[Aurel]

Tabs, I liked your analysis a lot. Made sense to me. To push it a little further, I would say that the present situation is so dangerous economically that war was the best solution envisioned by this administration to keep things afloat. In particular, you mention that one of the stabilizing factors to the dollar is the fact that it is being used in all oil transactions. I beleive that the main reason of the war with Iraq was to keep this in effect: By controlling the world oil reserves, the USA would ensure the stability of the dollar. The problem is that the war is extremly costly, and seems now to have worsened the problem instead of solving it.

Aurel