[Dead Dog]

Ok, lets play a game of count the self-contradictory statements.

Seriously, if this type of yellow journalism gains a foothold in Europe, we will definately find ourselves at war with them.

[2banana]

Well, we all could become socialists and have 15% unemployment rates in good years...

[cavan]

"we will definately find ourselves at war with them"

Will that be before or after you take care of Syria and Iran?

[Dead Dog]

It goes without saying that $1.5 billion is a lot of money.This is how much Americans borrow per day from the rest of the world to pay for their McDonald's, SUVs and cheap holidays in Acapulco.

In the past few days, stock markets around the globe have fallen, bond markets have sold off dramatically and gold prices have fallen, WTF???!!!! as have many of the other precious metals that had been roaring ahead until recently.

Who is this dork?

[rockrr]

"OK, lets play a game of count the self-contradictory statements."

Sorry, I don't have enough fingers n toes.

I couldn't go much past "Bush had overturned Clinton's fiscal surpluses with ridiculously biased tax cuts." (yes, I know. I should have quit earlier, but I'm a glutton for punishment ;'}

And, as to your second point: we ARE at war with them, we just haven't figured it out yet.....

[sheik yerbouty]

Pogh ma thionn, McWilliams1

[Billthedrill]

However, if this economic hardship coincides with an American defeat in Iraq,we will get an oil whammy plus serious and possibly lasting damage to the American psyche and an emboldened and victorious al-Qaeda in the Middle East.

I can think of a number of possible outcomes in Iraq, but al-Qaeda defeating the United States isn't one of them. The author is another European pressie trapped in the Vietnam paradigm - he's better at economics, obviously, and ought to stick to it.

European "lending" to support our Big Mac and SUV habits (you have to cut foreign correspondents some slack when it comes to worn cliches) is, in reality, them purchasing into an economic arrangement that offers them the best return for the dollar, EU, or whatever. Where that return improves elsewhere, the money will follow, and that will provide the necessary corrective for the french-fry-and-4WD "addiction." This is true whether that money is Irish or Saudi or Martian.

If the American psyche is at risk it is so not so much from the specter of military defeat (when in fact we've lost 800 people over a year and a fraction defeating our enemy utterly and overturning his government), as from a constant din of negativity from a groupthink-shackled press both here and abroad. It doesn't make much difference, though - once we turn over the reins to a new Iraqi government the world press will find a way to declare it a defeat regardless.

[rrrod]

"Seriously, if this type of yellow journalism gains a foothold in Europe, we will definately find ourselves at war with them." THIS IS MAIN STREAM!

[RightWhale]

two things are certain: the dollar will be weaker and interest rates higher

I'll pick door number two.