Greenspan says Iraq war largely due to oil...

(Sigh) Trolling again....

 

It's interesting at times to see how the overseas press reports on the issues. I remember reading one BBC story interviewing some fairly important Washington oil types who spoke pretty freely about oil's influence on the war. The American press doesn't really touch those sort of interviews/stories.

Has anyone seen the movie "The Insider"? It's actually a pretty alarming portrayal of how American media can be manipulated by corporations. It's about a former big tabacco executive who interviewed with 60 Minutes just to have his story censored for fear a multi-billion dollar lawsuit that threatened the sale of CBS to Westinghouse Electric Corporation.

Essentially, 60 Minutes was asked to sacrifice its journalistic integrity for money's sake, at least until building pressure and a change of circumstances allowed them to air the story.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/smoke/cron.html

Anyhoo, if we went to war over the threat of WMD's we would have went to war with North Korea instead, and if the war were about freedom and justice our soldiers would be in Darfur.

 

"about oil" is just too broad of term to make as a blanket statement though.

It was more about our own use of oil, then about Iraqi oil per say.
As in, we either power down our use of the stuff, or we find a way to militarily maintain a presence in the middle of the world's oil patch. Without some presence (since the Saudi's don't want us based there anymore) we would quickly lose control of the oil markets and lose our happy motoring utopia.

Option A (reduce consumption) never seems to sell too well and option B (keep gun pointed at spigot) cannot be stated public, so they obfuscate it. The folly was that 100's of billions of dollars could have gone a long way to ensuring our energy independance at home. An investment that is inevitable either way.

Instead, the middle east, the military, and the corporations that sell to them get to continue the gravy train and the oil companies can keep the status quo...For a little while.

 

Right, Darwood. The only thing I will add is that continuing meddling by the US into internal affairs of the oil patch adds fuel [sic] to the fire of local extremism, that then is directed at the US.

 

A lot of people have been saying that over the years...when Greenspan speaks people listen !!! What a mess we have gotten ourselves into. Someone needs to study history.

 

Whats going to happen is this as it has in the past...
The government will bail out the loan companies since people are defaulting etc.. The republicans are crying were losing money, and a Democrat will win the presidential election and then the republicdumbs will say "see you can't do any better." Leave us the mess they made.

But the fact is and was IT WAS BETTER BEFORE ANY BUSH got in.

Even Greenspan knows it and he still votes republican I guess all things/people don't get better with age

 

Greenspan also said the tax cuts should NEVER have been extended/renewed.

Greenspan is a Libertarian Republican. He is critical of Bush II and forgiving of Clinton. Why? Because he's only looking at fiscal matters and the economy.

Greenspan faults Bush over spending.

"He says he began to write the book on Feb. 1, 2006, the day his successor — Ben Bernanke — took over. A caption under a photo of Bernanke's swearing-in has Greenspan saying he was "very comfortable leaving the post in the hands of such an experienced successor."

The ex-Fed chief writes that he regrets the loss of fiscal discipline under Bush.

"`Deficits don't matter,' to my chagrin, became part of Republicans' rhetoric."

Greenspan long has argued that persistent budget deficits pose a danger to the economy over the long run.

At the Fed, he repeatedly urged Congress to put back in place a budget mechanism that requires any new spending increases or tax cuts to be offset by spending reductions or tax increases.

Large projected surpluses were the basis for Bush's $1.35 trillion, 10-year tax cut approved in the summer of 2001.

Budget experts projected the government would run a whopping $5.6 trillion worth of surpluses over the subsequent decade after the cuts. Those surpluses, the basis for Bush's campaign promises of a tax cut, never materialized.

"In the revised world of growing deficits, the goals were no longer entirely appropriate," Greenspan noted. Bush, he said, stuck with his campaign promises anyway. "Most troubling to me was the readiness of both Congress and the administration to abandon fiscal discipline.""

 

Well no s**t, Sherlock.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Swanny1172 @ Sep 18 2007, 11:48 AM) [snapback]514059[/snapback]</div>

Thankyou, I was going to write exactly that but have been copping some heat for language, you saved me rewording that.

Greenspan only said what we already knew. Government public reasonings weren't fooling anyone.

 

I have a hard time with individuals
who write books expressing the truth
AFTER THEY RETIRE!!
There's been several individuals involved
in/with/around this administration in one way or another who are
now suddenly speaking honestly...where was this honesty when we
needed it......it reminds me of chuck colson "finding" jesus on his way
into the pen after watergate....

Keep your retirement truth books, i refuse to buy them
I'd have like to have heard the truth while these people were in power.

Froley

 

Well put Froley!!!

We will never really hear the truth until it's too late

 

It will not be the last time we goto war to protect american interests, American Economy and American Families.


I hope we have the balls to do it again and again in the future... Lest we become a 2nd or 3rd rate country.

 

bigmahma
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J


Here fishy fishy....

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(Froley @ Sep 19 2007, 08:06 PM) [snapback]515088[/snapback]</div>

Re-check your facts on Chuck Colson. He "found" Jesus back DURING Watergate, prior to his prison sentence, and has since devoted his life to his Prison Fellowship ministry. He is a winner of the Templeton Prize for advancement in religion, and donated all of it to Prison Fellowship.

"Finding Jesus" didn't spare Colson anything. He paid the full price, didn't contest it, and remains faithful to his conversion today, nearly 40 years later. Using him as an example of a "deathbed confession" is disingenious; he has done more for his fellow man since his conviction than most people.

And, he never wrote a "tell all" about Watergate.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(priussoris @ Sep 20 2007, 06:47 AM) [snapback]515185[/snapback]</div>

I haven't bought his book, but from a lot of the quotes I've read, it sounds like he DID speak his mind to the Presidents in office during his time as Fed Chairman.

It is just that the Bush's in particular didn't like to hear what he had to say. And didn't do as he suggested. Clinton was smart enough to just go along for the ride. (and to be fair, he didn't have a recession to worry about).

I don't think it is fair to group him with those would "didn't speak the truth until they retired".

 

The old myths have not yet died, and the new myths are not yet fully accepted.

 

Greenspan intentionally burst the tech bubble and crashed the stock market by relentlessly raising interest rates .He timed the crash to perfectly to coincide with the 2000 elections.
IMO he was manipulating the election for Bush.
Then after Bush was elected we got record low rates .
I have a feeling Bernanke is now easing rates to help prop the shaky Bush economy just to pay the piper after the next election.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(mojo @ Sep 20 2007, 06:24 PM) [snapback]515503[/snapback]</div>

I dont' agree with that. The tech bubble got overbloated by Y2K work that had to be done. When Y2K came and went without much effect, all that work that was being done for the Y2K fixed evaporated, letting the air out of the bubble. This had far more effect on the tech industry than interest rates.