Even More Clueless
Glenn Greenwald comments on the hearings by the always serious Henry Waxman in A New Beltway Term — “Oversight”. Representative Henry Waxman and the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform are looking at the activities of the Coalition Provisional Authority.
Digby goes to a portion of the hearings that really interested me, Viceroy Autoteller, i.e. Mr. Bremer’s passing out BILLIONS OF US DOLLARS IN CASH. Bremer said he was faced with a country without banks and a need to pay people working in the various government agencies, so he needed cash.
Okay, this is beyond stupid. In occupations, check your history, the occupation forces issue “script”, limited use money, to pay people. This is how it’s done, and for very good financial reasons.
Like every country, Iraq has a mint that prints its money. That is the plant you use, as all you need are new printing plates and electrical power. You make distinct “money” that cannot be confused with the real item. Since this was to be used to pay ministries you can adjust the serial numbers to track which ministry received which script for payment. You tie the script to the local currency and make it non-convertible [no value outside the country].
The script is backed by the money on deposit in the US Federal reserve, and further payments are made to that county’s account in hard currencies. After there is a working financial system in place, the script is converted to the new currency and the reserves are transferred to the new central bank.
By dealing with the problem in this manner you avoid a lot of corruption, because the script can’t be exported. You jumpstart the local economy because the script has to be used in-country. You control imports, by controlling the conversion of script, reducing the establishment of black market operations. You limit the import of illegal arms, drugs, etc. because those people aren’t going to be interested in script.
It’s too bad the US government had no access to anyone with this kind of knowledge to explain how to do this. I don’t guess they know any bankers or historians.
6 comments
I was wondering about that, but you know this admin… never let anyone tell you the correct way to do things.
They just dumped cash into the economy and wondered why it got stolen.
“check your history”
History? They don’t need no stinkin’ history. The neocons know it all, and have no use for the lessons the past might teach them.
I really, truly, honestly wonder what they do base their ideas on, because I can’t see the reasoning. What they are doing is so simplistic and wrong it is confusing. What would make anyone believe a foreign army would be given a “rose parade” after invading a country?
I’ve a real temptation to write a parody of “Make me a pallet on your floor…” but I’m not quite familiar enough with the original to do it properly.
I do think this has real potential for a 15-second campaign commercial against just about any Republican who backed Bush’s war… that would be, lemme see, all of ’em. Camera pans around partially filled cargo bay, stops focused on what’s being loaded… pallets of hundred dollar bills (enhance the green and zoom in, so no one can mistake what they are). Voiceover: “This is what [GOP Candidate X] does with your tax dollars.” Switch to shot of plane landing, overlay map of Iraq. (Label it IRAQ, just in case anyone doesn’t recognize it.) Voiceover again: “And now they’re gone. Stolen. Don’t you think we can use our tax dollars better at home? So does [Dem Candidate Y]. …”
They used dollars! Internationally accepted, easily converted dollars, in large shrink-wrapped blocks and they gave them to Chalabi who was convicted of bank fraud in Jordan!
I might add a scene, Steve –
“And what did we get in return?” And show flag draped caskets being rolled up the ramp of the same aircraft.