"Investing" in The Iraqi Dinar

Bottom Line Up Front: I wouldn't recommend that anyone "invest" in the Iraqi dinar.

I was very interested to find that the BBC has been doing some reporting on a new effort to get people to "invest" in the Iraqi dinar. I say "new" because while I was working in the Middle East, there were folks who spent a lot of money, some of them thousands of dollars, to buy Iraqi dinars. Since the 2003 invasion and subsequent (and tumultuous) reset of the Iraqi economy, some people have been convinced that if they buy a lot of Iraqi dinars, they'll be able to get rich overnight during what they're told is an inevitable increase in the dinar's value relative to other global currencies. As skeptical as I remain of Twitter, it appears that the folks at the BBC have done a good job of investigating this latest episode in the ongoing Iraqi dinar saga. You can read the article (#BBCtrending: #Wearethepeople and the 'fraudulent' dinar ruse), download the podcast, or listen online.

When I was in the Middle East, I had co-workers and subordinates, even some whose judgment I typically trusted, had "invested" in the Iraqi dinar. There was even a fiasco in our company housing when a member of the cleaning staff was accused of stealing dinars from various folks' hidden stashes. The housing company wound up being on the hook to repay every claimant - though not in Iraqi dinars - and it was particularly suspicious how many folks came out of the woodwork upon the announcement that payouts would take place, and also how many folks had been in possession of exactly one million Iraqi dinars.

That having been said, one of my other employees (who lived on the economy instead of in company housing) was quite open about his desire to wallpaper his post-deployment bathroom with Iraqi dinars. That wasn't the worst idea I'd ever heard. Still isn't.