I have just added a series of articles that I originally wrote in 2002 and updated recently to my site.  If you have any interest in the satellite communications or telecommunications business please check out The Great Market Battle section of my site.

TPM

As I continue to read news reports and watch television clips on the military activity in Iraq,  I have asked myself if it is in fact a war.  I conclude that we are not fighting a war now.   The War in Iraq ended when we took control of Baghdad in the spring of 2003 or when Saddam Hussein was captured. Since that time the US has used its army to execute what I would call a massive police action.  I realize many people would scoff at my definition due to the scale of our military activity in Iraq.  However, if the current military activity was truly a war against the nation of Iraq; we would literally destroy Iraq in our effort to kill every enemy soldier carrying any type of weapon and not care about how many people we killed or injured or how badly the economy was destroyed.  We would literally blow cities completely apart in our effort to kill the bad guys and not care about anything other than killing every last person that is attacking our troops.

Today, our large army is simply a massive set of targets for the various insurgent groups to shoot at on a day-to-day basis.  Since we don’t want to destroy the nation of Iraq or annex it as part of our nation, we need to get our forces out of Iraq and leave the various Iraqi factions to fight it out among themselves.  These people have killed each other over religion for centuries.  We can’t stop them from continuing to kill each other now.  It is unfortunate situation, but true.  Innocent people in Iraq will die but why should we allow any more US citizens to be killed and continue to waste our nation wealth.  There is no end result of this massive police action that benefits our nation.  We need to end the US conflict in Iraq and work to create a political system in Iraq that is workable and minimizes any further damage to the Iraq and its citizens.

TPM

Today, the Associated Press (AP) reports that that the American consumer spent everything they made and then some last year, pushing the personal savings rate to the lowest level since the Great Depression in the 1930's.  The AP reports that the Commerce Department reported Thursday that the savings rate for all of 2006 was a negative 1 percent, meaning that not only did people spend all the money they earned but they also dipped into savings or increased borrowing to finance purchases. The AP states that the 2006 figure was lower than a negative 0.4 percent in 2005 and was the poorest showing since a negative 1.5 percent savings rate in 1933 during the Depression.

It is very interesting that this information is being made public one day after President Bush visited NY for an economic speech and the New York Stock Exchange for a PR visit.  The reality is that the US consumer is completely tapped out and that is what is keeping the economy moving ahead.  This is not a healthy long term situation for our economy or US markets.  It is amazing how this fact was ignored when the politicians and media were reporting on the generally positive economic data a few days ago.  It is a classic example of politically motivated people not wanting to truly analyze and understand an issue or put an issue in its proper context,

TPM