Bush War rumination etc

[Roger Baker]

telebob x wrote:

> ...As for Bin Ladin well, we can expect that there will be more attacks, and
> each attack seems to wish to top the last one....what new horrors we will
> face before we can stop these killers can not be imagined, but  we can be
> certain we have not heard the last of them...whether we attack or not.  This
> isn't a fight we have a choice about.  We are in it, and they will not stop
> until we are out of Saudi Arabia and Israel is destroyed.  Not much of a
> choice would you say?
> 
> Most of us think the USA is a big bad bully...and there are a ton of people
> in Washington who think the USA can win any war....well, this is going to be
> interesting when the next casualty count doubles the WTC. Bil Ladin is
> right...we are a lot weaker than we appear.  Our infrastructure is so
> interwoven and vulnerable that major damage and I mean MAJOR damage is
> possible when the enemy is willing to die so readily. As far as I can see,
> if the attacks continue, the party atmosphere of the USA is going to come to
> a screeching halt...this could mean a major depression, and a very
> frightened population.  The fear will be justified.
> 
> Teledamus
> 
> PS- OK Roger...how is that for a depressing post?



Sounds like you're beginning to flex those muscles of gloom and move 
in the right direction. As always, go to http://www.dieoff.com 
for the big picture, laid out in colorful detail and with a wealth 
of supporting evidence for how the future looks, assuming we somehow 
removed the bin Laden annoyance tomorrow morning.

The fact is that when you live in a highly structured society, the more 
points of vulnerability develop as a natural consequence. Like check
out the following, wherein some guy with one rifle bullet cost the loss 
of 70,000 barrels of Alaskan crude oil: 

http://www.adn.com/front/story/712078p-752606c.html

The problem is that when you try to eliminate all the points of likely 
vulnerability in a modern society, you get an instant police state 
without adding a compensating degree of security.

          *********************************************

This latest drama is being played out as a global soap opera on the 
stage of world opinion, with a special role for the Arab and Islamic 
audiences. I think today we had our cargo planes drop 37,000 insty-meals 
on a starving Afghani population estimated at 7.5 million. Hmmm.

I suppose we'll know whether the Pakistan domino, with its nukes, 
topples pretty soon. Here's a good background link for that: 

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=archive&s=ali_wtc_20000417

It does sound like Bush is now offering Palestine a homeland, but it 
may be too late to play this card with much effect at this point. The 
expression "a day late and a dollar short" comes to mind. 

The corporate media is serving up a constant dose of flags and war, 
making it seem kind of like WW II to the average US consumer. I think 
the idea here is to get the public solidly behind a nationalistic 
military solution to propping up our world corporate empire. But this
is not so good from the standpoint of convincing US consumers to keep 
up their credit card-based debt binge, which was the main thing keeping
the US out of recession.

It seems the one thing the G-7 nations can agree on is that they all 
oppose terrorism. But they by no means agree on what to do about we
is going to take the hit and help keep the world economy from spiraling 
into deflation since all the G-7 are in simultaneous recession and have 
opposed economic interests in some ways, beyond just cranking up the 
money presses and expanding easy credit. What to do, what to do? asks 
Paul O'Neill:

http://quote.bloomberg.com/fgcgi.cgi?ptitle=Top%20World%20News&s1=blk&tp=ad_topright_topworld&T=markets_bfgcgi_content99.ht&s2=ad_right1_windex&bt=ad_position1_windex&middle=ad_frame2_windex&s=AO74dURNeVS5TLiwg

Then after we get out of the current world slump, assuming we do, and 
when world oil production peaks, within a decade, we will get to 
experience the mother of all deflationary spirals, as all our spare 
cash heads to the Persian Gulf. Maybe the Islamic fundamentalists will
still be so kind as to sell us a fair share of their oil at a fair 
price, and let bygones be bygones, terrorismwise. 

There could either be a bidding war or there could be rationing when 
world oil peaks, but American transportation infrastructure is very 
oil-dependant compared to Europe, etc. 

When I pointed all this out to James Galbraith, the UT economist, his 
total response was "Jesus wept".

Does anyone have any idea of what he could have meant by that?  

-- Roger