F. J. Taylor

Which is a Bigger Story: iPhone 3G or Tanking Banks?

Unfortunately Blad_Rnr has a very good point - and one I have seldom seen on these sites, albeit he (?) has somewhat simplified an extremely complex problem.

Now as it happens, though a big Apple fan myself and a shareholder, and thus happy to see all the buzz, I am also strongly opposed to the regime's war of choice (especially in Iraq) which is exacerbating the present problems, as well as breaking our military, whatever moral standing we had left with the world at large (little enough, I fear), and will inevitably break our bank - which, as he points out, is largely smoke and mirrors anyway.

(BTW, full disclosure here: I am a retired Marine, and a veteran of close personal ground combat.)

While I am not a big fan of Friedman's, this bit is bang on. (Though the points about gold and fiat currency, which agree with, seems more like von Mises' theories than Friedman's work...)

In any case, I fear we have just scratched the surface of the "fear factor" - and that if we do not rapidly mend our collective ways as a nation and as individuals, we are facing a disaster of great magnitude.
I am not at all certain that we will survive it as a nation, or at least in the form we are accustomed to in the US...

BTW, Blad_Rnr - even those who support this war (for whatever to me unfathomable reasons of their own) are not, for the most part, sacrificing anything - because they have no personal or abiding interest in it. Only a relatively small number of people are involved or even have a family member involved, and there is no draft (unless you count the economic "back-door draft" nature of our present volunteer armed forces).

Only a few of the wealthy (or politicians) have anyone serving in the armed forces, let alone combat.

I might add that there is no "war economy" other than operations like Halliburton) because we simply don't have much industry left here. Many parts or even entire systems are made, or assembled or acquired from off-shore sources. (The Marines are even getting their bayonets from Germany!)

Pity more people haven't grasped these and other critical facts. As the title of the article asks, which IS the bigger story...? Americans don't really seem to care as long as they have their MTV, American Idol, McMansions, Hummers, etc.