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View Full Version : Whodunit? Sneak attack on U.S. dollar



Sol Invictus
10-09-2009, 04:33 AM
Politico (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28091.html)
October 8 2009

It’s the biggest mystery in global finance right now: Who conducted a sneak attack on the U.S. dollar this week?

It began with a thinly sourced but highly explosive report Monday in a British newspaper: Arab oil sheiks are conspiring with the Russians and Chinese to quit using the dollar to set the value of oil trades — a direct threat to the global supremacy of the greenback.

Is it true? Everyone from the head of the Saudi central bank to U.S. officials scrambled to undercut the story, but no matter.

With the U.S. economy on the ropes and America by far the world’s biggest debtor, investors aren’t feeling as secure about the dollar as they used to. And the notion of second-tier economies ganging up on Uncle Sam didn’t sound so far-fetched.

For American officials, the possibility of the dollar losing its long-term dominance in global commerce is a nightmare scenario because it would likely mean sharply higher interest rates at home and a declining ability to finance the U.S. debt. No one believes it could really happen right now, but stories like the British report this week make it seem incrementally more likely.

So the piece by Robert Fisk of the Independent shocked currency traders around the world and almost instantly sent the value of the U.S. dollar spiraling downward and the price of gold skyrocketing to an all-time high, as a hedge against a weakened dollar.

The website drudgereport.com quickly amplified the impact of the story with a headline atop the site: ARAB STATES LAUNCH SECRET MOVES WITH CHINA, RUSSIA, FRANCE TO STOP USING DOLLAR FOR OIL TRADING …

“You read that story, and you do two things: You sell the hell out of dollars and you buy gold,” said Les Alperstein, president of the financial research firm Washington Analysis. “The story has a lot of credibility, with some caveats.”

So who wanted dollars diving and gold rising? In other words, who is Fisk’s source, and why did he or she want to tank the dollar? It’s the global currency version of the old Washington parlor game of speculating on the real identity of Deep Throat.

No one knows.

But one thing is for certain: With the price of gold jumping to $1,048.20 per ounce, traders who moved early enough stood to make millions.

So in government circles in Washington, speculation immediately centered on gold traders: With the skyrocketing price of gold, they’d be the biggest beneficiaries of the article.

Fisk’s story itself isn’t much help in solving the mystery — it is sourced vaguely to “Gulf Arab and Chinese banking sources in Hong Kong,” and it included one blind quote, attributed to “a prominent Hong Kong broker.” That doesn’t narrow down the pool very much.

SwordoftheVistula
10-14-2009, 08:22 AM
Hmm, makes me think of a certain other 'leak' claimed by a 'neo-nazi' who was later revealed to be a government employee. Wonder who made money off of that? Shouldn't be nearly as hard to figure that one out, if the US govt actually wanted to:

From this spring:

http://www.businessinsider.com/purported-stress-test-leak-gives-market-jitters-2009-4

Last night, The Turner Radio Network, a white supremacist outlet run by Hal Turner, published what it claimed was a "leak" of the Treasury stress tests. They didn't actually publish a document, just a summary and in short they said the stress tests showed the entire banking system was stunningly insolvent.

Zero Hedge says the leak definitely had a negative impact on the market as news of it started to spread -- it's being discussed heavily on message boards, etc -- so the Treasury was prompted to put out a denial, saying they don't even have the results yet.


Later on, this summer:

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/07/revealed-racist-talk-show-host-turner-was-an-fbi-informant/

White supremacist radio host Hal Turner was an FBI informant, his lawyer revealed in court today. The announcement is a confirmation of what hackers claimed nearly a year ago after allegedly gaining access to his e-mails.

Turner was arrested on June 24 for allegedly calling for the murder of three judges who supported the Chicago gun ban. The confession by his attorney came at a bond hearing Tuesday.

"Attorney Michael Orozco [...] said his client gave authorities information about a plot to assassinate President Barack Obama," reported the Associated Press.

However, prosecutors said they had no information about the alleged plot, but did confirm Turner had a relationship with the bureau. Attorney William Hogan told the wire service that relationship had ended "some time ago."

His recent arrest came after a complaint about an overt call for the murder of three judges.

"Let me be the first to say this plainly: these Judges deserve to be killed," he wrote on his Web site, according to MSNBC. "He included their pictures, phone numbers, work address and room numbers along with a photo of the courthouse in which they work and a map of its location, the FBI says."

"We take threats to federal judges very seriously. Period,"' said Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago," the network reported.

But perhaps the most interesting bit of Turner's recent history are his dealings with the users of the popular Internet forum 4chan, among others.

In July 2008, hackers -- who may or may not be connected to 4chan -- confronted Turner on his Web site's forums and claimed they had gained access to his e-mail, uncovering a message allegedly to his FBI handler in which he takes credit for "flush[ing] out another crazy."

Sol Invictus
10-14-2009, 08:40 AM
"Sure, we acknowledge he works for us (The FBI), but had no idea of any of his activities."

Um, excuse me, come again?