The Euro, The Dollar, and Oil
There's a 'story' making the rounds on the blogosphere that one reason America went to war was that Iraq was threatening to denominate its oil trade in euro rather than dollars. (I've seen this most recently at The Muted Drum, but it's popped up in a lot of places. In various forms, it claims that the US feared that the dollar would be replaced as a reserve currency, and so we invaded Iraq in order to stop it.)
This seems to me like an economically illiterate 'tail wags the dog' story. The article I've linked to makes a number of post hoc errors, takes no consideration of the scale of the numbers involved, and uses these distortions to paint a pretty disturbing picture. Nonetheless, I can't buy it.
Does anyone have a link to a compelling counter-argument by a respected economist? I'd prefer to have a reference or link to use next time I see this urban myth.
Comments
Posted by: Martin | October 23, 2003 5:51 PM
Posted by: Andi Nagler | October 30, 2003 3:49 PM
Posted by: Andi Nagler | October 30, 2003 3:51 PM