Business Features
Unemployment threatens Iraq's future (Feature)
By Shereen El Gazzar and Kazem Attaby Feb 20, 2009, 16:33 GMT
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Older Talkback
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The gross error of the Neocons was to think that 'voting' meant that you could re-construct a country. Iraq lost much of its educated and profession class, many of them Baathist - since they were the people in charge for decades.
The Iraqi are educated people; but the war will have interrrupted the education of those now old enough to fight as insurgents and radicals.
Under Shia rule, many of the Baathists will either not return to Iraq, or face the loss of their now-part homes and positions. This is a major loss to the economy and infrastructure.
When people don't have jobs, their services can be bought for relatively little. We bought the Sunni support in this way, and those dollars would now come from the Shia Government to the Sunni, whom they consider enemies.
Iraq was a house of cards as soon as we removed the leadership - and since nature abhors a vacuum, the crooks moved in to fill it. The government is corrupt, top to bottom, stuffed with patronage and relatives. The Iraqi people vote for LISTS; not candidates. There are numerour political parties and factions who band together around election time; and then battle amongs themselves for the spoils the rest of the time.
Believe it or not, this is all PROGRESSIVE compared to how Afghanistan is run. Sometimes, a dictator you can control beats chaos. And the U.S. taxpayers got to pay for it all.
GOP assholes whine about having to pay to repair the U.S. economy; but somehow all of the spending coming from Bush/Cheney ideas was acceptable. The same idiot right-wing posters who assured us about how 'well' things were going in Iraq and Afghanistan now have to face the realities - without an economy, education, infrastructure, jobs, and booting out the corrupt; all those U.S. funds were wasted.
The gross error of the Neocons was to think that 'voting' meant that you could re-construct a country. Iraq lost much of its educated and profession class, many of them Baathist - since they were the people in charge for decades.
Sp4 - No, it is your gross error. Neocons don't care if they reconstruct it. Where on earth did you ever get that idea? neocons think Iraqi's have plenty of resources to reconstruct, what they mostly tore down on their own.
The Iraqi are educated people; but the war will have interrrupted the education of those now old enough to fight as insurgents and radicals.
SP4- yep, war does that. Nonetheless, they have stood up a viable democracy and now you get the pleasure of watching Obama follow in Bush's footsteps in Afghanistan all over again. Ever wonder where the antiwar sentiment went? It was never real.
Under Shia rule, many of the Baathists will either not return to Iraq, or face the loss of their now-part homes and positions. This is a major loss to the economy and infrastructure.
SP4 - good. Perhaps they will now pursue their well being instead of radical religious goals. Either way is fine with me. We've done our part.
When people don't have jobs, their services can be bought for relatively little. We bought the Sunni support in this way, and those dollars would now come from the Shia Government to the Sunni, whom they consider enemies.
SP4 - Fine. Knock yourselces out boys.
Iraq was a house of cards as soon as we removed the leadership - and since nature abhors a vacuum, the crooks moved in to fill it. The government is corrupt, top to bottom, stuffed with patronage and relatives. The Iraqi people vote for LISTS; not candidates. There are numerour political parties and factions who band together around election time; and then battle amongs themselves for the spoils the rest of the time.
SP4 - That would be true only if corruption never existed before the war, which it did.
Believe it or not, this is all PROGRESSIVE compared to how Afghanistan is run. Sometimes, a dictator you can control beats chaos. And the U.S. taxpayers got to pay for it all.
SP4 - undeniably, and if there were any real objections, half the dems would have obstructed it. Instead, they want you to believe GW Buah fooled them into voting for this war. Imagine, being fooled by GW Bush! Now, we are going to do it again, ostensibly by the person who objected to these wars. What does that tell you about how he really feels?
GOP assholes whine about having to pay to repair the U.S. economy; but somehow all of the spending coming from Bush/Cheney ideas was acceptable. The same idiot right-wing posters who assured us about how 'well' things were going in Iraq and Afghanistan now have to face the realities - without an economy, education, infrastructure, jobs, and booting out the corrupt; all those U.S. funds were wasted.
