[Rhodes22-list] WAR

[Rik Sandberg]

Paul,

We are in agreement as far as the war or the possibility of it is concerned.

I would comment on the effects on the economy though. Our economy was 
headed south long before 9/11. That tragedy just caused a jump in the 
markets that got everyone's attention and made the downturn obvious to even 
the most inattentive market watcher. Our economy and the stock market have 
been trending down since about January of 2000. It would have done what it 
is doing now whether 9/11 had happened or not.

Economies tend to follow cycles, whether anyone believes it or not. Always 
have, always will. We were overdue for this downturn, by historical 
measure, and it was coming, and in fact was already here, quite some time 
before 9/11.

Osama Bin Laden is a terrible man and a coward to boot, but he is not 
responsible for our economic woes, we did that to ourselves. Whenever 
people begin to assume that any market can only go up and they are 
guaranteed to make lots of easy money in it with no risk. Those people are 
going to be very rudely awakened. This has happened time and time again 
throughout the history of the world and is not going to stop just because 
we think we are different or smarter now.

Rik

At 08:27 AM 1/29/2003 -0500, you wrote:
>Slim & Wally,
>
>      I agree with both of you.  As I said, I don't want us to go to war
>either and any misguided ideas that a war might help the economy is not a
>good reason to go to war.  Sometimes you have to do it because the
>consequences of not doing it are far greater.  Timing, as I suggested,
>should be left to the military experts.
>
>      As far as the economy is concerned, everything started going bad on
>9/11/01, when this country was attacked.
>
>      I don't know if Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden are affiliated or
>not, and I don't care.  As Rik said, they are both bad enough on their
>own and in their own ways.  They need to be stopped sooner or later.  If
>it's later, do we need another 9/11 before we act.  That's why I brought
>up Hitler.  Let's learn from history.
>
>Paul
> >
> >Slim,
> >
> >The threat of war sure doesn't seem to helping from my perspective either. I
> >think any real economic benefit is usually realized after the war due to
> >consumer confidence and rebuilding. It is still no reason to go to war
> >though.
> >
> >Wally
> >
> >
> >>
> >>Just the "jitters" of war have tumbled the stock market.  Explain to me
> >>again how a war will boost our economy???  It costs zillions to send in the
> >>troops and zillions more to rebuild what we are about to destroy.  Is this
> >>really offset by the profits that are made by the few companies that
> >>produce
> >>munitions, food, clothing, hardware, supplies, fuel, etc.???
> >>
> >>Am I missing something here?
> >>
> >>Slim
>
>
>========================
>Paul Grandholm
>C&H Technology
>GrandPower Components Div.
>========================
>_________________________________________________
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