Unfortunately, most Americans take to heart everything they read or hear in the press. We need to understand that the long arm of Wall Street has a tremendous amount of influence on what we know, and what we don't know.
For example, in March of 2000, many investors woke up to a shellacking in the equity markets that eventually cost investors billions of dollars. Who pulled the plug? It wasn't the mutual funds or pension funds, by the time the damage was done, many of those institutions were down 40-50% as well.
As I watch the smear campaign on Iran and Venezuela unfold, I have to look at the facts with a critical eye, and ask why? Mind you, my first instinct is not any different than anyone else. I do not want terrorists to have nuclear weapons, and I do not want a dictator in Venezuela.
If I have learned anything about investing, its to always question the source of the information that I am receiving. Thank goodness, I learned this from the Wall Street brokerage firms I worked for since they had a policy that forced brokers to relay the opinions of their analysts to their clients.
The one business in our country that an individual or another nation cannot mess with is the oil business. The oil cartel in the U.S. controls, and wants to control the worlds trading of this precious natural resource. To say that the executive branch of our government is an oil administration is a huge understatement.
Let痴 look at the facts. We all know about the Bush families involvement in oil, and Vice President Dick Cheney was the CEO of Halliburton. But, even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was a director for Chevron, and they even named an oil tanker after her.
This being said, don't you think we should at least question a few things we are hearing about the administrations motives in Iran and Venezuela?
For example, In March 2006, Iran plans to open a competing oil trading exchange to the New York Mercantile Exchange. This new oil exchange has the backing of the Chinese, Russians, and Japan. Now here's the kicker; oil trading at the new Iranian Oil Bourse will trade in euros, and not dollars. China and Japan will welcome this exchange since they both hold a huge amount of dollar reserves.
Since the dollars value is now a speculative investment due to the heavy U.S. debt burden, both China and Japan will welcome the Iranian exchange in order to diversify their nation's investments away from dollars into other currencies. If, and when this happens, longer term interest rates in the U.S. could begin to rise. Of course this would solve the problem of an inverted yield curve, but there is no way the U.S. economy could sidestep a potentially painful recession.
This being said, don稚 you think this news would infuriate the rich oil barons here in the U.S.? Don't you think that they are going to do everything in their power to stop it? Stay tuned, this could get very interesting.
