|
Bin Laden wins war against U.S. economy?
So How Goes Bin Laden's War on the U.S. Economy? -- Pretty well. Actually, he won. According this one year old USA New and World report, Bid Laden had set out to screw our economy, and keep us out of the mideast, since we would busy tending to our own economic meltdown because of the mortgage and subprime crisis. Well? (This is why short term thinkers (er, like "Drill Baby Drill) are burning the furniture for heat - ed.)
___________________________________________________________
So How Goes Bin Laden's War on the U.S. Economy?
September 11, 2007 10:36 AM ET | James Pethokoukis USNEWS&WR
Six years ago, Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda weren't just attempting to bring down the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They were trying to smash the American economy as well. Here is what bin Laden himself said about his goals and motivations back in December 2001: "If their economy is destroyed, they will be busy with their own affairs rather than enslaving the weak peoples. It is very important to concentrate on hitting the U.S. economy through all possible means." And here is what al Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri said in September 2002: "We will also aim to continue, by the permission of Allah, the destruction of the American economy."
No luck so far, despite bin Laden's recent videotape ravings about our taxes and mortgage debt. Although the towers came down, the resilient American economy didn't. Since September 11, the economy hasn't suffered a single down quarter. In fact, it has notched 23 straight quarters of economic growth. (And despite the subprime mortgage crisis, this is likely to be the 24th straight quarter of growth.) Those numbers are especially amazing when you consider that when the terrorist attacks happened, the Internet stock bubble was in full implosion mode. The economy dipped in the third quarter of 2001 and was slightly negative in two of the previous four quarters. But it's been nothing but growth since then. Overall, the American economy is, adjusting for inflation, $1.65 trillion bigger than it was six years ago. To put that gigantic number in some perspective, the U.S. economy has added the equivalent of five Saudi Arabias, eight Irans, 13 Pakistans, or 15 Egypts, depending on your preference. And while 9/11 did cause the stock market to plunge, the Dow is 37 percent higher than it was on Sept. 10, 2001, creating trillions of dollars of new wealth for Americans. What's more, the unemployment rate is 4.6 percent today vs. 5.7 percent back then. Not bad at all.
User Comments
(These do not necessarily reflect the beliefs of this site)
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 3:36 AM
This article is a good find.
"No luck so far, despite bin Laden's recent videotape ravings about our taxes and mortgage debt" [written September 7, 2007]
Ha! What a difference a year makes.
Interestingly, an ad at the very bottom on this webpage says: "Help Republicans Rebuild the Economy -- Support the RNC"
Perhaps they're counting on people not knowing that our Republican President appointed a man who laid the groundwork for the screwed-up mess the economy is in right now.
(But this is NOT to say that Democrats don't have their share of some blame to go around, too, I know.) |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 3:54 AM
What party was in power during the eighties, causing the S&L thrifts to have to be bailed out?
What party favors de-regulation and caters too much to corporate interests?
My father, who was a farmer, had many interesting sayings. One of them went something like this:
Since you already know what the hogs will do when they get a chance at your cornfield, why the heck would you want to let them run loose for?
|
|
autodidact
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 5:50 AM
"Since you already know what the hogs will do when they get a chance at your cornfield, why the heck would you want to let them run loose for?"
This is so true. And look at the list of political contributions from Fannie Mae and F. Mac (not Fleetwood haha). Biggest donations: Dodd, Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Cliton, Harry Reid are on the take in a major way.
http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2008/09/update-fannie-mae-and-freddie.html
And prominent Democrats blocked reform of these quasi-gov't agencies.
Even the liberals on Saturday Night Live know that Democrats have their fingerprints all over the crisis in sub-prime loans that became the catalyst for our financial system meltdown.
http://www.nbc.com/Saturday_Night_Live/video/clips/c-span-bailout/727521/
That is funny, but more truth is said in that comedy sketch than you'll find on the NBC nightly news.
