Live from Austin!

So, 5 undersea cables have now mysteriously been severed. Iran’s telecommunications connectivity is almost destroyed. Why on earth is this happening?

Meanwhile, Iran was due to start an international oil trading organization by February 11th, which would allow oil to be traded in currencies other than US dollars.

You know who else started selling oil in currencies other than the US dollar? Iraq, in 2000.

Hmm, what a coincidence.

In case anyone’s missing the significance: the only thing propping up the value of the dollar is that everyone needs oil, and you need dollars to buy oil. If countries could buy all their oil in (say) Euros, they’d stop dealing in dollars, stop lending the US money to run the deficit, and make it impossible to run the US economy as it’s currently being run. Or as the Economist puts it:

A shift towards a looser peg in the GCC would undoubtedly hurt the greenback. At the very least, dollars would be purchased at a slower rate—leading to what Mr Lyons calls “passive diversification”. At worst, the policy might encourage others to follow, sparking panic sales of American assets.

i.e. a very real chance of the US economy entering another Great Depression.

“I’m the only person in the United States Senate who has been elected four times who has voluntarily refused to ever take one dime of political action committee, special interest money in my elections”

—John Kerry

AP continues the story:

Kerry collected more than $470,000 directly from companies and unions in 2002 [just before those types of donations were outlawed] for his Citizen Soldier Fund, and spent large amounts of it sowing goodwill in key primary states just before Congress banned the use of such “soft money” donations, according to records his group filed with the IRS.

More than $100,000 of those donations came from telecommunications and Internet companies that have had a direct interest in the work of the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee on which Kerry serves.

For instance, nearly every major cellular phone company donated to Kerry’s committee, including AT&T Wireless ($7,500), Nextel ($5,000), Verizon Wireless ($5,000), T-Mobile ($5,000), and Cingular ($5,000). The head of Internet publishing giant International Data Group gave $50,000, while the chairman of the Google Web site chipped in another $25,000.