The War on Terror and USD

[mat33.livejournal.com]

Hard currency or strong currency, in economics, refers to a globally traded currency that can serve as a reliable and stable store of value. Factors contributing to a currency's hard status can include political stability, low inflation, consistent monetary and fiscal policies, backing by reserves of precious metals, and long-term stable or upward-trending valuation against other currencies on a trade-weighted basis.

Hard Currency

A currency, usually from a highly industrialized country, that is widely accepted around the world as a form of payment for goods and services. A hard currency is expected to remain relatively stable through a short period of time, and to be highly liquid in the forex market.

1. The long-term stability, not to mention "upward-trending valuation against other currencies on a trade-weighted basis" of american dollar is no longer an established fact.

2. While the USD may still be argued to be "a globally traded currency", if not "a reliable and stable store of value", the global convertibility, tradability and investability of it seems to be more and more limited by the american authorities - as a part of the "War on the Terror", it seems. In fact, if you live in the third world, at least, you may find working with the USD accounts in american and european banks nowadays more time-comsuming, nerve-consuming and expensive an activity, then you'd find working with the soviet "soft currency" - some 20-30 years ago.

3. Working with the USD is a criminalized activity now. Just like with trafficking in drugs or weapons, dealing with USD automatically strips you of all the benefits of the presumption of innocence. You are actually demanded to prove your honest and legal intentions at your own expenses (time, money, etc.). Where Web Money, for example, started as an anonymous payment service, now it's just too much bother to prove your identity to the system...

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Do you know any activity, but terrorism, that doesn't bother about its immediate expenses? Right. Large scale illegal trafficking in drugs and weapons is too profitable to care, too. Here are three main activities, that may still trade USD globally. You'll see it clearly as soon, as you'll stop mixing expensive enterprise with outright impossible. For once, is it possible for some third world company with... non too good a reputation to... employ one of leading politicians of the first world? Just look at Germany.

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