"Wasn't it Osama bin laden's / Al-Qaida's plan all along to draw the West into a long, drawn out war that would sap the West's economies and thus orchestrate a play on global economic and military power dynamics?  From this perspective, the terrorists have won."
achieving a goal doesn't mean you win anything.

Despite the econ cost of the war, the econ is just down because the grabbing of resources. The house bubble could have been any bubble.

I was for the war in  iraq, but the way the generals organised was plain stupidity. They could have made the region a better place, I believe that still.

Its both positive and negative. But I think its good to control the state this way. Exceptions should be made for people who try and capture maffia leaders or do controversial jobs. Those people may be filmed but should remain anonymous.

Cuba:
you have 2 cows
One does eye surgery on the other while smoking cigars. That blind cow is released to the US disguised as a criminal.

IC:
you have 2 cows
both are multies in the same 2 rivaling fams.

"It is rumored that his death was a Conservative plot"
Where is render when you need him? Maybe he's taken down by secret agency created by a secret agency taken over by a secret agency!!

you forgot the 2 most important weapons zarf:
food and the bomb.

But I agree in general with your post. That is theoreticly cause neither of them can/will start a war against each other as is. An econ war is possible tough.

lol

the nazis had the same opinion once.

@xeno:
"Could you be more specific?"
Sorry for the link but the  explanation I tended to give was very long.

I'll try to summarize it:
You said:
"Global markets are tied together like a forest of trees might be tied together.  The only way to fix the market is to untie the trees from each other and let each market stand on its own, and so when a storm hits only a few trees will get blown over, not the whole !@#$%0damned forest."

The idea you propose (I could be wrong in my interpretation tough) is that markets should "stand" on their own. I translate that as making sure your markets are independent so to speak by making sure you always have enough resources and you never tied up on other markets as suppliers either by having it yourself, or by having many. Suppliers could be suppliers of resources but also suppliers of money, military aid etc etc. Most of this ideas have been specifically popular during the period of mercantilism.

If you're interested in a debate about the subject, we better open a new thread.

tsd:
Congrats,
Its a good sign of you growing up. I explain to you when your older.

"Actually Little Paul you can see I am posting only half as much... mostly due to forum inactivity."
Actually it looks more like 1/4 in quantity but 4 times as good in quality.

"Honestly I think it is you who has changed, in your views and your attitudes."
I was still young when I started IC more then a decade ago. Maybe at the start I was more left leaning then right back then. But you can say for at least 6 to 8 years my ideas in general haven't changed that spectacular. I still have my left ideas (the "death" tax is ok if done right) and my right: to much taxes kill the econ, especially taxes on labour.

Further on I always have been the sole European on this forum to say US might not be 100% perfect but all other possible world leaders would be far worse for everybody.

DP,
I found something similar in a communist pamphlet once, with exact the same story. Pity I cannot find it back. In there logic, the rich man could do whatever he want. He had the same income still, but the others didn't.

Think about it:
This is why left leaning economics always win this kind of debates. It DOES NOT need to be fair!! It needs to be effective before it can be fair, or it is not fair at all because their is no wealth to share. If a system can be effective with everybody earning the same, many people would be communist. But it isn't. People only work if they see profit. They are inventive and the market takes out bad idees and keeps the good. I know this is simplified and only true in a perfect world but the idea still stands.

Not even IC is that simple esa.