This is not good (Arab money)

[Overexjoesure]

Arab central banks move assets out of dollar
By Philip Thornton, Economics Correspondent
Published: 14 March 2006
Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros.

The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".

Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions.

The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit.

Last week the US caused dismay after political opposition to the takeover of P&O by Dubai Ports World forced DPW to agree to transfer P&O\'s US port management business to a "US entity" .

The governor of the UAE central bank, Sultan Nasser al-Suweidi, said the bank was looking to convert 10 per cent of its reserves, which stand at $23bn (£13.5bn), from dollars to euros. "They are contravening their own principles," he said. "Investors are going to take this into consideration [and] will look at investment opportunities through new binoculars."

Hamad Saud al-Sayyari, the governor of the Saudi Arabian monetary authority, said: "Is it protection or discrimination? Is it okay for US companies to buy everywhere but it is not okay for other companies to buy the US?"

Syria has switched the state\'s foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars, the head of the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, Duraid Durgham, said.

Last week the White House told US financial institutions to terminate all correspondent accounts involving the Commercial Bank of Syria because of money-laundering concerns. Mohammad al-Hussein, Syria\'s finance minister, said: "Syria affirms that this decision and its timing are fundamentally political."

The euro rose a quarter of one percentage point against the dollar to a one-week high of $1.1945, although it retreated in later trading.

Monica Fan, at RBC Capital Markets, said: "The issue is whether we will see similar attitudes taken by other Middle Eastern banks. It is a question of momentum."

Middle Eastern anger over the decision by the US to block a Dubai company from buying five of its ports hit the dollar yesterday as a number of central banks said they were considering switching reserves into euros.

The United Arab Emirates, which includes Dubai, said it was looking to move one-tenth of its dollar reserves into euros, while the governor of the Saudi Arabian central bank condemned the US move as "discrimination".

Separately, Syria responded to US sanctions against two of its banks by confirming plans to use euros instead of dollars for its external transactions.

The remarks combined to knock the dollar, which fell against the euro, pound and yen yesterday as analysts warned other central banks might follow suit.

Last week the US caused dismay after political opposition to the takeover of P&O by Dubai Ports World forced DPW to agree to transfer P&O\'s US port management business to a "US entity" .

The governor of the UAE central bank, Sultan Nasser al-Suweidi, said the bank was looking to convert 10 per cent of its reserves, which stand at $23bn (£13.5bn), from dollars to euros. "They are contravening their own principles," he said. "Investors are going to take this into consideration [and] will look at investment opportunities through new binoculars."
Hamad Saud al-Sayyari, the governor of the Saudi Arabian monetary authority, said: "Is it protection or discrimination? Is it okay for US companies to buy everywhere but it is not okay for other companies to buy the US?"

Syria has switched the state\'s foreign currency transactions to euros from dollars, the head of the state-owned Commercial Bank of Syria, Duraid Durgham, said.

Last week the White House told US financial institutions to terminate all correspondent accounts involving the Commercial Bank of Syria because of money-laundering concerns. Mohammad al-Hussein, Syria\'s finance minister, said: "Syria affirms that this decision and its timing are fundamentally political."

The euro rose a quarter of one percentage point against the dollar to a one-week high of $1.1945, although it retreated in later trading.

Monica Fan, at RBC Capital Markets, said: "The issue is whether we will see similar attitudes taken by other Middle Eastern banks. It is a question of momentum."

http://news.independent.co.uk/business/news/article351127.ece

[derickw]

fuck\'m, i would be pissed if we sold our ports to an area of the world that HATES us. if they want to be a bunch of whiny bitches screw em\'

[Spacey]

its propaganda put out by the administration to make the American people feel bad for not accepting the Dubai port deal. I still can\'t believe the this Bush administration is gasping for oxygen on an already failed administration.

[jking]

well, bush brought this on himself, what with the fear-mongering about them evil doers over there. frankly, if you look at the company, there\'s no reason not to let them buy the ports, but, since he made the entire middle east bad, he\'s now causng the economy to suffer because he was too short-sighted to see the possible consequences of scaring the beejesus outta folks.

