TODAY’S CURRENCY AND FINANCIAL WARS 129We caused high inflation, a run on the bank, contracted
their economy and had very powerful impacts on the Iranian
economy. It was moving on a direction of regime change.
President Obama lifted a lot of these sanctions because the
Iranians made some promises. We’ll see how that plays out as
there are talks going on.
Don’t think that Vladimir Putin wasn’t watching when the
US backed away from those financial sanctions because we have
another financial war brewing — a couple of them actually —
out in the nations in the Middle East.
I gave you the Iranian example just to show that these
financial weapons are very powerful. The United States uses
them aggressively to destabilize countries. Of course, the U.S.
works hand-in-glove with the IMF to do the same thing.
Financial warfare is real. It’s going on, and if you’re an
investor and you’re not aware of it, you’re occasionally going
to get blindsided.
I can’t tell you how many very good fundamental stock
analysts and bond analysts I’ve met who’ve spent, in some
case, decades learning their craft and understanding how to
analyze markets on to get slammed every now and then be-
cause Angela Merkel got out of the wrong side of the bed, and
decided to have a fight with the Greek finance minister.
You can’t ignore global macro events if you are a fundamental
investor making fundamental decisions because these things are
not going away; in fact they’re getting worse.
■ The Petrodollar
Of course, there have been a couple of new developments.
I mentioned that in December of 2013 President Obama shook
hands with Iran and entered into negotiations — direct talks
for the first time since 1979.
In effect, Obama anointed Iran as the regional hegemon in the