By Andrew L. Jaffee

I’ve learned to listen closely to what financial markets tell us about a nation’s economic and social well-being. If things are going so badly in Iraq, then why has the country’s currency, the dinar, been strengthening against the U.S. dollar over the last four months? I created the following chart,* which shows the Iraqi dinar/U.S. dollar exchange rate over a one year period. Note that the line curving downwards means the dinar is gaining in value:

* Data provided by SAFEDinar.com