Hiya,
For whatever its worth, my best GUESS on this situation, and I have researched this only a little bit (and no--I do not own any Dinars), is that this is a gamble...its 50/50 as to what its gonna do. Buying this is like buying a sub-penny stock or dropping a blind bet on a table game in Vegas. LUCK may have a lot to do with this.. You may as well spend $750 on QBID (or similar stock) right now and get 2+M shares and hope for the same thing of it goin to $1 in value per share in a few years. Only difference being--you will probably be more able to sell off your QBID shares faster and with more ease then you would to be selling your Iraqi Dinars anytime soon.. If the Dinar does nothing--its only spendable in one place, and I do not know of any beachfront resorts to vacation at going up in Iraq anytime soon..or anyone who would want to vacation there..
If you wish to compare or think of this situation to Kuwait and how things worked for them--its two different animals and not comparable at all. Kuwait was invaded but already had a stable functioning profitable economic infrastructure and established trade system already in place to return to when the occupation was over.. Iraq however does not--it was a sole dictatorship with very limited trade & resource abilities...and its new infrastructure is something that may take a decade or longer to build and stabilize into something that MAY work out. Or it may not work out and the place could remain impovershed or occupied, or worse become a breeding ground for terrorism and more conflict--which would do wonders for its economy--NOT... Who knows...
But--what about the OIL.. Well..what about it? Will the oil be a sole-source cash cow for the country OR will it be simply offset and used as its only source of value to fix its own economic DEBT it will incur to rebuilding its country and establishing a new government and business infrastructure?? They are basically building themselves a new country with all the fiscal responsibilities and industrial investments and risks that are going to go along with it--and that costs $$$$$$$$$$$$ of dollars to do, and is not gonna happen in a year or two--no matter how much Oil you may have. Plus--who is to say the Iraqi's will stick with their new Dinar and not go to the Euro in a few years...or even come up with a NEW dinar with a Haliburton logo as its seal.
The old Saddam Dinar will never be worth anything except "history" now.. And if you want to compare the Old Saddam Dinar and its old value to what may happen in the future, you have to keep in mind that the inflated $3 USD value for every $1 Saddam Dinar was set BY the Iraqi dictatorship, and not based in the open free trade markets.. What WAS its value or would its value have been then? So it was like saying "my 1 piece of paper is worth 3 of yours--but I'm not going to prove that it really IS that valuable by any means by testing it against other pieces of paper, I'm just going to SAY it is that valuable cause that is what I want to believe (and everyone else in the world has levied trade sanctions against me for being a brutal dickhead--but I don't want to play or share with them either..so NYYYYA :P )."
That being said--lots of fortunes have been made on such gambles...and countless lots of "nothing" have been made on such gambles.. History does have a tendancy to repeat itself and yes--Oil is the number one thing to own or have if you want to be a economic player.. But having a valuable resource (and only ONE really valuable resouce, outside of a surplus of beach sand I might add), but no means to DO anything with it, or have anyone to govern at how it gets traded, still makes it pretty impotent for the time being.
Perhaps owning a million Dinars is a gamble your KIDS can benefit from in 10-20 years...again who knows? Since I am not planning on buying any Dinars this will probably be the one thing that shoots up to the moon--and I will have missed it.
But the research and speculation out there is that this is flogging a dead horse to go crazy and spend a usable amount of $$ on something that may end up being about as useful later as a coupon--usable in only one country on earth. So there is lots to be considered before you pluck down your money to buy Iraqi Dinars... You are not better off for buying it..and no worse off if it does nothing. But again--who knows what will happen in the future.
Think of this as buying a novelty rather then an investment for now--the new Iraqi Dinar is a very pretty piece of art work with some similar snazzy security features--but its up to the buyer as for the reason to own it. Many a persons novelty for Star Trek collectables or Baseball Cards has paid off in years time....but more often it has just pleased the person who simply WANTED to own it at the time of buying. Time, and how things go in Iraq and how they rebuild and basically start over, will tell where it goes..
My only advice if you are planning to buy some Dinars--do some DD and find a reputable company/dealer to buy them from. I understand there are a lot of scams and rip offs out there--not scams for prices so much but scams for actually sending you the REAL and not fake Dinars (or sending you anything at all). eBay apparently has some of the better offerings....
JMO...
-w
