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[HiFiGuy]

Cross post from Gold Board.

Do you think this:

From Stickan:
Recall that Iran now accepts only euros for oil and gas and is actively encouraging others to follow. On March 21, 2007 Iran will no longer officially accept US dollars for any transactions. Iran has entered into discussions with Russia to form a gas cartel. Russia and Iran are the world’s number 1 and number 5 gas producers, and they are numbers 1 and 2 in natural gas reserves (holding possibly half of the world’s natural gas reserves). The currency moves threaten the US dollar’s position as the world’s reserve currency, and a cartel would be anathema to US interests in the region.

...has anything to do with this?:
From Bloomberg:
Crude oil in New York fell to a six-week low on reduced concern that Iranian supplies will be curtailed after Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad asked to address the United Nations Security Council.

Ahmadinejad will be issued a U.S. visa so he can speak to the Security Council next week, according to Benjamin Chang, a spokesman for the U.S. mission to the UN. China and Russia agreed with the U.S. and its allies to pressure Iran by freezing the assets of a state-owned bank and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps, and restricting travel by their officials.

Oil `Spooked'

``I think the oil market is spooked by the visit to New York next week by President Ahmadinejad,'' said Nauman Barakat, senior vice president of global energy futures at Macquarie Futures USA Inc. in New York. ``The Iranians want to buy time and the best way for them to do that is for him to give a conciliatory speech at the UN.'' The dollar declined 0.54 percent to $1.3310 per euro and dropped 0.71 percent to 116.74 yen in New York.

question: Is it the Iranian's who are buying time or is it us??

Separately, i was curious as to how widely reported this Iranian "Euro for oil" is in the MS press. So I did a Google news search, using "iran euro oil currency" Google News Search, and guess what. The top 3 articles came from, in order:

• Aljazeera.com, UK
• Fars News Agency, Iran
• The News - International, Pakistan

No sign of the NYTimes, WSJ, Washington Post, etc. (Note that some articles which did appear had no direct information on the currency switch.) Then I go to pg 2 of the search and top of the page, i see, "Iran drops dollar for oil deals - World War 4 Report, NY - Feb 26, 2007 ". Whoa boy..Okay, so seems the arab and non-mainstream press has got this issue covered, but where's our media?

So, then i go direct to the wsj site, and i find this article, which makes it sound that the US is forcing Iran to move to Euro, by restricting its access to $ transactions:

As European Bank Restrictions Take Hold
By GLENN R. SIMPSON in Brussels and DAVID CRAWFORD in Berlin
January 10, 2007; Page A3

The U.S. government's attempt to isolate Iran's economy will get a significant boost this month when the last European bank known to be clearing large volumes of that country's dollar transactions in the U.S. halts the practice.

Commerzbank AG, Germany's second-largest bank, said it will stop handling dollar transactions for Iran at its New York branch by Jan. 31.

Over the past year, most European banks with longstanding relationships with Iran have bowed to U.S. pressure and sharply curtailed transactions with Iran's state-controlled banks, which the U.S. says support terrorism. The U.S. also is seeking to financially quarantine Iran because of Tehran's vows to press ahead with its nuclear program in defiance of international will.

WSJ article

The article certainly doesn't focus on any negative repercussions to the U.S. from Iran's action. Hey, its the journal, what do you expect?

So then, I searched the NYT, and the most recent article that came up was "Dollar's Skid Puts a Glow On the Euro. January 3, 2007, Wednesday, By JEREMY W. PETERS; KEITH BRADSHER CONTRIBUTED REPORTING FROM HONG KONG. (NYT)". Nothing more recent than that.

The only recent mainstream press article I found that dealt directly with this was actually TODAY from the
Arizona Star - March 18, 2007, exerpt:

For example, when asked about the possibility of Iran beginning to price oil based on the euro rather than the U.S. dollar, McCain said he hadn't heard about the currency switch, but the United States has bigger issues with Iran than currency. He went on to discuss nuclear weapons capabilities and shipping people and deadly equipment to support the insurgency in Iraq.

So it appears that the MS Press is ignoring this as an issue, our politicians are denying knowledge of it, and yet it will happen just 3 days from now, at the same time the Iranian president is addressing the UN (in NY!), and on the same day the Fed is releasing their decision and statement on interest rates.

All I got to say is, it's gonna be a mighty interesting week for the USD, equities, and gold. By the way, in the chart below, the price projection lines drawn from late Oct 2006 were originally drawn on Oct 27 as posted here.

http://stockcharts.com/c-sc/sc?s=$USD&p=D&yr=2&mn=0&dy=0&i=p83772095298&a=88237344&r=5884.png

Bottom line, IMHO, this is THE WEEK. Either the $ "crashes" or equities "crash", or both. By crash, I don't mean 1987, necessarily, but at least a steep decline which will trigger more serious technical implications.

As always, TWT. Get a good night's sleep.

[Russ]

Sadam also tried to only trade oil for euros and look at what they did to him.