[Spacey]

well, bush brought this on himself, what with the fear-mongering about them evil doers over there. frankly, if you look at the company, there\'s no reason not to let them buy the ports, but, since he made the entire middle east bad, he\'s now causng the economy to suffer because he was too short-sighted to see the possible consequences of scaring the beejesus outta folks.

thats a solid point. and in retrospect exactly what has happened.

[jking]

he\'s always used fear as the basis of his divide and conquer strategy, and its worked extremely well for him. its sucked for us, but its worked great for him...

[Spacey]

Fear seemed to be the motivation behind much of his time in the Oval Office to get things done, now that it worked and is beginning to backfire on him, I\'m sure he can\'t feel to good.

My real concern is about the future. Currently you are beginning to see many facists spacing themselves from the President because they don\'t want to be associated closely with him as time comes for the party to pick a nominee. But, what are the facists thinking about doing? For the last few years I feel that they have lost what little backbone there is. And the job that the 44th president is going to inherit is going to be overwhelming. Hopefully, some day we can get someone for the people and not their pockets.

[Overexjoesure]

I posted this because people are losing more and more faith in the dollar and are switching over to Euros. If this trend continues our gas prices are going to go through the roof and an energy crisis will ensue. As much as we hate Arabs we need their money more than any other country.

Busted Dubai deal + Iran = economic hell on the rise...

[jking]

well, as a former employee of a couple different states\' dem. parties, let me just tell ya.... they managed to to completely screw themselves in terms of grooming leaders. aside from barack obama, there are no real up and coming facistic figureheads. they got lax and started taking certain issues and groups for granted and in the process lost their guiding ideology. it used to to be a well defnied patry, but now they\'re completely scrambling. instead of providing a viable alternative, they are just saying \'hey, at least we\'re not them\'. well folks, that ain\'t gonna work!

the reason for the lack of clear vision is, ironically, due to the dems\' main strength, inclusiveness. dem\'s let you be any kind of person you want and still accept you. the gop has a much better defined set of criteria for being a rep, so they tend to do better in blocs. for instance, you\'ll be hard pressed to find an anti-gun, pro-choice, anti-death penalty gay facist. they\'re out there, just not very visibly. dems on the other hand, span the spectrum from pro-gun to anti-choice, pro-gay and anti-gay, it doesn\'t matter as long as your core belief is that we can help each other better than being left alone to fend for yourself.

so, when a rep says something, pretty much the entire party falls in line. whereas the dems say a whole bunch of different things and lose all cohesiveness. quite a catch-22.

the only upside to all this, is that with the extremes on both sides being the loudest voices, eventually the silent masses aren\'t going to put up with it anymore. most people who consider themselves facist no longer fall lockstep in behind the president\'s every word, and even fewer agree with the bible-thumping, economically extravagent far right who are stirring up the pot more than the president is. at some point we will hit a breaking point, which we are begining to see as the congress moves away from the president. i guess what i\'m trying to say, is that the farther from bush the right moves, the closer to the center politics will become. and thus, the closer to the majority that politics will become.

[derickw]

put away your SUV\'s and V8 engines and get on that bike people. we are a gluttonous country and it needed to stop one way or another.

I don\'t like the idea of having parties being set on certain issues, it makes it to easy to vote for someone based on there group beliefs. great all we need are a bunch more puppets handling our well being, but who is pulling the strings. i thought it was democracy where everyone has there own voice, and every vote counts. bullshit, politics and lawyers fucked up this nation. you can\'t even educate yourself to vote enough because all these guys will say whatever it takes to get them elected. shit I\'m outta this thread

[Spacey]

I see a bright future for Barack Obama in the facistic Party. My father has met the man on a few occasions and has brought my attention to this young congressman and right now, he\'s the only thing that got working for themselves.

[jking]

i thought it was democracy where everyone has there own voice, and every vote counts.

if you could get everyone in the nation to vote (hell, i\'d settle for more than half the nation, as we typically hover around 35% nationwide turnout), this whole democracy thing would work a helluva lot better!

[Overexjoesure]

I\'m waiting for Al Z to make a cameo...

[derickw]

i don\'t vote because my state is facistic and they don\'t even look at the popular vote what\'s the point. maybe they should weigh in the popular vote in all this and maybe you would see a difference in poll turnouts

[Spacey]

I heard that they have been evaluating the voting system for sometime now, I also saw a special on a group that is fighting for the popular vote to be counted.