Now there are Republicans taking a lot of money from these failed and fraudulent institutions too. The answer is not the Republican Party or the Democratic Party. The answer is honest politicians, if that is not an oxymoron anymore. There are honest Democrats and honest Republicans who spoke out against this bailout and voted against it, resisting the pressure. Remember also that Democrats have been in control of Congress for two years and did nothing about this. Still, there are some Democrats who wanted reform. Most did not appear to want it.
If your representatives voted for this travesty, vote them out!
The bailout bill will have the government (the taxpayer ultimately) buying up the bad debt *at an inflated price.* The banks and other institutions will keep the good mortgages for themselves. In this, the taxpayer can only LOSE!
The only way we have to fight back is to punish anyone who voted for this bill. Unfortunately both Obama and McCain were for it. So hold your nose and vote for the grumpy war hero or the great shining hope (who got loads of money from Fannie Mae). |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 6:36 AM
Some perspectives:
I don't believe in holding my nose and voting for "the lesser or two evils". (The lesser of two evils is still evil.)
Taxpayers always lose when there is a bailout umbrella for the fat cats.
In more than one way, too.
What will eventually amount to trillions of dollars of poor decisions (bailouts of Wall Street, Fannie Mae & Freddie Mac, the auto industry, etc., together with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq) is poised to haunt the future value of the dollar, sooner or later causing most of us to see our assets become worth less and less.
Those bad Democrats may have blocked reform, but I know one significant case where reform wouldn't have been needed in the first place, and that's the case where a Bush appointee caused a change in the rules which allowed the hogs to run loose.
I'm not saying both parties aren't bad, because both are.
All I meant about the historical trend of the party that caters most frequently to corporate desires is well known.
De-regulation and bail-outs are what come to mind at the moment.
Once major trouble brews, as you pointed out, members of both parties do us a disservice in the way they respond.
I certainly acknowledge that our nation's politics is corrupt and self-serving, and that our two-party system has failed the average citizen.
You mentioned prominent Democrats in regard to F. Mae and F. Mac. How about prominent Republicans?
What this all shows, again, is that:
a) neither party has the best interests of its constituents in mind;
b) we taxpayer peons will end up indirectly supporting the fat cats (major banking interests and biggest corporations) along with the self-serving politicians of both stripes;
c) our personal financial circumstances will continue to take a loss-in-value hit as time goes on;
d) inflationary pressure on the U.S. dollar will ultimately reach crisis proportions and have most of us agonizing over the dire prospects;
e) as a reslut of d), there can be anticipated pressure to re-vamp our currency to reflect a regional "solution" such as exists with the "euro" in Europe.
This will benefit the goal of globalism.
|
|
independentm...
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 10:10 AM
Dodd, Obama, John Kerry, Hillary Cliton, Harry Reid are on the take in a major way.
%99.9 of our reps in both houses and the prez are on the take.
The founding fathers intended that there be about a %50 turn-over each election cycle AND THAT WAS THE CASE until the early 1900's when modern capitalism reared its' ugly head and bought our nation.
There is going to need be a revolution some day, hopefully not a bloody one, hopefully it will just involve the sheep-like but oppressed public voting independent of the bought and paid for 2 party system. But a revolt needs to occur none-the-less! |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 10:22 AM
AUTHOR; STATESMAN: Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)
QUOTATION: The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. That is its natural fertilizer.
ATTRIBUTION: THOMAS JEFFERSON, letter to William Stephens Smith, November 13, 1787.—The Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Julian P. Boyd, vol. 12, p. 356 (1955).
A related idea was later expressed by Bertrand Barère de Vieuzac in a speech to the French national assembly, January 16, 1793: “L’arbre de la liberté… croît lorsqu’il est arrosé du sang de toute espèce de tyrans (The tree of liberty flourishes only when watered by the blood of tyrants).”
