THE ECOMONY IS GOOD LOLS

I wanted to come back to this because I had forgotten something that's of relevance to this topic.

The article accuses some foreign power of economic assault against the US...and you seem to think this is a problem...possibly that it's immoral and has adverse effects on the US economy. Feel free to refute this assumption.

Nevertheless, why don't we take a step back and look at the economic terrorism the US has engaged in:

Lets begin with Iran circa 1953...the democratically elected prime minister of Iran, Mohammed Mossadegh, proposed to nationalize the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company after a unanimous vote in parliament. Both Britain and the US had vested interests in Iranian oil and intervened...the CIA was given a budget of $1 million to oust the prime minister and install Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as a dictator who would return the oil companies to private enterprises. The coup was successful and the Shah dismantled the democratic structures in Iran, abolished the multi-party parliamentary system and divided up the Iranian oil company, giving 40% to American Oil companies, 40% to BP, 14% to Shell and 6% to a French oil company. Furthermore, between 1970 and 1978 he purchased over $20 billion worth or military hardware from the US. The coup had a number of American enterprises.

Moving on, one can now observe the US's foreign policy at work in Chile in the early 1970's. Despite the US's best efforts (6 million spent in political contributions and a botched CIA kidnapping) socialist leader Salvador Allende was elected. The US continued on, as Kissinger elected economic blockades and the US sold off its strategic copper reserve, forcing down the price of Chile's main export. The US also successfully pressure multilateral financial institutions like the World Bank to stop lending money to Chile and to start collecting outstanding loans. The US was successful in creating a environment ripe for a coup, and backed the Chilean military as it attacked the presidential palace, leading to Allende's death. General Augusto Pinochet took power and immediately rounded up all opposition, installed himself as a dictator and quickly began turning the economy into a "free market"...before Pinochet came to power, the unemployment rate in Chile was 4.3%...after 10 years of dictatorship and "free market" economics...the unemployment rate was 22%, real wages had declined by 40% and over 40% of the population was living in poverty.

I could go on...

It's funny that you mention that China wishes to "wrestle" away some of the US foreign trade dominance...well how do you think the US achieved global trade dominance in the first place? Wrestling of course.

Diesel is getting pretty expensive...

This post was edited by Torm1 on Mar 5 2011 12:17am

Just because this type of conspiracy theory always appeals to a lot of people, doesn't mean we should ignore the source. A contractor peddling his own report (self-interest there, perhaps?) that is dismissed by a knowledgeable expert (in the first page of the article) gets play in a newspaper owned and run by the Moonies. Nothing to be suspicious of there...

Yes, I am implying that intentionally attacking the US economy is of concern to Americans.

No, the US shouldn't have involved itself with Britain's problems in Iran, nor bothered with the internal politics of foreign powers. Did I lead you to believe I support intervening in foreign elections?

No, I just wanted to point out that America has engaged in "economic terrorism" in the past and is still continuing to do so in Iraq.

I just wanted you to keep this in mind when you are concerned about other countries doing it to the US.

What goes around, comes around.

waiiiiiiit for it

people arent spending as much, saving money and living less on credit. these are the normal, right things to do. if people are doing these things more now, then the economy must be good.