Ten Reasons to Ignore the Hype Over Secret Oil Meetings

Once again everyone is hyperventilating over "secret" moves to trade oil in currencies other than the US dollar. Please consider The Demise of the Dollar by Robert Fisk.
 

“In the most profound financial change in recent Middle East history, Gulf Arabs are planning -- along with China, Russia, Japan, and France -- to end dollar dealings for oil, moving instead to a basket of currencies including the Japanese yen and Chinese yuan, the euro, gold and a new, unified currency planned for nations in the Gulf Co-operation Council, including Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi, Kuwait and Qatar.

“Secret meetings have already been held by finance ministers and central bank governors in Russia, China, Japan and Brazil to work on the scheme, which will mean that oil will no longer be priced in dollars.

“The Americans, who are aware the meetings have taken place -- although they have not discovered the details -- are sure to fight this international cabal which will include hitherto loyal allies Japan and the Gulf Arabs. Against the background to these currency meetings, Sun Bigan, China's former special envoy to the Middle East, has warned there is a risk of deepening divisions between China and the US over influence and oil in the Middle East. ‘Bilateral quarrels and clashes are unavoidable,’ he told the Asia and Africa Review. ‘We cannot lower vigilance against hostility in the Middle East over energy interests and security.’"

Supposedly Robert Fisk knows the plans but "Americans have not discovered the details.”

Such "secret" talks surface about once a year and nothing ever happens. Yet even if these talks led to actual actions, they’re irrelevant for the simple reason that it doesn’t matter one iota what oil is priced in.

I discussed this concept in Oil Pricing Unit Red Herring on November 18, 2007. At the time, everyone was going gaga because Venezuela and Iran supposedly wouldn’t take dollars for oil.