Re: Bush fiddles with economy while Baghdad burns

Something tells me that the war effort is meant to gear up the economy:  1) aside from mortgage refinancing,  no one is borrowing significant amounts of money aside from the federal government in this war drive,  which requires deficit spending, money borrowed from the financial sector;   2)  by spending so much money on armaments and other related costs,  the federal reserve is expanding money supply;  3) the low interest rates make it cheaper to wage war;  4)  the lower dollar relative to the euro insures that European manufactured goods are higher in costs relative to dollar denominated exports,  this protects US manufacturers interests in overseas markets even while demand declines,  because European goods are relatively unattractive given that their costs are inflated;  5) the costs of goods manufactured for local markets overseas may actually be declining since there is relatively less demand for them; 6) given the size of the US market and it's economic strength,  American consumers,  with the aid of the federal reserve policies,  can and do export inflation, deflation and unemployment;  7) it should be remembered that 6% unemployment is considered full employment under normal economic conditions,  it was only under the largest economic expansion in our nation's history that unemployment dropped below that 6% figure,  which concerned Alan Greenspan that there might have been pressure to increase wages,  8) which is a large part of the reason behind republican  support for immigration, legal and otherwise, to the United States, and the US population grew by approximately 10% in the last 10-15 years, which is staggering;  9) the US is supporting higher energy costs as a way of supporting the price of goods available on the market,  keeping deflation at bay,  because the costs of energy used to manufacture and transport goods mitigates against retail price cutting strategies.