Posted on 12/18/2006 12:49:53 PM PST by West Coast Conservative
It may sound unreal, given the daily images of carnage and chaos. But for a certain plucky breed of businessmen, there's good money to be made in Iraq. Consider Iraqna, the leading mobile-phone company. For sure, its quarterly reports seldom make for dull reading. Despite employees kidnapped, cell-phone towers bombed, storefronts shot up and a huge security budget—up to four guards for each employee—the company posted revenues of $333 million in 2005. This year, it's on track to take in $520 million. The U.S. State Department reports that there are now 7.1 million mobile-phone subscribers in Iraq, up from just 1.4 million two years ago. Says Wael Ziada, an analyst in Cairo who tracks Iraqna: "There will always be pockets of money and wealth, no matter how bad the situation gets."
Civil war or not, Iraq has an economy, and—mother of all surprises—it's doing remarkably well. Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce reports 34,000 registered companies in Iraq, up from 8,000 three years ago. Sales of secondhand cars, televisions and mobile phones have all risen sharply. Estimates vary, but one from Global Insight puts GDP growth at 17 percent last year and projects 13 percent for 2006. The World Bank has it lower: at 4 percent this year. But, given all the attention paid to deteriorating security, the startling fact is that Iraq is growing at all.
How? Iraq is a crippled nation growing on the financial equivalent of steroids, with money pouring in from abroad. National oil revenues and foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the IMF. With security improving in one key spot—the southern oilfields—that figure could go up.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
Of course it's not like our good economy, but it is interesting that this good news for Iraq is even allowed in the press here.
Do you discount capitalism completely?
I read something somewhere that asserted there were a few thousand requests for new businesses between 1972 and 2003 in Iraq, but since then, there have been something like 30 or 40 thousand applications. (I could be wrong on the precise numbers, but the difference was equally staggering)
Capitalism works nearly everywhere it is tried, and the less government influence, the better it works.
And according to the libs who are not happy to read this today, it is
simply that foreign companies are cleaning up in Iraq and wish the US to stay there for as long as possible to keep the money coming in.
lol- Yup- the dems have cured aids, wiped out cancer- and fixed the 'quagmire' in Iraq- all in a couple of short weeks! http://sacredscoop.com
Saddam had assured the Dems that all these economic policies were being implemented, after reading Milton Friedman's Capitalism and Freedom. In fact, the economic boom would be further along, especially with the success of the oil for food program, without the interventionist policies of the Bush administration.
I remember how amazed I was at a news segment, maybe a week after Kandahar fell, in Afghanistan. There were merchants selling satellite dishes, beautifully made from a patchwork of sheet metal from old aerosol cans. Very innovative people.
"The U.S. wanted to create the conditions in which small-scale private enterprise could blossom," says Jan Randolph, head of sovereign risk at Global Insight. "In a sense, they've succeeded."
Bet that hurt for Newsweek to print.
How so? there are more people killed on the roads in this country every year than are killed in Iraq, And the rate at which Iraqis are dying today is far less than it was under Saddam ( but then he didn't give them funerals either)
"But just FYI, Newsweek, (as they very well know), there is NOT a civil war"
I question if this is a war at all, anymore.
I don't question that there's still a lot of danger, but I stopped hearing about epic battles some time ago.
You guys are doing a good job.
In between all the chaos and anarchy, all the crime and killing, there thrives a libertarian oasis in Iraq. LOL ~sarc~
How could Iraq possibly be making any money since we went in there to take all their oil?
Isn't this post about Iraq not New Orleans?
And yet with this growth, it will soon be a more affluent sh$*# hole than every country around it.
Have you noticed that the moonbats don't mention the number of troops who have lost their lives? Now it's that WWII was shorter. Of course they don't mention that 100 times of our troops lost their lives in WWII
National oil revenues and foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the IMF. With security improving in one key spot—the southern oilfields—that figure could go up.
No blood for oil? A.N.S.W.E.R? Saddam about to be hanged by the neck until dead? America about to be humiliated, AGAIN??? How can this be??? What's going on here???
Ted Kennedy will demand reparations and a tax on any revenue.
Exactly. Why do we leave it to Newsweek to report this??? Why isn't Tony Snow going on and on about this until the reporters get nauseated?? (I would pay to see David Gregory retro-lunching in the press room)
Yeah, we should just let government regulate everything, like they pretty much do here in the US.
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