Life without the war in Iraq. What a different world it would be.

Afghanistan would likely be more under control.
We would have a national debt lower by 500 billion.
The price of gas might not be quite so high.
Iran would not have its fingers in Iraq.
We would be a country with credibility stretching from Iran to China.
Our world position might not have been so damaged so our influence in Latin America might have been able to thwart the rise of the left.
Our military would be in a much better position to fight another war.
We would have a few more soldiers and others would have their arms and legs.
We would have a credible leader who might have had a better shot at reforming Social Security, Medicare, health care, education, tort reform, balanced budgets, tax reform, etc.
We might have the respect of Russia and China so we would could work with them to manage the problem with Iran and other issues that surely would have arisen by now.
A few more folks at the UN would be richer but instead we have lost billions of dollars in Iraq that went where? Hezbollah, Iran, war profiteers? To think that the war has stopped international corruption is ridiculous.

Yes, Saddam may still be around. May be contained, may be dead. Who knows. I am not sure I care given our failure in dealing with all of the other issues we as a country face.

Would we have been attacked again? Maybe, but it seems to me it would have been due to our continued strength in the world. We have strengthened the terrorists by undertaking our own destruction and they can go elsewhere to foment terrorism and further diminish the power of the US. I am sure they laugh when they hear that the war in Iraq has protected the US.

Of course this is only speculation. To avoid the downsides of not engaging Iraq and working on other problems would require a competent leaders with a true global perspective and the strength and smarts to successfully get something done. The hallmark of this administration will surely be incompetence.

Lies? They are everywhere. Lets look at outcomes. Its a mess.

A plan.

Relax the restrictions on the troops so they can do their job.  War us messy, let it be messy.  At the same time, give over a few areas to the Iraq's to test their determination and if they do not respond positively and successfully, start pulling back.  Give them a few more opportunities and if they fail pull back more.  Move out and towards the borders but only after making deals with Syria, Jordan, and Iran to make sure they do not see this as aggression.  If it does not improve, continue pulling out.  Iran may take over but we have already give Iraq to them anyway.

What's your plan for Afghanistan?

Tough one.  Probably give up on our puppet oil executive president and start pandering a bit to the warlords.  Some side deals on the Taliban might be helpful.  Iran hates the Taliban so maybe some side deals there as well.

What's your plan for Iran?

Quit playing to the two bit dictators and start dealing with the big players.  China is spending your and my dollars to buy oil from Iran.  Hundreds of billions of dollars worth.  China still finds the US useful for their growth so make some side deals with China.  They can twist the arm of Iran's leadership which might prove more successful that to continue to play into Iran's president's play-book by acting like dumb children.  Unleash and unfetter Secretary Paulson.  He is the consummate deal maker.  If he can't do it, get rid of him.

What's your plan for N. Korea?

Keep the pressure on China.  Quit addressing the North Koreans and deal at the level appropriate for a superpower rather than play schoolyard games with the bullies.

What's your plan for Al Qaeda?

Quit letting them win.  Try to re-cultivate relations with our old friends in Europe to apply greater pressure on the immigration front in Europe.  Spend some of the money for the war in Iraq on security of our borders and intelligence effort.  400 billion should go some good towards better security.  Isolation of Al Qaeda, internal security, and world-wide intelligence is the best bet.  Shooting at them is playing into their hands.

What's your plan for the borders?

Close them up.  Then start legal methods for bringing in workers.  To do this, relations with Mexico needs work.  We should not be sucking up to the Mexican government.  Instead we should be making deals on oil, technology, and new trade deals with some levers on Mexico's border.  

What's your plan for detainees?

Try them and either prosecute or release.  What we are doing is shortsighted and looks bad.  Quit playing bully and clean it up.

What's your plan for domestic surveillance?

Do it legally.  If more is needed, change the laws.

What's your plan the next time we get attacked?

Try to hold the financial markets together with a plan for international intervention to prevent a financial meltdown.  We did ok last time and we should be able to do better this time.

Start now to complete the measures to support local police and fire and accelerate the integration of communication and planning.  Do this rather than just spend money on re-organizing the federal bureaucracies.  Again, that 400 billion could probably be put to good use in the US.

What's your plan for energy dependency?

Quit pandering to big oil and the Ag lobbies.  Look to other sources of ethanol than corn.  How about dropping the tobacco subsidies and looking at new crops in that part of the country.  

Bring back the electric car.  The infrastructure for energy delivery is already in place.  Hydrogen is a fine alternative but all I hear is a lame plan to let big oil do the distribution.  Use the hydrogen to generate electricity at a higher level of aggregation than the individual car.  

Get busy and start locking up the oil resources we have but do not pump them yet.  Keep them in reserve pending the loss of oil from the middle east.  Let them pump their fields dry.  One exception would be the fields off Florida where the Chinese will take the oil if we don't.

There is theme here.

1.  Quit playing at the playground level with these thugs and cave dwellers.  The power is with the big players but we have alienated them all.  Our power is not all military but is also financial and technological.  Deal with the real world players and we will have better luck dealing with the thugs.

2. Take care of the US first.  Border control, immigration management, directed technology research, stronger and more effective police and fire protection, clever intelligence measures, re-investment in higher education, etc.