Archives Parliamentaires de 1787 à 1860, vol. 57, p. 368
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 10:26 AM
Regarding: a revolution, even a bloody one, that someday might be the only hope for change
Before it's too late and the sheeple lose their liberties, there needs to be a consensus: "Bring it on!"
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 10:36 AM
Timeframe qualification: Yes, a revolution, when it becomes the only viable recourse to keep from losing all the rest of the liberties that we haven't lost yet.
|
|
RaidHHI
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 10:55 AM
A revolution is coming. And i'm sure before it's all over and done with, some blood will be shed.
And for those people who think guns are evil and should be removed from everyday citizens... You realize, without those guns you cry about, you'd probably be speaking German now, right? Didn't occur to you? Read your history books.
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 11:00 AM
Yes. That's when we'll know the time is ripe: When the plan is announced that we all have to give up our guns for sake of, oh, national security or something.
That's red flag time, baby. Confer with your like-minded friends, start loading, and have all that stockpiled ammo handy.
I'm like leflaw. I've got heat, and I don't plan to surrender it.
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 11:02 AM
Historically, a tyranny can only begin when the people are buffaloed into giving up their guns. |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 11:03 AM
(With their weapons gone, sheeple can be easily herded into sheep pens.) |
|
autodidact
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 11:40 AM
The skit SNL has now banned, explaining the mortgage bailout:
http://patdollard.com/2008/10/it-is-here-the-banned-snl-skit-cannot-hide-from-louie/
If that has been removed, you can see screenshots and transcript here:
http://michellemalkin.com/2008/10/07/the-forbidden-skit-full-transcript-and-screenshots-of-snls-sorossandler-bailout-satire/
One of my friends on another forum wrote: It's like the Congress critters got together and said, "What's the worst bill we can come up with? Let's go with that." |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 12:25 PM
Re: It's like the Congress critters got together and said, "What's the worst bill we can come up with? Let's go with that."
You can bet your boots some if not all of these interests were served in the process:
1) the politicians
2) the most powerful financial entities (Rothschild dynasty's Bank of America; Rockefeller dynasty's J.P.Morgan/Chase; etc.)
3) globalism agenda
|
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 7, 2008 @ 3:52 PM
P.S. I'll answer a part of one of my own questions that I had posed earlier, and then I'll shut the hell up and let others post for several days. (I'm ashamed for posting so much!)
Here's what I had asked:
"You mentioned prominent Democrats in regard to F. Mae and F. Mac. How about prominent Republicans?"
Here's one of the examples as part of an answer:
[From the Associated Press, 10/7/08]
"McCain has had ties to the mortgage giants. In particular, Rick Davis, his campaign manager, has been a focus of attention because Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae paid him or his lobbying firm more than $2 million dating back to 2000."
|
|
gdZiemann
|
Date: October 8, 2008 @ 6:37 PM
"Since you already know what the hogs will do when they get a chance at your cornfield, why the heck would you want to let them run loose for?"
"Well, Paw, they promised they wouldn't go past the barn this time. They promised!"
------------
Jefferson also thought the Constitution should be rewritten every generation. |
|
pessimist
|
Date: October 8, 2008 @ 7:14 PM
"Jefferson also thought the Constitution should be rewritten every generation."
I'd settle for a mandatory constitutional convention to be convened a minimum of once per century (to consider whether anything needed to be revised, added, or subtracted). Otherwise, in the interim times, the amendment process would still serve us well for single, specific issues.
Jefferson realized what he helped write was likely not a perfect document for all future times, that some things would probably warrant updating as times changed... and, of course, he was right.
|
|
INeedAlover
|
Date: October 10, 2008 @ 4:00 AM
"The answer is honest politicians"
As long as a politician is tied to the Democratic or Republican part, this sentence is always going to be an oxymoron. These parties get HUGE political contributions from some of the largest corporations on the planet. Do you really think they will be HONEST upon election? |
|
|
Navigation
