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

To: Skeeter Bug who wrote (105286)	12/5/2009 4:27:45 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 116555

i'm sorry, but the idea that a majority of muslims are radical to the point of doing damage isn't factually supported. Don't believe I ever said that. But if their government's are not accountable, or restrained, then it doesn't matter that the majority of Muslims are moderate. They will toe the line and be afraid of incurring the wrath of the militant government (Iran being most current example). So you can have 90% of the Muslim population of a country controlled by 10%... As for why Afghanistan is important, it's apparent (finally) to the Pakistanis, that the Taliban movement is coming back to bite them in the @ss. And we cannot permit neither Afghanistan, or Pakistan, to be a sanctuary for such movements. And Pakistan DOES have nuclear weapons, so I'd be just a bit concerned about what may happen should a civil war erupt in that country between moderates and militants and who's in control of those devices and the rockets that carry them. All it takes is one nuke going off above our country to ruin our entire year, if not decade.. ;0) this is a point that few seem to comprehend - you can't have complete "safety" in a free society. No we can't. With Freedom comes vulnerability. But when we're attacked in such a manner, we must retaliate with overwhelming force sufficient to cause any other entity to hesitate in repeating such an attack. And it's doesn't hurt if our retaliation forces some of our rivals, or less than hospitable governments to cooperate in order to keep us from mucking around in their business. how about this? i give you a $10 billion marginal dollar solution for preventing iran from getting nukes Deal!! As for economic collapse, if we go down, do you really think we're going alone? We're still approx 30% of the global economy. And every other developed country is either as, or even more, in debt with unfunded liabilities as we are. Even the countries we perceive as very well funded (Dubai) are houses of cards. And again.. look at China.. they keep their currency pegged to the USD, even though the greenback has lost 20% of global value. So yeah.. I worry about our economy, but I think some we're being a bit myopic when it comes to where the true financials risks lie. As for Afghan civilian casualties, it's hard to really say because there is an incentive for tribal leaders and families to inflate civilian casualty counts in order to receive monetary compensation. And since they bury most of their dead within 24 hours, it's difficult for us to contradict their claims without a major confrontation. But here is Wikipedia's attempt at assessing civilian losses. There is an attempt at including casualities inflicted upon civilian population by Taliban forces. Additionally, some of the estimates attempt to include "indirect" deaths due to starvation, deprivation, or medical illness. But that, IMO, is a very arbitrary number: en.wikipedia.org Again.. for the sake of the rest of the thread (who must be wishing they had a "mute" button for this off-topic conversation, I think we need to carry it to the FPDT: Subject 53478 But THERE ARE tremendous economic consequences to ignoring the Militant Muslim threat. It's certainly pretty notable in Somalia, where piracy and hostage taking is becoming a booming business that is disrupting international trade routes. And were the Persian Gulf oil fields to be targeted, that would also have a dramatic global economic impact. Thus, for those reasons alone, it is peripherally "on-topic". Hawk