SP4 - I'd buy that except now, Obama has taken on more unfunded debt in thirty days than Bush did in eight years. Now, professor, comment on that and be sure to get back to us. In the coming years, you'll wish those GOP assholes were able to save the endless monies squandered by this boy king neophyte.
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RE: SP4 - I'd buy that except now, Obama has taken on more unfunded debt in thirty days than Bush did in eight years.
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And just WHY do we need to spend this kind of money? Why did Paulsen push the TARP? THE BANKING SYSTEM WAS COLLAPSING, SCHMUCK! It still is - we may need to nationalize City and B of A for years.
Under Bush, National Debt went from $5.6 trillion to $10 trillion by Sep 2008. The current National Debt is $10.8 trillion.
Had Bush 'won' in Iraq in 2-3 years, we'd all be talking about something else. Had there been proper regulation of banks and mortgages, and the various financial instruments and over-leveraging, we'd be in a very different place.
The 'gains' of the economy in the Bush years were a direct result of Greenspan's interest rate cuts, and the resulting mortgage refi's. That partially offset the massive loss of tax revenue from the upper 5 percent; while the lower 95 percent got bupkis - and the loss of home equity and stock value, in the process.
The Bush policies insofar as both Afghanistan and Pakistan have been a disaster; along with the mess in Iraq thanks to Wolfowitz, Perle, Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bremer and assorted Neocons who should be facing their own version of Nuremburg for damages done to Iraq, as well as U.S. interests around the world.
I consider those who've pandered to the Bush and Neocon policies no better than traitors and insurgents; because they put their own bigotry and politics above the good of the nation. THAT's why we're in this situation.
The mantle of ignorance seems to have been passed to Joe the Plumber, Sarah Palin, and McCain, who declared that 'The economy is strong' in Sept 2008. Imagine if that jerk had been President, along with Palin! The mind boggles at that potential calamity.
'Asshole' is far too kind a word for those who've condoned failure, and declared the political opposition as the enemy - while those in power have totally screwed things up - and passed that mess on to Obama.
Shame on you.
Blaming Obama for the need to rescue the financial system is like blaming the patient who is a victim of malpractice, for letting the doctor into the operating room.
'The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.' - Kennedy, John F.
'The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all.'
... and imagine what happens when the majority of a nation becomes 'willfully ignorant'!! Then they vote in the likes of Bush and Obama and start mass killing people and creating mass economic destruction with massive debt spending on wars and welfare.
RE: ... and imagine what happens when the majority of a nation becomes 'willfully ignorant'!! Then they vote in the likes of Bush and Obama and start mass killing people and creating mass economic destruction with massive debt spending on wars and welfare.
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Obama has been President since Jan 20th - WHAT WAS HIS RESPONSIBILITY HERE? Obama is the Fire Department, and Bush was the arsonist.
'The likes of Obama'??? What the hell is that? Who are you comparing him to? Lincoln? Kennedy?
That really is the dumbest thing you've ever said - and that covers a LOT of ground. If you were any dumber, I'd call you SP4.
I am convinced, by the way, that 'SP4' is really some revolving group of right-wing blather-mongers who take turns.
'Obama has been President since Jan 20th - WHAT WAS HIS RESPONSIBILITY HERE?'
Of course, right (wink, wink). Obama did not just sign up to 1 trillion dollars of more debt. (wink, wink).
Contrast that to a real decision maker and leader that can hold the line and force people to live within their means and not put future generations into servitude and hock.
You don't understand because you do not see the choices.
considering the Iraqis are wasting they time in tit for tat sectarian violence....its not a wonder that no investors are rushing in to build factories and setting up shop. Iraqis have squandered the toppling of the former regime with blowing up each other.....then they complain about the lack of jobs, point your fingers at the religous leaders who continue to propigate hate and not investment into the future. how is supporting these religous nutbars helping you progress?..not one bit, they are so consumed by their religous beliefs that anything else is not their concern...put religoun in places of worship and not into goverment or policy...yeesh.
