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 : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (113907)	9/4/2003 3:47:56 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

<I'm thankful of Bush tax cuts bankrupting the Treasury.> The Limiting Factor is soldiers, not money. The U.S. Government could keep borrowing more billions, right up to the point their debt rating gets cut to junk. It'll take years of half-trillion-$ deficits, before we hit that wall. See the Japanese model, for how this works. On the other hand, if everyone joining the Army or National Guard, faced the prospect of spending a year (or more) dodging RPGs in Iraq, we'd see enlistments (and, just as important, re-enlistments of experienced personnel) fall off. re: Marshall Plan. A pre-condition for these plans to succeed, is civil peace, and the rule of law. Any amount of aid will be wasted effort, if those pre-conditions don't exist. Which they don't, today, in Iraq. Notice, also, that to defeat Islamism, you'd have to do your Powell Plan everywhere in the Muslim World. Doing it just in Iraq, would be like a Marshall Plan limited to Belgium.

To: Harvey Allen who wrote (113907)	9/4/2003 3:49:54 PM
From: Win Smith	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Harvey, it'd be nice. But the cost of the military operations are such that it's hard to see a lot of money going toward much else. I remember an article about Afghanistan last spring or so, where the military costs were supposed to be running at $1 billion / month while non-military aid was dribbling in at maybe $30 million / month. I have no idea what current aid figures in Iraq are, but cost-plus open-ended contracts from KBR are not likely to be a bargain for anybody. Development is a very hard nut to crack. If you look around the world, there's a few places that are doing really well in the globalization game (China, India mainly) but many that are just falling further out of the game (most of Africa, say). Iraq does have the advantage that they'll probably get to walk away from a lot of their international debt, an advantage that the IMF/World Bank regime wouldn't think of allowing many much poorer countries. On the other hand, last I heard the occupation plan was to mortgage a lot of Iraq's future oil revenue to pay off the KBR crew.