GMCHNGER POST - KTF Missions

Iraq's IMF Information

I posted this to someone tonight, but I thought I would share it with the rest of you as well...

NOTE: This is my interpretation of what I found... so while the facts I state are documented on the site referenced below (you have to dig a little), my INTERPRETIVE comments are just that...and NOT to be taken as INTEL. Just some things that made me go "hrmmmmmmm".

When you follow the link in the PR announcement on Frank's posting tonight, you can see the list of countries that participate. Clicking on Iraq (obviously listed as "New!"), it pulls up the Index of Tables. Here's the direct link to the tables:

http://dsbb.imf.org/Applications/web...t/?strcode=IRQ

Here's the three things I find interesting:

1) Regarding employment, the document is set to define employment as 2.5 hours of work per day during the week previous to the survey. Not too hard to accomplish, so I think in addition to the RI money they will have, Maliki's achieving his promise was made easier by this standard. It especially makes me think the RI is imminent, because it's going to be VERY hard to survive in what will become one of the wealthiest nations on the earth with only 2.5 hours of work each day WITHOUT some other form of income in a currency that's worth something that helps you pay the bills.

2) There are 23 tables that you can link to regarding Iraq's IMF data (there are more listed, but they aren't linked to anything yet). Every one of those 23 tables lists contacts and data characteristics and information on how that section is to be analyzed and handled. EXCEPT ONE... "Exchange Rates".

It IS a link so you can view the page, and when you follow the link, there are headers on the table for every section, but each section on that table is completely empty. This is the only table on the list like this. If there was no information to go there, my thought is they would have put the text there, but not linked to anything (like they have for other table listings such as "Interest Rates" or "Stock Market"). It's almost as if they are waiting for some reason to populate the data onto that one page, and need to have the template ready so they CAN populate it fairly quickly.

3) Under the top link "Summary Tables > Plans for Improvement > Ministry of Finance", in the second blue header section "Central Government Operations"... The very first item on the agenda (LISTED AS SHORT TERM goal) is 2.1.1 "Adopt a proper analytical framework for GFS distinct from the budgetary ‎framework by using the Government Statistics Manual 2001 (GFSM 2001), but ‎on a cash basis" ...(emphasis added by me).

So the GFS is supposed to operate it's budget on a cash basis, not an acrual basis.... Our CPA's out there may be able to offer a little more explanation as to the difference, but in a nutshell... Acrual allows you to "borrow" from tomorrow's revenue to pay for today's bills without turning your balance sheet negative. On a cash accounting basis however, you pay for today's bills with the money you have today, and if you don't have it, you're overdrawn and broke or you don't buy what you need. My question is....How do you foot the bill for your daily operations, when you don't have cash that is worth the lighter fluid to set it on fire? Especially when your projected 2010 government budget is running over $70 Billion?

All seems to point to something significant happening soon with their revenue... which we already know...it's just good to see some (IMO) some more evidence of this happening.