is this for real?

[substitute]

Iran conducts all crude oil trade in euro and yen

TEHRAN, April 30 (Reuters) - Iran, the world's fourth-largest oil producer, is conducting all its crude trading in euro and yen, instead of the U.S. dollar, an Iranian official was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

So, maybe a guy shooting his mouth off, or a mistake of some kind. But Google only has 11 articles grouped in this topic and if it's true, it would be an uncomfortably big story. Because unless I'm wrong, that's a war-starter move.

Thanks to hepkitten for the pointer

Comments

[dossy.livejournal.com]

War-starting? Nonsense. The USD is so volatile and undervalued that continuing to trade in it is unnecessary risk.

Perhaps it won't be long before:

1) We eliminate the stupid penny and nickel as US currency. I mean, hell, the melt value of a nickel (http://www.coinflation.com/) is worth more than the currency itself. The US federal reserve bank _loses_ money minting pennies and nickels--nice.

2) We seriously consider something whacky, like the Amero (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amero).

In short: America, fuck yeah!

[fweebles.livejournal.com]

http://www.reuters.com/article/oilRpt/idUSBLA02024820080430

To 1), sure. That's not really related to the volatility of the US dollar, but inflation means that probably makes sense. People bring up the idea of getting rid of the penny (but not the nickel) in Canada every few years, even as recently as a few months ago.

2) Theoretically great in the way that communism is theoretically great. Canadians get grumpy about this suggestion, because the fact that there's 10 times as many of you as there are of us means we're basically signing away our foreign currency policy. And tying Mexico to the US dollar is just...well, NAFTA caused enough problems in the US-Mexico axis, having a unified currency definitely wouldn't be improving on that issue.

So, it'd be nice, but I don't see it happening. (I do note that you branded it as 'whacky', which is probably about right.)