What makes these peeps believe that the GWOT was (is) the main contributing factor to the downturn in the economy? I would submit that the war has created thousands of jobs (contractors, production of military equipment, heck – even an upturn in military enlistments!) and dumped quite a bit of money into the US economy. The economy is by its very nature a fickle beast – especially the stock market. With simple speeches or even allusions by the POTUS or the FED, the market swings wildly.

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Further, the housing market boomed and then busted independently of the GWOT. When I lived in the UK the housing market was booming prior to 9/11 just as it was in the US. It was a global (in the Western sense) phenomenon.  It busted due to the fast and loose lending practices of bankers that were willingly or not, that gave loans to people who have no fiscal chance of actually making a go of it.

I would also look at globalization and declining product quality of American goods for further decline. As companies realized that it was much cheaper to hire people in India to answer phones, people in Mexico to build cars, and planters in South America to grow your produce, the job market for labor declined rapidly. Combine this with a flood of cheaper (and in some cases higher quality) goods from East Asia further depressed American production. It is simply supply and demand.

Finally, the media has some share of the blame. Panicky, breathless and mostly clueless talking heads spewed such chicken little nonsense that the over reactive markets and concerned investors soon congealed into a morass of doomsday fearfulness. Fuel prices last year are a perfect example of self-fulfilling prophecy. The media speculated loudly about the possibility of rising fuel prices based on the impending failure that was soon to be visited upon the “surge” in Iraq and the reduction of production by OPEC. Traders of futures began to speculate – and the price of light sweet crude skyrocketed.  If the media would stop screaming that he sky is falling at every little ripple – perhaps we could live a bit better.

Another case of the media “wagging the dog” is the whole Swine Flu thing.  H1N1 has officially killed perhaps three people in the United States thus far. However – yearly around 150 children younger than five die of flu related illness. Of course, even the other figure of 36000 people each year dying of the flu is computer generated and probably erroneous. Hard numbers are hard to come by concerning the flu – but the media would have you believe that we are all about to turn into pig-flu zombies. (A good thing I have been stockpiling 5.56mm ammo!) However – As a comparison, 644 people died in 2006 from tuberculosis. It MUST be a pandemic!

http://www.whale.to/a/ten12.html

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8878

Posted by: Misha Moriarti at 05:47 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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