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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Baldur Fjvlnisson who wrote (248)	1/6/2003 2:33:20 PM
From: Thomas M.	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Harper's Index: harpers.org Hours after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld learned Bin Laden was a suspect that he sought reasons to "hit" Iraq --- 2.5

To: Baldur Fjvlnisson who wrote (248)	1/8/2003 3:17:19 AM
From: Bilow	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Hi Baldur Fjölnisson; Re: "U.S. manufacturing is largely dead." US manufacturing is depressed because the high value of the dollar makes it difficult to compete against imports. But manufacturing is doing okay. Maybe by "dead" you mean "not growing right now". When the dollar drops things should slowly turn around. Re: "There is no job creation in the U.S." Not true. Jobs are constantly being created and destroyed in the US. The unemployment rate is a hell of a lot lower than it has been in even the relatively recent past. Look for yourself: research.stlouisfed.org research.stlouisfed.org Re: "Bush is running a bankrupt system on rubber checks." I'm not sure what you mean by this. The Federal government is running a deficit, but not much of one, at least compared to how bad it has been. Here's a chart, and it's not even in constant dollars: research.stlouisfed.org The Federal Reserve is still printing money, but that has been going on for decades. The world still likes dollars quite a lot. And people (like me) are letting their bank accounts build up, (like they always do when unemployment ticks up). That means that unless the Fed wants to have a depression, they have to increase the money supply, which they're doing: research.stlouisfed.org Re: "The flight of foreign capital from the U.S. will continue." What flight? Look for yourself: Foreign Assets in the U.S., Net: Capital Inflow {+} research.stlouisfed.org The foreigners, being intrinsically stupid (i.e. unfamiliar with US assets), aren't going to get rid of their US investments until our stock market declines to its absolute maximum lows, just like they always have in the past. The basic problem is that too much of the world saves dollars instead of the local monetary unit. The result is that as the world grows richer, the US is forced to run a permanent balance of payments deficit. Furthermore, this fact has not been something that the US could have solved with anything less than the restrictive currency requirements that Japan uses. Re: "Next to pop; the consumer and housing bubbles." Re: "And of course the dollar." I think so (we need it), but damn, I've been waiting a long time for this one. What we're seeing is just another business cycle. -- Carl P.S. Statistics sources: research.stlouisfed.org