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 : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (107674)	4/4/2005 9:35:26 PM
From: JohnM	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793914

From 3/04 until now, 3/05 showed the least amount of total fatalities with varying amounts reflecting the strength of the insurgency. The fatalities in 2/05 were one half of those in 1/05. We are getting reports of less fighting, so naturally the casualty figures are lower. There are lots of ways to look at these data, including just how reliable they are. However, in looking around, these appear to be about as accurate as I could find. Your 3/04 to 3/05 comparison shows a slight decline. I agree. But the 1/04 to 1/05 goes from 52 to 127 and the 2/04 to 2/05 casualties go from 23 to 60. The March ones, the comparison you chose, go from 52 to 40. I just don't see a trend, even though those two months were up and one down. Moreover, when one adds in the number of Iraqi casualties I expect the numbers would still not be down. But don't know. So on the casualties side, I think they haven't gone down. I did a bit of google searching just now on the voter turnout argument, the 8 million Iraqis figure. It's clearly a controversial number. Lots of questions were raised about that number. However, I couldn't find any fairly neutral assessments of the number. Lots of pro Bush arguments and its validity and lots of anti Bush arguments about its invalidity. My guess is that it's lower by a rather large factor. But we'll see. However, my argument that it's too early to celebrate the election as a turning point hinges only partially and not most important on these items. Rather it's whether (a) it avoids a civil war and (b) it creates something like stability and (c) to what degree that stability is marked by some degree of democracy. I have very little hope on the latter, particularly as it involves the status of women. More likely to go from a country in which women had some freedoms and rights to one in which they have much less (whatever else one says about Saddam's Iraq). On another and completely different note, I just checked Jeremy Siegel's new investment book out of the library. It looks quite interesting. Don't invest in the Qualcomm's of the world, the ballyhooed growth stocks. Put your money in the Exxon/Mobile's And he wrote that particular chunk of text before the big run up in the value of that stock. He compares buying IBM in 1950 to buying Continental Oil of New Jersey (which becomes Exxon/Mobile). It's the latter by a long shot because of lower P/E ratios and much, much higher dividends. I was just going to skim but now I'm fascinated enough to give it a good read on the plane on my next trip to Texas.