💬LET'S TALK CURRENCY CONVERTIBILITY PT. 2 💡 🇮🇶 IRAQ EDITION 🇮🇶 So, we have learned what open convertibility means. Now let's apply it to the real world and take a look at the factors in that transition and what we could expect to hear in the media. 🔻 ➡️ Macroeconomic Stabilization ⬇️ 🔹 Build confidence in the currency 🔸 Control inflation - Achieve low, stable inflation through sound monetary policy. 🔸 Maintain fiscal discipline - Reduce budget deficits and public debt. 🔸 Strengthen central bank independence - The Central Bank of Iraq (CBI) must operate independently and credibly to manage monetary policy effectively. 🔸 Build foreign reserves - Accumulate sufficient forex reserves to support the exchange rate and prevent speculative attacks. ➡️ Strengthen Financial Sector Infrastructure ⬇️ 🔹 Create a resilient and transparent banking system 🔸 Modernize banking regulations - Improve supervision, transparency, and solvency of banks. 🔸 Develop financial markets - Establish bond markets, interbank markets, and tools for monetary transmission. 🔸 Implement anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CFT) standards - Comply with global standards (e.g., FATF) to build investor trust. 🔸 Enhance payment systems - Digitize and secure payment networks for smoother capital flows. ➡️ Gradual Capital Account Liberalization ⬇️ 🔹 Allow capital to flow freely in and out of the country (this is the BIGGIE) 🔸 Liberalize current account transactions - E.g., trade-related payments, travel, remittances. 🔸 Gradually allow capital inflows - Start with long-term investments (FDI), followed by portfolio investments. 🔸 Phase in capital outflows - Especially for residents and businesses. 🔸 Safeguard mechanisms - Put in place temporary capital controls in case of market instability. ➡️ Exchange Rate Policy Reform ⬇️ 🔹 Move toward a market-determined exchange rate 🔸 Enhance exchange rate flexibility - Allow the IQD to float within a managed band or eventually adopt a free-floating regime. 🔸 Deepen forex markets - Ensure transparent and liquid foreign exchange markets. 🔸 Reduce reliance on parallel market - Narrow the gap between official and street exchange rates. ➡️ Institutional and Legal Reforms ⬇️ 🔹 Create a reliable economic and investment environment 🔸 Legal certainty - Strengthen property rights and contract enforcement 🔸 Transparent governance - Fight corruption and improve rule of law 🔸 Investor protections - Ensure policies support and protect foreign investors 🔸 Public communication - Build trust through consistent and transparent government communication ➡️ Regional and Global Integration ⬇️ 🔹 Build trust in IQD through global economic engagement 🔸 WTO accession or deep trade agreements - Encourage global trade relationships. 🔸 Engage with IMF and World Bank - Technical assistance and policy support. 🔸 Promote remittances and diaspora investment - Facilitate cross-border money movement. Statements that we would COULD possibly hear in the media around this transition, notice the SPECIFIC words used 🔻 ➡️ Currency Exchange Reforms 🔹 Changes to exchange rate policies or forex access “CBI will move to a managed float of the dinar within a defined band.” ➡️ Capital Account Liberalization Announcements 🔹 Stepwise easing of controls “Foreign investors may now repatriate profits freely.” “Iraqi businesses may invest abroad up to $X annually.” ➡️ International Cooperation 🔹 Endorsements and technical support “IMF and World Bank to assist in technical support for convertibility transition.” “Talks initiated for bilateral swap agreements with regional partners.” ➡️ Full Convertibility Declaration 🔹 The final, milestone announcement “As of [date], the Iraqi Dinar is fully convertible for current and capital account transactions.” “All exchange restrictions removed in line with IMF Article VIII.”

BREAKING: September PPI Inflation unexpectedly rises to 6.3%, above expectations of 5.3%. Core PPI Inflation rose to 5.0%, above expectations of 4.4% PPI inflation is now at its second highest level since November 2022. The odds of rate hikes are rising sharply on the news.

