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Strategies & Market Trends : Mish's Global Economic Trend Analysis -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: upanddown who wrote (12496)	9/30/2004 12:49:28 AM
From: Lee Lichterman III	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 116555

OT - I hate to talk off topic on a great thread but I just can't bite my tongue anymore. This is a fully volunteer force and if they don't want to go to Iraq or any other war, they shouldn't sign up. The military is NOT a free college education. It is for defending your country against whatever the leaders decide. If you don't like it, then when your 4 years are up, get out. No one is twisting anyone's arms to come in. As to the other poster that said he would help draftees make it out of the country. Good for you but I will mark my time by hunting them down and making sure they never come back. I am sick and tired of the whining about this mess. I am not in full agreement with how this all went down either but I have a saying that has been proven time and time again. "Never, Ever, Never, under estimate the ignorance of the American public, especially when massed in large groups. Before Bush, Clinton, Kerry and every other person in government thought Saddam had WMDs. There werent any. So what? It wasn't like Bush made it up, we thought they had them before Bush, and there is evidence they had them but got rid of them before the last war. It all comes down to some simple things really. Is the world better off without Saddam than with? Yes!!! Will Iraq get their collective stuff together. Who knows? We gave them a clean slate to start with and if they pull it off, great. If they screw it up, hey we tried, their mistake. Besides, as current events are showing, oil is quickly becoming short in supply with China's growth. We need to get our toe holds in oil for strategic economic reasons. We NEED to make sure we have oil. Russia has it, China is making deals all over to ensure they have theirs and we are trying to secure ours both economically and militarily. In the next decade, we will likely go invade some African nations as well since they have all kinds of oil and other minerals we need for semiconductors. We probably won't come out and say that is why we are doing it either as the average American wouldn't understand it. We are a nation of dumbed down sheep. Just by you all having the intelligence to keep up with current events, trade your own accounts knowing half or more of Wall Street is corrupt puts you ahead of 98% of the country's population. We will say we are going to war to stop one of those civil wars that has been brewing for the last 40 years that we didn't care about until we needed a natural resource they have that we will realize we need to secure. Bosnia wasn't about ethnic cleansing, it was about an oil pipeline that had been planned for 20 years. Iraq is about oil and a reason to put bases in former Soviet Bloc countries that have oil. The masses don't understand economics or strategic forward thinking. They are too busy buying internet stocks with zero earnings who's business plans are written on napkins. They were buying MU at $60 despite their losing truck loads of money. They couldnt read a 10Q or 10K if their life depended on it. If Joe Six pack signs on the dotted line, he needs to go fight or not join. OUr leaders are not out to screw anyone. They might make some deals for their buddies here and there but over all, they do have the country's best interests in mind, Democrat or Republican. True they are clueless many times but that is how our system works. Idiots with connections and Charisma make it, brain power doesn't. But they are smart enough to know they need to pick cabinets that do know things. A bt of trivia, it is a fact, not biased, simple fact that EVERY signle Republican President since World War 2 has gone into office with a recession in full swing. Democrats serve the booze during their administrations and the Republicans have to deal with the hangovers. It is also Normal economics to deficit spend when faced with a recession. Now there are better ways to deficit spend to get more of a multiplier effect on that money spent than going to war but it would have been tough to try and spur technology growth when the tech bubble was in teh middle of a collapse from over investment in 1998-99. We could have done some infrastructure builds, fixed some roads, revamped some inner cities etc but oh well. Voting for anyone other than Bush is just plain silly. Kery has no plan. I wish we could get a third candidate but we cant. I don't know what the answer is and I kind of went way off into a rant but I get pissed when people start talking about soldiers that volunteered not wanting to go and if the country needed a draft, how people would go out of their way to help citizens avoid it. If they don't want to serve and people want to help them dige the draft, leave now, avoid the rush. Get out of the country, don't trade in it and try life elsewhere. You want your cake and to eat it too. And we wonder what is wrong with this country. Looking pretty obvious to me. Sorry for the off topic. Good Luck, Lee ===== PS - Long term read is we are screwed anyway. With the baby boomers retiring, pension plans broke, record low savings rates, huge almost 6% GDP deficit and trade imbalances, huge personal, government and business debt, I figure there is no way in heck we make it past 2015 without a serious meltdown. With teh growing divide between the classes, we will likely have civil unrest, and maybe true scary anarchy as the market collapses and IRAs, 401Ks evaporate. It could be 1929 or worse all over again. I see bad times in the decades ahead and China probably rising from the mess as the new leader but not without a lot of pain first. Intermediate term, probably what we have seen so far. Mini bulls and mini bears but mostly sideways nothingness, range bound trading with just enough volatility to keep people on their toes that try to sell options short or put futures trades on auto pilot. Short term, heck if I know. I still think that we have been forming a 6 month flag wave 4 and could possibly have a 5th wave blow off top into the new year to end this mini bull from October 02 then resume the next wave down, down down starting next spring.