Saddam wouldn't play ball with the bondsmen!!!
"Of all the signs of hope for Iraq, some see the value of government-issued bonds as the best predictor of long-term stability. Violence flares periodically, but the price of a bond is based on educated guesses about what the country will look like decades into the future, founded not on politics or ideology, but on a businessman’s bottom line.... normal life is returning to Iraq"
There goes my breakfast onto the floor, puke!
Happens every time I am insulted like that!
Related: Municipal Bond Milking
Yeah, this is really going to help the ordinary Iraqi.
"Gambling on Iraq’s slow rise from ruin; Hub investors bought bonds others shunned" by Farah Stockman, Globe Staff | March 21, 2010
WASHINGTON — Some count the kidnappings. Others count the suicide bombs. Still others count the deaths of US soldiers. But, in the saga of Iraq’s slow struggle toward normalcy, Robert Smith keeps track of something far more obscure: the price of Iraqi government-issued bonds.
Smith, one of Boston’s most intrepid investors, has made his fortune betting on the world’s most dangerous places. Dubbed the “Indiana Jones of International Finance,’’ Smith buys IOUs from governments so unstable that few others will touch them.
From an office that overlooks Boston Harbor, Smith can recall when Iraq looked like a terrible gamble, as sectarian violence raged and the country slid toward a civil war. But now, a week after Iraq’s historic election, his bets are paying off: The price of Iraqi bonds has doubled in the last year, recently hitting their highest value ever.
“Iraq has the potential to vault past other countries’’ to become a top oil producer, said Smith, a 70-year-old debt merchant whose recent book, “Riches Among the Ruins,’’ details his investment adventures.
Related: Romney draws a loyal following as book tour hits Ariz.
So the Boston Globe is now a publicist for agenda-pushing authors and well-connected elites, huh?
The story of Iraqi bonds is, in many ways, the story of the troubled nation itself. Issued to clear $2.6 billion of Saddam Hussein-era debts, their value reflects the ebb and flow of war, declining when the insurgency rages and rising as violence subsides.
Iraq is still fraught with chaos, as newly elected leaders wrangle over power and struggle to form a governing coalition. In two months, US troops will prepare to draw down to 50,000 by the end of August, from about 90,000 now — another big window of uncertainty. But civilian deaths are at their lowest levels since the beginning of the war, down from some 3,500 per month to a few hundred.
Is it just me, or does the cavalier way in which this once fine reporter refers to "a few hundred" dead a month over a stinking pile of lies disgusting?
Related:
"The number of Iraqis killed in war-related violence increased by 44 percent between January and February, with civilians accounting for almost all of the casualties."
Of course, once a MSM lie takes root....
Since December, three US soldiers have died because of hostilities in Iraq, down from more than 100 monthly at the height of the war. Half as many Iraqis applied for refugee status last year as the year before.
Yeah, it's all going great now, yup.
But of all the signs of hope for Iraq, some see the value of government-issued bonds as the best predictor of long-term stability. Violence flares periodically, but the price of a bond is based on educated guesses about what the country will look like decades into the future, founded not on politics or ideology, but on a businessman’s bottom line.
“The only thing the bond market cares about is whether a functioning Iraqi government will be there in the future to make the promised interest payments,’’ said Michael Greenstone, an MIT economist. Bond traders take bombings, oil production, and myriad other factors into account when they decide what these bonds are worth, making their price the best aggregate of all that data, he said.
In 2007, Greenstone tracked the value of Iraqi bonds to determine the success of the US military surge, and concluded at the time that Iraq’s prospects still looked murky. But last week, he analyzed the data again — comparing Iraqi bonds with similar bonds from other developing countries. He found a striking change.
“The market’s assessment is that the prospects for a functioning Iraqi state in the future have improved dramatically,’’ he said.
It takes great patience — and not a little chutzpah — to squeeze a profit out of Iraq’s debt, which mounted in the 1980s during a devastating war with Iran.
The little reporter from the jewspaper sure is a piece of work, huh?
Yeah, why bother hiding it anymore.
Hussein borrowed an estimated $130 billion, then he invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Yup, even the unsociable Saddam got sucked in.
And what did he borrow all that money for BEFORE invading Kuwait?
Oh, he was FIGHTING IRAN for us??????????
Iraq got slapped with war reparations and UN sanctions.
Well that hardly seems fair.
As debt piled up, Iraq defaulted.
Oh, yeah?!
In addition to demanding oil payments in euros and denying access to western oil companies, this move really pissed people off.
Saddam started STIFFING the BANKERS?
Yeah, SOMETHING BAD USUALLY FOLLOWS there!!!!
But after the 2003 US-led invasion, the Bush administration sent former secretary of state James Baker III around the world, arranging deals that forgave 80 percent of what Iraq owed.
Couldn't have done that anyway without the war, huh?
To clear the remainder, some creditors were given new bonds in 2006 that pay out 5.8 percent interest annually, and larger amounts as they mature in 2028.
So the liberation Bush and the MSM kept referring to was the liberation of money from the Iraqis, huh?
But Iraq’s future was so tenuous then that most investors didn’t think the bonds were worth much. It was unclear what kind of government would take shape in Iraq, let alone whether it would be stable enough to keep its promises to creditors.