Dear Secretary Bessent @SecScottBessent, My name is Everett Stern. In 2010 I was a compliance officer at @HSBC. From a back office in New Castle, Delaware, I watched billions of dollars move to drug cartels, sanctioned regimes, and terrorist organizations. The enemies of the United States. I documented it, I escalated it, and when the bank would not act, I took it to the @FBI, the @CIA, and eventually the @SECGov. The result was a $1.92 billion settlement. At the time, it was one of the largest in American history. It was also about five weeks of the bank’s profit. Not one banker was charged. Not one went to prison. I paid a different price. I lost my career, my savings, and my place in the industry I had trained for. I was blacklisted. Every door in American finance closed at once. I slept on a camping cot in a 300 square foot apartment because I could not afford a bed, and I waited tables at @PFChangs to eat. I tell you this not for sympathy, but so you understand that I know exactly what it costs to do the right thing in American finance, and exactly how little the system does in return. I made that sacrifice because I believed it would change something. Yesterday, your department fined @BankofAmerica $1.2 billion for failing to report more than $5 billion in suspicious transactions, some of it tied by your own findings to Chinese laundering networks, narcotics, and the southwest border, alongside 475 apparent sanctions violations touching Russia, Iran, and global terrorism. The bank admitted it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act. Fourteen years after HSBC. A bank with “America” in its name. And once again, not one individual charged. Secretary Bessent, I want to say plainly what I believe you already know. The fines are not working. A fine is paid by shareholders, absorbed by the balance sheet, and forgotten by the next earnings call. Bank of America reported earnings this morning. Nobody who set the alert thresholds, nobody who decided the 2024 cease and desist could wait, nobody who chose the backlog over the law will lose a single thing they value. Their lives are untouched. That is the entire reason the behavior repeats. This is money laundering. This is blood money. Money that reaches a cartel buys fentanyl that kills Americans. Money that reaches a terrorist organization buys the next attack. This country has fought a war on drugs and a war on terror for decades, at enormous cost in lives and treasure, and all the while we have allowed the financing to flow through institutions we charter and regulate. Cut off the money and we win. We have never seriously tried. There is also a question of equal justice that I cannot let go. Before I walked into the FBI building to report HSBC, I stopped in front of the Great Seal on the wall and read the words engraved beneath it: “Justice is the defense of our liberty.” I believed that. I still want to. But every day in this country, people go to prison for crimes that are nothing next to moving money for the people who want Americans dead. A suit, a title, and a corporate badge should not be a shield from the consequences that apply to everyone else. If a street dealer goes to prison for what he sells, the banker who moved the cartel’s money should be standing next to him. I also want to raise something that is rarely said in these conversations. Why has no one inside Bank of America come forward the way I did? The answer is that everyone in American banking knows what happened to me, and to the whistleblowers who came after. The last person who spoke up is the only policy anyone believes. That is a culture problem, and it starts with leadership, in the banks and in the agencies that regulate them. This is not a political issue. It has spanned administrations of both parties. It is a national security issue, and I am asking you to treat it as one. Three things would change the math overnight. Refer individuals for criminal prosecution. Not the analyst in the queue. The executives who set the thresholds and chose the risk. One banker in handcuffs would do more than every fine in Treasury’s history combined. End “too big to jail.” An institution cannot be too big to fail and too big to jail at the same time. If it is the first, it must be held to a higher standard, not a lower one. And if Bank of America will not act as America’s bank, review its charter. A national charter is a privilege granted on behalf of the American people. It should be conditioned on not moving money for the people trying to kill them. Secretary Bessent, you said yesterday that these actions send a clear message that even the biggest institutions are not above the law. With respect, the institution was never the problem. The people inside it are above the law, and they know it. Until that changes, I will keep writing letters like this one, and the next bank will keep paying the next fine. I gave up everything I had to stop this. I am asking you to use the power you have to finish it. Respectfully, Everett A. Stern HSBC Whistleblower Founder and Intelligence Director, Tactical Rabbit

CPI comes in hot CPI 0.6% MoM, Exp. 0.6% CPI 3.7% YoY, Exp. 3.6% CPI Core 0.3% MoM, Exp. 0.2% CPI Core 2.6% YoY, Exp. 2.5%

🌐 US hits Bank of America with $1.2 billion fine, saying it violated money laundering, sanctions laws The Associated Press reports that the U.S. Treasury Department announced more than $1.21 billion in penalties against Bank of America (BofA) on October 13, 2026, for serious anti-money-laundering compliance failures and apparent violations of U.S. sanctions. The action is the third-largest penalty in Treasury Department history and includes the largest civil penalty ever imposed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC). The largest component is a $1.2 billion penalty assessed by the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). Regulators said the bank failed to adequately address and report national-security risks involving Chinese money-laundering networks and illicit financial activity along the U.S. southwest border. BofA also admitted that it willfully violated the Bank Secrecy Act, including failures involving its anti-money-laundering program, due diligence for foreign financial institutions' correspondent accounts, and the filing of suspicious activity reports. Separately, the OCC imposed a $750 million civil penalty for deficiencies in BofA's anti-money-laundering controls. This penalty is included within the broader $1.2 billion enforcement action, so it should not be added to the $1.2 billion as though it were entirely separate. The bank also agreed to an $11.6 million settlement with the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) over apparent sanctions violations involving programs related to Iran, Russia, narcotics and global terrorism. Bank of America said the penalties stem from issues previously identified in a 2024 regulatory consent order and a related investigation. The bank stated that it has invested billions of dollars in compliance technology and thousands of employees to address financial-crime risks, and that it is working to complete the required corrective measures. The enforcement action therefore reflects both the seriousness of the violations and regulators' concerns about whether earlier remediation efforts were sufficient. apnews.com/article/treasury-… home.treasury.gov/news/press… occ.gov/news-issuances/news-… fincen.gov/news/news-release… fincen.gov/system/files/2026…

BREAKING: Saudi Arabia has evacuated and closed its international airport in Riyadh after a missile attack by Yemen’s Houthis killed at least 12 people and left dozens injured. President Trump is now saying the US could join Saudi strikes on the Houthis in light of the airport attack.

