BREAKING NEWS March 24, 2006: The US Federal Reserve has ceased to publish M3

As announced last February 15 by Leap/E2020, yesterday March 23, 2006, the US Federal Reserve (see link below) has ceased publishing M3, the most reliable indicator of the amount of USDs circulating in the world. The world is left without any reliable data on the dollar-value. A special USA-Dollar-Iran Crisis Press Review.

The Fed has also ceased publishing a number of less important indicators (such as the amount of EuroDollars, large-denomination time deposits, and repurchase agreements) which could have been used to calculate M3 on the basis of other aggregates.
It is important to bear in mind that the Fed continues to calculate M3 and the other indicators. It doesn’t cease to gather these data, but it no longer shares the information with US citizens and the rest of the world. To use a simple image, it is as if, on the eve of a war, the Pentagone suppressed GPS guidance, including for its own allies.
Such measure, which has had no equivalent since 1945, when the dollar imposed itself as the global monetary reference, is a major break in the confidence contract between the US and its Allies.
This is probably the reason why some refused to believe in the possibility to suppress M3 publication, and expressed doubts about LEAP/E2020’s analyses concerning a global systemic crisis.
Indeed, as a result of the Fed’s decision, it is now impossible to estimate major factors such as the amount of money created to repay the increasing US debt, or the resale of US Treasury bonds in order to buy Yens or Euros… all this at the precise time when uncertainty starts prevailing because a growing number of financial players (from oil producing countries as well as from Asian countries) are beginning to express their intention to sell part of their USDs.
In the coming weeks and months, Europe, Asia and oil-producing countries will have to learn how to navigate without instruments for everything that concerns the dollar value and US deficits’ repayment (pure money creation or based on real wealth). As regards US citizens, they too will have to bet on the worth of their own economy and currency.
According to Leap/E2020, the cessation of M3 publication is as important as Nixon’s unilateral decision to suspend the convertibility of the dollar into gold in 1971. In 1971, the dollar became a currency solely based on the rest of the world’s confidence. But this confidence mostly relied on the general feeling that US economy and its currency were managed transparently. With the end of M3 publication, this transparency disappears completely. The US now wants the world to trust their word, even in the field of their currency’s value. In a world where the confidence in the US has never been so low since 1945, the USD is thus turned into the central player of the beginning global systemic crisis.
Federal Reserve official annoucement


→ Confusion as regards the Iranian Oil Bourse… but confirmation that oil-producing countries’ assets are switched into Euros in significant amounts
A great confusion these days surrounds the exact status of the Iranian Oil Bourse, involved as it is in the complex diplomatic games of the Iran-USA crisis. A most contradictory information circulates (see Pravda). It is however certain (and that was the essential aspect of this Bourse) that the USD is ceasing to be the sole oil-trading exchange currency, as illustrated by the Gulf states’ recent decision to increase their reserves in Euros versus those in USD (middleeastforex). The Fed’s decision to end publication of M3 will accelerate this trend… if this decision was not intended to hide it as long as possible.
Indeed, the US refusal to let a Gulf state company (Dubaï) buy terminal operations at six major US seaports, has resulted in raising awareness in the Middle-East that the USD was a trap where they were in the end prevented from buying the real wealth available in the country of the currency they have accumulated. 
Pravda & Middle East News Forex


→ The Real National Debt
Funny how some rituals persist long after their original point is forgotten. Take the federal debt limit, that relic of a time when lawmakers were actually embarrassed about piling debt onto our kids. Nothing embarrasses these guys any more, of course, and the annual process of raising the limit has devolved from tragedy to farce, with Treasury threatening to bounce Social Security checks (secure in the knowledge that it will never have to) and legislators pontificating on fiscal responsibility (certain that their pork won’t be touched), followed by a quiet vote to raise the bar by another half-trillion.
Dollar Collapse 


→ Tough 6 months on tap for stocks?
Judging by the history books, and the cycles of the presidency, the market could be in for a rough few months after hitting 5-year highs.
Ah, spring time. That glorious time of year when flowers are a-bloomin', birds are a-chirpin' and stocks are a-slippin'. And in the case of stocks, they may be a-slippin' for the next two quarters, according to a Standard & Poor's study released Monday.

CNN

→ The Euro and the oil market : new challenges to the industry, by Oystein Noreng
The Euro has the potential to put an end to the dollar’s hegemony in world trade and finance, so far not disputed. Oil trade could play an important part in this game, but any serious challenge to the position of the challenge raises huge risks for the oil industry….

Journal of Energy Finance & Development

→ US ports - Anxious America
Shaken by the extent of foreign role in the US, politicians raise questions that go to the heart of globalization. A political row over a Middle Eastern company’s plan to manage terminals and stevedoring operations at US ports spotlights a dilemma hidden from the public view: how to ensure the country’s security when its economic prosperity depends on total openness to global business.

Newropeans Magazine

→ US$: Forget Iran, the problem's at home
Of all the things that could wreck the US dollar - and there are many - the projected Tehran oil bourse, which is tentatively scheduled to open on March 20 to trade Iran's crude and other petroleum products in euros rather than US dollars, is probably not among them.

Asia Times

→ America’s fiscal future, by D. M. Walker (Comptroller General of the US)
As we all know, during the last century, the Unites States played an increasingly important role in world affairs. For better or for worse, America’s economic, foreign policy, military, and cultural influences have been increasingly felt on every continent and in every virtually nation. But no one should assume that this will be the case forever.

Government Accountability Office

→ The Lesson Drawn from Investing in US Ports
"Privatization" has been, as we have learned throughout the past three decades, a cornerstone to building the then predominant economic concept. Thanks to the so-called "Thatcherism" after Margaret Thatcher and "Reaganism" after Ronald Reagan in the 80s, privatization has become the engine of economic liberalization and the symbol of political management to re-distribute roles between the private and public sectors.

Al Hayat

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>> Lire la revue de presse en français: Crise USA-Dollar-Iran 24 Mars 2006: M3 n’est plus publié par la Réserve fédérale US
<< March 20 to 26, 2006: Iran-USA, beginning of a major world crisis (Newropeans Magazine - 17/03/06)
>> USA-Dollar-Iran / Confirmation of Global Systemic Crisis end of March 2006 (Newropeans Magazine - 17/03/06)
<< M3 n’est plus publié par la Réserve fédérale US (Praxion.org)