RE: Contrast that to a real decision maker and leader that can hold the line and force people to live within their means and not put future generations into servitude and hock.
You don't understand because you do not see the choices.
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No, you itinerant asshole! YOU do not understand the situation!!!
Why did Paulsen ask for the TARP when Bush was President??? Because the entire banking system was on the verge of collapse!!!
No one was lending, even interbank. Mark-to-market was driving down the value of bank assets every day. We bailed out Bear Stearns by forcing a merger. We then decided that Lehman was not worth rescuing. This was the dumbest decision ever by financial leadership; since the world was counter-party to Lehman transactions. When Lehman folded, the 'other side' was left hanging. The Lehman paper held by money-market funds was seen as worthless, so people redeemed of dollars of money market funds before the Gov't. put a $250,000 insurance policy on them - just like bank accounts.
The stock market is going down now ... because there is still no clear plan to keep major banks like Citi and BofA from being nationalized; at which point shareholders have zero dollars for their holdings. Prince Alwaleed and others are Citi shareholders, and won't put up with that. In today's news, you'll see stories where the Fed says that they WON'T nationalize - but no one believes it.
Tech stocks are UP 10 percent since November!
money.cnn.com/news/newsfeeds/articles/djf500/200902201552DOWJONESDJONLI NE000851_FORTUNE5.htm
NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- Bank of America Corp. is getting help from the White House in trying to assure investors and depositors that the Charlotte bank won't soon be nationalized. As shares in Bank of America and its New York rival Citigroup Inc. slid sharply to new recent lows, Bank of American Chief Executive Ken Lewis, along with a key analyst and an industry group, came to the bank's defense, saying fears of a pending nationalization are misguided.
Friday afternoon, the White House issued its own message. 'This administration continues to strongly believe that a privately held banking system is the correct way to go, ensuring that they are regulated sufficiently by this government,' White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Friday. 'That's been our belief for quite some time, and we continue to have that.' The general consensus among even liberal observers is that the Obama administration prefers banks to remain out of the government's hands.
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The GOP were the ones who brought up the threat of nationalization, thereby scaring the crap out of idiots like you who listen to them.
www.charlotteobserver.com/business/story/548009.html
Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator from South Carolina, has made himself a point-man in the rising nationalization debate. Graham stepped out this week to advocate government takeovers of certain struggling banks, surprising some fellow Republicans and proving again that the banking crisis has turned many economic orthodoxies upside down. But Graham says he supports only a limited nationalization, and that he's doing so only because the government's current plan isn't yielding results. “I want to bring closure to this, and I want a game plan,” Graham told the Observer on Thursday. “I'm not going to be the Herbert Hoover of 2009, saying, ‘Just let the free market work it out.'”
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Graham panicked. From laissez-faire to nationalization in 5 minutes. This is the kind of fraud that the GOP has been perpetrating - talk about conservancy; and nearly double the National Debt. And be sure to load up Obama with a continuation of the problem, by inheriting more Iraq war costs, long-term VA costs, and other liabilities.
Graham cannot contribute to the discussion, so he complains. Now, who does that remind me of??? Poor McCain does not even UNDERSTAND the problem, and should be called out for the phony that he has become. Joe the Plumber would be a step up, knowledgewise, from McCain - and HE does not know shit. McCain was a war hero - period, end. He is completely ignorant of the economics, except to whine about the Party that beat him in an election by 6 million votes.
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(9/15/08) John McCain may want to refine his economic message a bit more during this potentially disastrous week for the financial sector. On the campaign trail in Jacksonville, Florida, the Senator declared that 'the fundamentals of our economy are strong,' despite what he described as 'tremendous turmoil in our financial markets and Wall Street.'
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