And just like that, Russian diesel is ok again 🤣

This that “lack of mechanism for out of country exchanges” we have talked so much about. If the CBI doesn’t give that provision, ANYONE outside of the country cannot exchange that note. I know there is a mountain of hate for simple truths here in X, and a special place in the gurus hearts for those of us like me an AJ. But when truth is called fake news by those who literally profit off the lies, it’s gotta make you ask, who and why do they try to silence us so much?

This 👇🏻👇🏻👇🏻

And there it is, from the CBI, instituted today, from official sources. And just for good measure, here’s the CBI link cbi.iq/news/view/3355 “the Central Bank informs the honorable public of the adjustment of the exchange rate of the Iraqi dinar against the US dollar as of Wednesday, October 7, 2026, as follows: - The purchase price of the dollar from the Ministry of Finance: 1500 dinars per dollar. - The selling price of the dollar to the banks: 1510 dinars per dollar. - The selling price of the cash dollar to the public: 1520 dinars per dollar.”

I find myself more often than not erasing comments after I spent an hour researching it and phrasing it together, why, because they (the idiots) don’t deserve it. It brings confrontation and anger usually, because it goes against the very narrative that pushed. So instead I just erase it, and save my sanity for another day. 😂 Surely I can’t be the only one who does that right?!?

Gold will go up, but you are not looking at it until next year. People have to realize the geopolitical issue is not going to be solved and Europe is going to get worse.

I assume this would also be how they obtain all the hoarded mattress money from inside Iraq as well. Require a conversion, along with an account for deposits, then issue new designs with better security and anti-counterfeit measures. They will probably also cancel out a chunk of M2 floating around out there, which shrinks the monetary mass and brings it closer in line with its true GDP and other economic factors. Great article @ajsallen, thanks for sharing.

BREAKING NEWS: JUDY SHELTON HAS JOINED THE U.S. TREASURY DEPARTMENT AS COUNSELOR TO THE SECRETARY. Judy has spent decades thinking deeply about monetary policy, sound money, gold, and the architecture of the global financial system. To now see her bringing those ideas and that experience into discussions at the highest levels of the U.S. Treasury is incredibly exciting. My conversation with Judy on The Gold Telegraph will always be one of the highlights of my career. Beyond her extraordinary intellect, she is thoughtful, gracious, and deeply committed to the ideas she believes in. Full documentary: youtu.be/USGjSU5yXh8?si=999H… Congratulations, my friend. Very well deserved. @judyshel

Stellar is now live on @BVNKFinance. This integration gives enterprise customers access to the blockchain designed for high-volume, sub-penny digital asset transfers. Cross-border payments, remittances, and treasury management. Stellar was made for global value movement.

Vietnam officially gets their market upgrade tomorrow. This post is from 2025, giving details on its move to “Emerging Market” from a “Frontier Market”. I know there are some out there that promised this would be a change for the VND, as we can see, that hasn’t materialized. Stick with those who don’t make promises, but instead provide facts that can be checked against anything out there.

🚨NEW: The @CFTC has submitted its crypto rulemaking to the White House for review. The proposed rule is titled “Regulation Crypto Asset Transactions and Regulation Crypto Asset Markets.” It comes just two days after @ChairmanSelig said the agency was “locked in and ready to ship rules” following the Senate’s failure to advance crypto market structure legislation.

BREAKING: The Bank of Japan raises interest rates by 25 basis points to the highest level since 1995 due to elevated inflation. After the rate hike in June, this marked the shortest interval between rate increases in Japan since 1990. The global rate hike cycle has arrived.

How is the CBI going to issue a digital currency without a framework to back it up? No, they don’t have a framework for that, and anyone that says they do, better be able to produce some documents from the CBI supporting it. I keep a hard eye on anything digital from Iraq, and I haven’t found one yet. Plus last time I checked, crypto is still ILLEGAL in Iraq, so that whole converting paper to digital might be a problem…

🚨NEW: A group of seven Senate Democrats, including @gillibrandny, @MarkWarner, @SenRubenGallego and @Sen_Alsobrooks, say they are “committed to working in a bipartisan fashion” to pass the Clarity Act. The statement comes amid early efforts to restart bipartisan talks and gauge the appetite on both sides for returning to the table and getting the Clarity Act passed before the end of the year, according to three sources familiar with the discussions.

Seven Democratic senators release a statement saying they “remain committed” to enacting the Clarity Act – Gillibrand, Alsobrooks, Booker, Cortez Masto, Warner, Warnock