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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: renovator who wrote (51412)	4/5/2006 9:19:55 AM
From: ChanceIs	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 306849

>>>Kennedy inherited a commitment with men already on the ground.<<< I am not so sure. Certainly we had "advisors" in Viet Nam under Eisenhower/Dulles. (J.F. Dulles died in 1959.) I recall reading in Stanley Karnow's book on Viet Nam, that when Eisenhower was handing over power to Kennedy, he told Kennedy about the advisors, and hinted that it might be a good idea to pull out. So did Kennedy really inherit a commitment??? I am not so sure. Certainly the first large scale build-up occurred under Kennedy, followed by the truly significant efforts under Johnson. When Nixon was taking office, the so-called "wise men" had studied the situation, and urged him to declare victory and leave. Nixon didn't listen. We stayed in a tar pit. I think that we need radical decisions from the government today regarding Iraq. This is a business proposition. I don't see a positive cost/benefit for us continuing to stay. We are throwing good money after bad. In hindsight, we could have spent that $430 billion to very great benefit here improving our energy infrastructure. That money is gone. What will we get by continuing to spend in Iraq??? Certainly we will prevent Iran, France, Russia, China, etc from taking over, and that has some virtue. Our stay will not be short or inexpensive, and we will print money to do it - hence inflate. I expect that we will stay in Iraq. The question then becomes, will real estate go up further as a result of this money printing?? I don't think it can because salaries won't be going up as fast. The real tragedy for America is not so much that we are printing money, but that it is going to something of little value - the war in Iraq. One could argue that that war is the price of producing crude from that region. One could also argue that we have an international oil market, and that oil would get produced and distributed regardless. I am not sure that we have too much to fear from Russia or China controlling Iraq any more. China is certainly wedded to us by trade, and doesn't want to destroy its best customer.