On Tuesday, the Federal Reserve cut interest rates by 0.5%. Wall Street aggressively demanded the cut to stop the sub-prime mortgage contagion from triggering a credit crisis among large US and foreign investment banks and the collapse of their over-leveraged hedge funds, which ultimately threatened to drag the US economy into recession. The market rallied this week in response to the Fed's move. But there is no free lunch. [more inside]
posted by Pastabagel on Sep 20, 2007 - 99 comments

Iran is the next target of the U.S. because of the establishment of the Iranian Oil Bourse, which would trade in Euros, not dollars.
No, it isn't.
Yeah, it probably is.
No, seriously, it's not. (Yeah, really though, it is)
Ok, maybe it is, maybe it isn't either way the odds were running 50/50 we'd bomb Iran by the end of the year. (previously - here)
posted by Smedleyman on Jul 4, 2006 - 44 comments

Storm Warning. Seems like Iran has already started flexing it's economic muscles-haven't seen it reported that widely anywhere else, but these two events seem to be connected. Then again, maybe I've been spending too much time reading itulip.
posted by jaksoul on May 14, 2006 - 35 comments

Is the currency that oil is denominated in the real reason for the Iraq War? "The Federal Reserve's greatest nightmare is that OPEC will switch its international transactions from a dollar standard to a euro standard. Iraq actually made this switch in Nov. 2000 (when the euro was worth around 80 cents), and has actually made off like a bandit considering the dollar's steady depreciation against the euro. (Note: the dollar declined 17% against the euro in 2002.)"
posted by thedailygrowl on Feb 11, 2003 - 35 comments