3. Reinvest our money in the US rather than dumping it in the middle east.  Returning the US to a leadership position and a strong negotiator with the rest of the world is what we need.  We need leadership rather than a bunch of wanna be bullies.  We are rapidly frittering our advantage away with our debt and our protections on the big corporations.  We need a vibrant, open competitive business environment that is not strangled by silly patents, lawyers, and tax incentives that protect the status quo. 

Oh yea, a real set of leaders would be nice. 

Good intellegence stopped the liquid bomb attack and then we knee jerk and ban liquids but now, oh, they are ok now. Huh? We were told lipgloss was dangerous and now its not? What a waste.

We spent over 2 billion dollars on security for the capital building and have 50,000 police officers for the capital. A crack head drives up, walks in with more crack and a gun and gets to the same area the president spoke a week before. What a waste.

We scramble fighters because a women pees in the plane? What a waste.

We fight a war for 400 billion and thousands of soldiers lives and the result is we hand over Iraq to friends of Iran. What a waste.

We win a war in Afganistan only to turn the country over to opium growers while we spend more lives and money on fighting the guys we beat, what a waste.

We borrow money and buy goods from the Chinese who buy oil from Iran and support Hezbollah. What a waste.

Osama and the boys must love how we spend billions, probably trillions, and restrict freedoms in the US. What else has he had to do since 9/11? He does not need to do anything. The last message from the terrorists said they were going after other countries than the US. Why not the US? They have already accomplished their objectives.

Kudlow's income is based in the market. The market has done well in the last few years. The market did well under Clinton too. The recession was mild and the markets weathered 9/11 well. The problem with this market based view is it ignores the cost of these gains to the US and the non-rich (less than 20 million? in net worth)

Easy money Greenspan permitted business to profitably borrow money to fund operations. In the past, borrowing was done primarily to fund capital improvements that were profitable in the mid to long term and good for everyone. Capital improvements are a good thing and the tax structure rewards these by cushioning the blow of the investment to the bottom line. Under Greenspan the markets rewarded the use of credit for consumables. This has little effect on the workers income because the company is not rewarding them for hard work or making the company better. The executives get rewarded because they improved the bottom-line without doing anything but borrow money. The apparent profit drives up the stock price which permits the companies to use their equity to buy up other companies, not reward the workers.

The consumer has done the same thing. Cheap credit has permitted the consumer to easily borrow against their home equity and spend it on what ever they want. This is good for the markets because consumers drive the economy. The US savings rate is now negative yet consumer spending continues to rise. As a result, we have no savings, high debt to income rations and extreme vulnerability to a rainy day economy.

We are extremely vulnerable to China. Under Clinton we did not need to borrow much from foreign investors because we did not need to. We did not rely on China to fund the government. Democrats tend to be tax and spend party but Republicans have become the borrow and spend party.

Since Bush took power, we have borrowed a trillion dollars from the Chinese. The Chinese don't like us much but do like our money which flows freely from the consumers buying Chinese goods. (note that we borrowed to buy those goods.) The Chinese now hold the cards on our economy. If they were to dump our paper on the open market we would have to raise interest rates to get anyone to take the debt. The Chinese just bought control of the US economy to be used at a later date. They can us into the ground when they don't need us anymore.

Paulson is a consummate deal maker. That is all he has done. He got 300 million for his excellent deal making. He is so good that he frequently represented both parties in the deal. He is using that skill to forestall any measures to control the Chinese both because it would aggravate them, and, all this cheap labor and goods from China is great for the multinationals bottom line and thus the market.

Note that China buys oil from Iran and Chavez with money they make on our treasuries and manufacture of goods we buy. This means that the tax payers and consumers are supporting Iran's rise to power. Kinda ironic.

So the average American has made little to no gain. The only workers families that saw significant increases in income were the folks on wall street. Take that away and the average family income in the US declined against inflation.

We are now beholding to the Chinese. Wal-Mart, if a country, would be the number 8 trading partner with China. The consumer in the US loves this cheap stuff and is willing to risk their future economic well being to buy it. The profits go off-shore and even to the terrorists.

The markets do not care much how much the tax payers spend on the immigrants as long as they keep borrowing and spending. It is essentially a corporate subsidy and increases profits because they do not have to pay health care, workers comp, etc. on illegal aliens. Good for profits, good for the market, bad for the US.

Good for Kudlow and the markets, bad for most Americans.

There is no leadership in the US.  Leadership requires credibility and our leaders have none.  Lets start with Bush and Co in the middle east.

Iraq will pay for the war.
There are weapons of mass distruction
They will dance in the streets and embrace democracy
The war will last only a few months at most
The insurgency is fading
There are WMDs and we know where they are
We will bring Osama to justice
We have put in place a democracy in Afganistan
We will not support a cease fire in Labanon until Hezbollah puts down its arms.  Then Condi negotiates a cease fire and Iran resupplies Hezbollag through the main commercial airports.
...

That is enough right there to completely discredit the administration.  I don't care about the reasons why they are wrong or technicalities that may make a couple of them false.  The overwhelming perception is the administration is wrong most of the time.

The support for the administration comes from Bush trying to do something and the Democrats are not willing to do anything.  This is a Dobsonian for the people of the US.  Doing something and doing it poorly is a problem for a world leader.  Being wrong or executing poorly most of the time is dangerous.  In the current political and economic environment, it will likely distroy the superiority of the US.