I've tried to raise this here before, but "Yeah, so what?" is usually as far as you get. Seems "huh?" or "what are you talking about?" is more the usual actually.
As to say that it is not about oil seems false to me. The US dollar IS oil, just as it used to be gold before the 70's. Money is only a promise to be backed up with a real thing. Back in the good old days, that real thing was gold, but thanks to the balance of trade, the US ran out of gold and switched to oil with their middle eastern allies. The fact that everyone NEEDS oil, means that everyone NEEDS USD to buy oil. But for that, the dollar would collapse as it is excrutiatingly overextended and propped up by debt.
Venezuala was also considering switching to Euros, hence the attempted coup there.
The big threat to the US right now is Russia, as they are big oil exporters (and are soon going to have government control of Yukos). They are already talking about trading oil in Euros (makes sense since they're a lot closer to Europe than the US) and China may be a big customer so maybe Yuen too (but then what would China do with all their dollars? They have about as many dollars as the US does!)
This is a last gasp from the US to stay on top. Problem is they have mismanaged things so badly it's probably gonna collapse no matter what they do. The US is pretty much committed now to securing what remaining oil supplies there are in the world and I don't think they have the resources or political influence left in the world to do it. Iraq may have broken them and shown their weakness other countries will be smelling the blood in the water.
I hope Bush gets 4 more years. It wouldn't be fair to have someone else's name in the history books presiding over the collapse of the US.
