>>The problem is even if you are fighting a war for oil (paging Alan Greenspan), you cant come out and say that you are. Not plausible. And thats a pity. So you do get saddled with the nation building hard work thing too, even if you were at first against nation building (paging GWB). $10 a barrel would be a financial disaster for big oil i would think. I dont see that as a goal of this admin.
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>Unfortunatlely you'r right, but it just seems like once went into Iraq and the Arab world said we did it to steal the oil the smart thing to do would have been * to steal the oil * ( probably should have planted some WMDs as well - if Rove and Cheney are these evil geniuses why didn't they think of that ? )
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>I won't defend Bush for trying to cut taxes like a conservative and spend like a liberal. That obviously doesn't work. But all this didn't happen in a vacuum - there are a lot of other factors and this is a very political year, and I was an econ major just long enough to know that economics is a science like sociology is a science <s>.
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>The main reason I am against state dominated economies is that I don't think anyone really understand the complexities of these interactions well enough to create outcomes in the long term.
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>( the Harpers article Perry referenced in this thread is a good one )


This article was interesting. I think you might like it.

Waving Goodbye to Hegemony
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/27/magazine/27world-t.html?_r=2&ref=magazine&oref=slogin&oref=slogin

And Europe’s influence grows at America’s expense. While America fumbles at nation-building, Europe spends its money and political capital on locking peripheral countries into its orbit.

The East Asian Community is but one example of how China is also too busy restoring its place as the world’s “Middle Kingdom” to be distracted by the Middle Eastern disturbances that so preoccupy the United States.

In America’s own hemisphere, from Canada to Cuba to Chávez’s Venezuela, China is cutting massive resource and investment deals. Across the globe, it is deploying tens of thousands of its own engineers, aid workers, dam-builders and covert military personnel. In Africa, China is not only securing energy supplies; it is also making major strategic investments in the financial sector.