq holds a tiny 30t ($1.5bn…) which is less than Nepal’s or Slovakia’s…
Yes I know about their proposal to include BRICs currencies in SDR’s, but even if that happens, the Dinar is STILL not undervalued vs any of them because it is STILL not undervalued vs any of the BRICS currencies either. Just like the inflated…
– Iranian Rial at 38,078:1 vs SDR
– Indonesian Rupiah at 18,623:1 vs SDR
– Colombian Peso at 3,075:1 vs SDR
– Lebanese Pound at 2,311:1 vs SDR.
– South Korean Won at 1,631:1 vs SDR
– Chilean Peso at 843:1 vs SDR
etc, etc, for about two dozen other countries… aren’t “undervalued” vs the SDR or $ either, both now and post any BRICs inclusion.
You seem to be one of those ‘special people’ who thinks that Indian’s buying private wedding rings, etc, will magically cause Iraq’s currencies to shoot up 1000x fold for no reason… Or that “Western 35-90% paper / 10-65% gold” reserves backing 10tn money supplies are “worthless” but China’s & Iraq’s 98-99% paper / 1-2% gold backing +80tn-110tn trillion money supplies are “under-valued”. LOL. 😀
Iraq has $80bn of Forex reserves (98.5% paper USD’s + 1.5% gold) to try and back a 85,122bn Dinar money supply. Whether they back it with $80bn Dollars or dump Dollars in favor of : €58.4bn Euro’s ($80bn worth) or £48.5bn Pounds ($80bn worth) or 52.0 SDR’s ($80bn worth) or 63,029,099 oz Gold ($80bn worth) (in reality Iraq only has $1.2bn), what determines the Dinar’s value is the amount they have, not how many currencies they spread it across… All the latter does is increase stability against FUTURE devaluations of the USD, it does not “magically” correct 20 years worth of the devaluating effect of Iraq expanding its money supply by printing 85tn Dinar which is precisely why it fell +1,000x in value in the first place… The only thing that DOES correct that is a redenomination, which is precisely what Iraq are planning to do…
If you have $4,000 and you swapped $1,496 for €1,093 EUR, swapped another $452 for £274 GBP, swapped another $376 for 38436 JPY, and kept the remaining $1,676 as USD’s, you’d still have $4,000 worth of currency in total, not $4m-140m. LOL. Well that’s exactly what an SDR is in a nutshell. Nothing more than that.
And if BRICS-included SDR’s were modified to 9x equal 11.1% shares of USD / EUR / GBP / JPY / CNY / INR / ZAR / RUB / BRL, you’d STILL have $4,000 worth. It won’t make ANY country’s hyper-inflated currency shoot up, it’s just a hedge against further FUTURE unilateral devaluation of the USD for currencies that are pegged to the USA (and only then on the false assumption that the USA’s inflation rate will only ever be higher (Russia’s is 6.5%, India’s is 6.0-7.5%, Brazil’s is 6%, South Africa’s is 5.5-6.5%, etc).
Hope this helps to clear up your obvious deep confusion…
Jack posted a reply to numbers. He also quoted numbers in his reply,
Posted by Jack January 25, 2014
‘NUMBERS – “ALL OF THESE PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE THE US GOVERMENT HAS OUR BEST INTEREST IN MIND WILL ALL HAVE A RUDE AWAKING WHEN THE US DOLLAR CRASHES AND THE DINAR IS WORTH MORE”
But not half the rude awakening by those “The End Is Nigh” nuts who think the best hedge against a collapsing USD is to buy someone else’s 1,164x more worthless fiat paper that’s both pegged to the USD and 98.5% backed by paper USD reserves 😀
Hitherunto responded to Jack
Posted by Hitherunto January 26, 2014
Wrong through and through, Jack.
I will trust Jim Grant, Doug Casey, Marc Faber, Peter Schiff, Klaus Schwab, Jim Rogers, Jim Willie, Mark Skousen, Gerald Celente, Mike Maloney, John Williams (Shadow Stats founder, world-renown economist who kinda know a little about gold purchases, and claims BRICS have purchased more gold in last 18 months than all other countries combined), billionaire Eric Sprott…geez, my fingers hurt just typing the names of people who disagree with you. Nobody said currencies would revalue based on gold, you kinda tripped yourself up there. That exposes your bias. Your 80B reserve IQD number is askew as well (actually, significantly so).
Just admit to everyone here that you love statistics that support your bias and world view, and refuse to embrace a global shift because you refuse to see the end of American hegemony. It’s ok, it took me almost a decade to come around to it too. We don’t need to go back and forth citing our pet stats, I know where you stand. Remember – lies, damn lies, and statistics. My suggestion? Broaden your world view beyond your nose. Your a pit bull, locked onto your subjective views of the world, and the world spins contrary to this myopia.
Oh…and follow the advice of Jim Rogers, and learn Mandarin. It’ll come in handy some day.
Here is Jack’s reply,
Posted by Jack January 26, 2014
“and claims BRICS have purchased more gold in last 18 months than all other countries combined”
Earlier you said “possess more gold” now it’s just “imported more gold in 2012-2013″. Glad to see you’ve corrected your mistake.
“Your 80B reserve IQD number is askew as well (actually, significantly so).”
No really it isn’t. Iraq’s reserves were $61.04bn (Dec 2011) increased to $70.33bn (Dec 2012) increased to $76bn (June 2013):-
“BAGHDAD/ Aswat al-Iraq: Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) announced that its foreign currency reserves reached to $76.5 billion.”
increased to around $80bn (end of last year):-
“The bank announced recently that the reserves of Iraq’s foreign exchange and gold amounted to about $ 80 billion, compared with approximately $ 74 billion in June.”
This is just you trying to “pretend away” any “inconvenient” facts you don’t want to hear again…
Conclusion
I got Jack’s permission to add his facts to my list. Now there are 55 fact’s in this list. A special Thank you goes out to Jack for sharing this information. A special thank you also goes to Baghdad Invest for their unbiased views and their desire to find out the truth about this investment. There is a wealth of information in the comment section over at Baghdad Invest where this article is posted. I would highly recommend that everyone read through it.
http://www.baghdadinvest.com/40-facts-why-iraqi-dinar-revaluation/
The big monkey wrench in this whole dinar investment is the amount of currency that Iraq has in circulation. The numbers don’t lie and they show this revalue to be pure fiction! Before people can believe in a revalue the amount of dinar in circulation has to decrease. This is where the gurus come in. They make up bogus scenarios like Global Currency Reset. They talk about different numbers which do not have any truth to the real amount of dinar out there. The truth is this. Any revalue of the Iraqi dinar to even 1,000 percent would bankrupt the nation. If Iraq paid you for your dinar exchange then that money has got to come from somewhere. This would result in Iraq losing and you would be gaining Iraq’s wealth. This is not going to happen.
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It was recently brought to my attention that Dave Schmidt, the former Washington state senator turned dinar guru, has a photo of a gold vault on his website where he says:
discussion of the dinar investment – lop and all – to their members, but most of those have long since shut down as the forum owner saw the light and moved on. There is one such site however, that has kept its lights on. That site is Dinar Daily (
Time and guru fatigue have taken their toll on the dinar community, and they have become increasingly fed up with the lies, obfuscations, distractions, and otherwise disgusting behavior of the devious dinar dirtbags posing as experts. As a result, more and more people are taking up the cause of outing these jerks and exposing their lies.
Mike Rothschild is a writer and editor based in Pasadena. He writes about scams, conspiracy theories, hoaxes and pop culture fads. He’s also a playwright and screenwriter. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/rothschildmd.
Iraq Currency Watch 