Cost, abuse and danger of the dollar

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http://www.courtfool.info/en_Cost_ab...the_dollar.htm

How do you steal oil reserves?

There is still another aspect to the abuse of the dollar. During the demonstrations against the US-invasion of Iraq, a lot of demonstrators understood it was not about weapons of mass destruction. Iraq has world’s second largest oil reserves. Some demonstrators thought, the US was after the oil. And that is also true. But how can you steal oil reserves, which are in the ground and so huge you cannot take them with you?

You do it with currencies. By imposing, that this oil can only be traded in dollars, in one move the US becomes owner of this oil. The US is the only country, which has the right to print dollars and thus can dispose of the oil any time. Other countries that want to buy this oil, have to buy dollars first. In fact they pay their oil to the US at that moment. The dollars they receive are rights to collect a quantity of oil. (Just like when you go to Ikea to buy furniture, you pay first and you receive a note, with which you can collect your furniture at the shop’s back door.) So, basically, dollars are rights to collect oil. And because everybody needs oil, everybody wants these green notes.

So, Saddam’s switch to the Euro at the start of November 2000 was not just an attack on the rate of the dollar. The switch implied at the same time the US could not dispose freely of the oil anymore. The US would have to buy euros to dispose of it.