You have commented 339 times on Rantburg.

Your Name
Your e-mail (optional)
Website (optional)
My Original Nic        Pic-a-Nic        Sorry. Comments have been closed on this article.
Bold Italic Underline Strike Bullet Blockquote Small Big Link Squish Foto Photo
Submit your comments on this article
Syria-Lebanon-Iran
'Teheran pulls billions from EU banks'
2008-06-17
Iran has withdrawn around $75 billion from European banks to prevent the assets from being blocked under threatened new sanctions over Teheran's disputed nuclear ambitions, Reuters reported Monday, quoting an Iranian weekly.

The report in Shahrvand-e Emrouz stated that "about $75 billion of Iran's foreign assets which were under threat of being blocked were wired back to Iran based on Ahmadinejad's order. "Part of Iran's assets in European banks have been converted to gold and shares and another part has been transferred to Asian banks," Mohsen Talaie, Deputy Foreign Minister in charge of economic affairs, was quoted as saying.
So next we go after the Asian banks ...
The UK's Daily Telegraph reported last week that Iranian assets held in Europe were being funneled back to Teheran using financial intermediaries in Dubai.
Posted by:Fred

#14  the Euros would love to have Iran remove, restore, remove and then restore their assets

each time there are lots of fees
Posted by: mhw   2008-06-17 19:46  

#13  How much pressure can China stand?

I'm coming around to the view that the Chinese are far more pragmatists than capitalists. They have no problem now in generating the money need for projects and programs to keep the peasantry in whatever form happy and them in power. The Central Chinese government doesn't want to rock the economic boat to start stuff they [and a lot of self important but clueless economists in the West] don't fully understand and lead to situations that are destabilizing to their position. So they're more than satisfied to eat/hold all those dollars for now. When they believe that they have to power to drive the world economy rather than us, bets are off. Till then their first and last priority is to keep the existing game going and them firmly in the control seat back home.
Posted by: Procopius2k   2008-06-17 19:30  

#12  Great, no leverage. All the easier to nuke your wild butts.
Posted by: Pancho Threter3607   2008-06-17 18:26  

#11  Damn it, you need to freeze the assets and then announce the sanctions. Get the timing thingee right.
Posted by: JohnQC   2008-06-17 17:47  

#10  All that gold has to be stored or shipped somewhere... Calling Ocean's 14.
Posted by: 3dc   2008-06-17 16:48  

#9  Glenmore teases a thought...

75-billion in deposits.

If you were the Chinese, would you want to trade fewer or more yuan for these 75-billion?

My guess would be that you would want to trade fewer yuan. The problem is, the yuan is pegged to the dollar. And 75-billion, at a fractional reserve rate of 5 percent, will create 1.5-trillion dollars. Quite a bit of inflationary pressure.

I don't know of any velocity studies for the yuan. If I were a member of the Politbureau I'd want to keep such things close to the vest. But for the curious, here's a quick primer on money:

http://tinyurl.com/5pphbp

How much pressure can China stand? Mebbe we're gonna find out?

.
Posted by: OregonGuy   2008-06-17 14:10  

#8  That's all profit from $140.00 a bbl oil.
Our own lunacy is making our enemies rich.
Also, this proves that Iran is going nuclear.
Posted by: wxjames   2008-06-17 10:27  

#7  How much of that got side wired into personal government accounts?
Posted by: DarthVader   2008-06-17 09:30  

#6  Banks here are hitting their customers with "Overdraft Fees" when the customers ars NOT "Overdrawn". I can just see those Billions eaten away with such "Fees"
(Whatcha gonna do, complain?)
Posted by: Redneck Jim   2008-06-17 08:59  

#5  Lot's of banks in Hong Kong. And about as civic-minded as those in Switzerland.
Posted by: Glenmore   2008-06-17 07:52  

#4  And it came to pass that the money was moved many times.

And the fees ate them alive.
Posted by: bigjim-ky   2008-06-17 07:29  

#3  It may come to pass that the only thing worse than owning Iranian assets is renting them.
Posted by: Nimble Spemble   2008-06-17 06:19  

#2  If they put it in one of Kimmie's banks, they better count their fingers afterward.
Posted by: Zorba Glomock   2008-06-17 03:17  

#1  I see a whole new front opening up against Iran. It's called Hassle the Assets. Good move.
Posted by: Alaska Paul   2008-06-17 02:19  

00:00