Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (24177)	8/4/2003 3:48:18 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 89467

Just like America!!!!!: Iraqis want jobs but there are none.DAVID BAKER'S IRAQ JOURNAL sfgate.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Saturday, Aug. 2 -- On a typical post-war Saturday, Baghdad hums with work. Laborers patch walls damaged during the war. Merchants stand on the sidewalks next to boxed refrigerators, air conditioners and toaster ovens piled in front of their stores. Fast-food restauranteurs tend flaming broilers of chicken and lamb in August heat that makes the flames redundant. And yet, the work is not spread evenly. Other groups of men and boys stand by the roadside for hours in the killing sun, selling cigarettes and bright bottles of Pepsi. They wait there every day, regardless of how few cars stop. Still other Baghdad residents would welcome even that thin trickle of income. Maymoon Hussein and Ali Abdel Hamid are fed up with unemployment. On this particular Saturday, they have joined a noisy demonstration at the gate to Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace, now office space for the coalition governing Iraq. Perhaps 150 men chant and wave banners calling for jobs, while a small group of American soldiers guards the gate. Iraqi cops force drivers to detour around the crowd. Hussein and Hamid would have been policemen by now, if the war hadn't intervened. Both were scheduled to graduate from the police academy this summer. That plan ended when the old regime's collapse closed the school. Hussein, 23, a clean-cut man in pressed pants and a cream shirt, says they tried to join the new Iraqi police force being assembled by the coalition -- with no luck. "We don't have anything to do," he says through a translator. "Nobody wants to hire us." Many of the demonstrators come from the academy, Hussein says. They want jobs, or at least some kind of unemployment insurance. Hamid, 22, notes that the coalition agreed to pay army officers who aren't working. Why not the cops-in-training? "The police academy," he says, "got nothing." It remains to be seen how much effect their demonstration will have. One of the traffic cops says the same crowd has been here before. They'll probably be here again, he says. David Baker, a business reporter for The Chronicle, is on assignment in Iraq and Kuwait, covering the reconstruction efforts of Bechtel Corp. as well as humanitarian aid organizations in the region. He will also give us a taste of what it's like on the (searing hot) sands of Iraq in a semi-regular Internet notebook. Email David Baker at dbaker@sfchronicle.com

To: Jim Willie CB who wrote (24177)	8/4/2003 7:31:46 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

fleck's thoughts on gold stocks when the market crashes... Bill:In the crash of 1987 gold stock went down with the rest of the market I am told but gold it self remained stable. Was wondering your take on gold companies and gold if a similer serious down turn in the market occurs given that the U.S. paper money is flooding the market more this time then in 1987 Enjoy your take on the financial markets Thanks In 87 the dollar tanked bonds tanked and gold soared. Then when stocks crashed bonds rallied and gold sold off because folks thought we would have a depression and inflation would drop. Rising inflation was the fear in 1987. This is a different set of problems in 2003. If stocks tank now,it will show the fed has lost control and will freak people out. Creating more buyers of gold, imo. fleckensteincapital.com