Scotland's Special Relationship

Yep, it's very comforting cosying up to the US. I mean ok - wars on terror, torture and rendition flights and the like is all part of the downside of having a Big Man on your team. However when the mighty $ talks everyone listens. And with a Big Man like that Britain can strutt around lording it up on the world stage. Think of those benefits before you go off into the independence sunset..

That was then.

In today's Telegraph we read:

Gulf petro-powers to launch currency in latest threat to dollar hegemony

What are those pesky Arabs talking about? Oil gets sold in $s, so everyone needs to buy $s if they want oil and so that creates demand for $s and so the price of the $ is held up. With all the US hardware in the region bossing everyone around, the Arabs wouldn't dare, no?

The Gulf monetary union pact has come into effect,” said Kuwait’s finance minister, Mustafa al-Shamali, speaking at a Gulf Co-operation Council (GCC) summit in Kuwait.

The move will give the hyper-rich club of oil exporters a petro-currency of their own, greatly increasing their influence in the global exchange and capital markets and potentially displacing the US dollar as the pricing currency for oil contracts.

..Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar are to launch the first phase next year, creating a Gulf Monetary Council that will evolve quickly into a full-fledged central bank.

..The Gulf states remain divided over the wisdom of anchoring their economies to the US dollar. The Gulf currency – dubbed “Gulfo” – is likely to track a global exchange basket and may ultimately float as a regional reserve currency in its own right. “The US dollar has failed. We need to delink,” said Nahed Taher, chief executive of Bahrain’s Gulf One Investment Bank.

"The US dollar has failed"? Seems all that money printing by the US Fed isn't impressing anyone. Waow, what's gonnie happen in the playground when Britain's Big Man is expelled? And Brown has been printing even more. No Big Man and sterling devaluation, gulp..

It seems that the reasons for staying in the union are melting away like snaw aff a dyke..