In other words, it was the kind of environment that Smith and his partner, Saleh Daher, thrive in. They reap great profit — and take great risks — going “where the Wall Street boys don’t want to be,’’ Smith said, although he declines to provide specifics of their financial performance.
Yeah, it is a lot easier to rip off, say, Greece, isn't it?
Their company, Turan Corp., operates out of a modest office on Federal Street, overshadowed by the financial behemoths of Boston. But in the world of emerging markets, they are legendary.
In 2004, before Iraq even issued its new bonds, Smith and Daher traveled to Baghdad to figure out how to buy them. The country was in ruins. Kidnapping was rife. More than 140 suicide attacks struck that year.
“We stayed at a hotel that had the virtue of already having been bombed,’’ Smith recalled.
Smith, a Brookline native who graduated from Roxbury Latin, Bowdoin College, and Boston University Law School, became a USAID loan officer in Vietnam in the late 1960s to see the world. After stints in El Salvador and Brazil, he returned to Boston to work at his father’s law firm, which specialized in debt collection.
Is he still CIA, 'er, AID?
Yup, this is the GREAT SUCCESS STORY of Iraq!
When Smith was hired to go to Turkey to collect a debt, he realized that he could make money buying up Third World government bonds — sometimes called “jungle bonds’’ — for pennies on the dollar. Smith would hold them until the countries could pay or until another buyer came along.
Smith, who enjoys the moniker “the King of the Jungle Bond,’’ hunted for business where capital markets had not yet taken root — Nigeria, Honduras, Russia — pioneering what is now a trillion-dollar industry.
Although Iraq was in turmoil, Smith and Daher thought it was a good long-term bet because geologists estimate Iraq has enough untapped oil to one day rival Saudi Arabia as the world’s largest exporter. On top of that, Baker was all but erasing Iraq’s debt, and Smith didn’t believe that the US government would let Baghdad default on what was left.
Yeah, that is NICE of the U.S. TAXPAYER, isn't it?
Wouldn't want the blood-sucking vampire of an investor coming up short now, would we?
From 2006 to mid-2007, as beheadings and attacks mounted, the value of the bonds dropped from $73 to $56 on a $100 bond. But after the surge of extra troops ordered by President Bush began to slow the pace of killings, the price shot back up to $74.
Well, at least the surge did succeed in one area.
Hmmmmmmm.
At the end of 2008, the world financial meltdown sent the bonds into a nosedive — to $40 — after investors panicked or were forced to unload the bonds to raise quick cash. Luckily, Smith and Daher had a client who wanted to move the money elsewhere, so they sold the bonds just before the crash. They bought them back again as the bonds began climbing steadily through 2009 as the world economy — and Iraq itself — stabilized.
That certainly SMELLS like INSIDER TRADING to me!!!!
The bonds hit their highest value ever — nearly $84 — in January 2010, the same month that civilian casualties hit an all-time low, according to Pentagon officials.
Well, isn't that interesting?
Michael O’Hanlon, who tracks indicators of progress for the Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, said that “Iraq has continued its remarkable trajectory of improvement.’’
“It is still fairly violent by Mideast standards, but many countries in places like South America have higher overall levels of violence now from crime,’’ he said.
Yeah, I used to see this prick's charts when I read the New York Times.
He was always changing measurements as the situation got worse to the point where he stopped issuing charts (and I stopped reading the Times).
Traditional Wall Street investors have taken note. Iraq is now considered a safer bet than Argentina, Venezuela, Pakistan, and Dubai — and is nearly on par with the State of California, according to Bloomberg statistics on credit default swaps, which are considered a raw indicator of default risk.
Yeah, YOU GOT F***ED BIG-TIME by BANKERS, America!
“Compared to California, I’d rather bet on Iraq,’’ Daher said. “Iraq is a country where there are still bombs going off and people getting murdered, but they are less indebted than the United States. California is likely to have more demands on its resources, and there is no miracle where California is going to have more revenue coming out of the sky. Iraq has prospects for tremendously higher revenues, if they can manage to get their act halfway together, which they seem to be doing.’’
And HOW DID YOU GET so DEEPLY in DEBT, America?
I want to know, WHERE the LIES WORTH IT?!!!
Smith and Daher are keeping their Iraqi bonds, but they aren’t buying any new ones.
Well, that can't be a good indicator the future!
Now that other investors have returned to Iraq, prices are high, so Smith is looking elsewhere. Perhaps that is one of the strongest signals yet that normal life is returning to Iraq: Bob Smith is getting out.
--more--"
Today's update:
"Allawi turns to negotiations
BAGHDAD — The secular challenger who stunned Iraq with his razor-thin parliamentary election win turned his attention to negotiations over a future government yesterday even as supporters of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki vowed to fight the results. Ayad Allawi’s two-seat win was hailed as a startling comeback, but the closeness of the race meant his road to regaining the prime minister’s post is anything but guaranteed (AP)."
Well, when they say anything but in the American news media (as we saw during the health care fooley) means it's assured -- and then we will be hailed as a great victory, in this case for Iraqi democracy.
Yup, U.S. got its new puppet (cheers)!
Also see: Occupation Iraq: Violence and the Vote
Occupation Iraq: Counting the Votes
Wow, that was exciting, 'eh, Iraqis?
Now when does the power come on around here?
