[JohnHuang2]

Kevin McCullough MEGA PING!

[Cannoneer No. 4]

Thanks to the enthusiastic cooperation of the American and British MSM, al Qaeda's psychological operation to convince the world that Iraq is an unmitigated disaster has been wildly successful. This has now become the conventional wisdom, and any who dare to deny that America is losing in Iraq is a delusional Bushbot.

I'm in Iraq. We are not losing.

If you want to be an unpaid, volunteer information operator helping to counter enemy psyops directed at breaking the will of the American people, check out Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group

[Finnish lurker]

Hello


NewsRoom Finland

Finland's Hesburger to expand into Arab countries, including Iraq

22.12.2006 at 11:36

Finnish fast-food restaurant chain Hesburger said in a statement Friday it had signed a franchising deal covering eight Arab countries with Kuwait-based United Foodstuff Industries Group (UFIG).

(snip)

http://virtual.finland.fi/stt/showarticle.asp?intNWSAID=14604&group=Business

[starbase]

Here's a summary of concrete progress in Iraq that has been going on since last July and before. There's a great list of improvements that mirror the stats in this article.

All the data there has only grown better over the last 6 months.

[MNJohnnie]

Thanks for the good new

[MNJohnnie]

Thanks for the good news

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Thanks for sharing the good news. sSmehow this doesn't make into the nightly snoze or on CNN.

[gusopol3]

it will only be convincing when the oil production exceeds 3/03 levels.

[faux_hog]

Great news! Wish we could see more of these articles in the mainstream news.

[kitkat]

Fascinating Iraq article

[nodumbblonde]

ping for later

[babylucas]

The President needs to put this information in a speech...wishful thinking.

[kitkat]

BUMPING this so that more people will see it. This is GREAT information. Thank you, John.

[varon]

imagine enjoying Iraq's GDP growth of 13 percent in 2006 – which followed a record year in 2005 of 17 percent.

Since 2003, the salaries of average Iraqis have risen in excess of 100 percent. In addition, the Iraqi government has slashed the income tax rates from 45 percent to just around 15 percent. That has resulted in the average Iraqi family being able to develop long-term nest eggs (we call them IRAs).

I'm not a bit surprised at these numbers because first, they are increases from a zero base, secondly the economic growth overall is a temporary illusion because it represents the infusion of billions of US dollars for "nation building" and will evaporate once our congress comes to their senses.

[remember]

Kevin McCullough begins his editorial titled "Why Iraq is a Success" with the following sentence:

The nation and economy known as the new Iraq is succeeding, and those who dispute this are simply lying.

In calling anyone who disagrees a liar, one would think that McCullough would be very careful to avoid making any errors and being likewise branded a liar. Amazingly, however, his editorial is chock full of errors or, if you prefer, lies. For example, the seventh paragraph states:

While we in the U.S. are thrilled to hear about GDP (gross domestic product) growth coming in at around 4 percent (so much so that it begins to bring down our national debt faster than expected), imagine enjoying Iraq's GDP growth of 13 percent in 2006 – which followed a record year in 2005 of 17 percent.

Of course, anyone who knows anything about our national debt knows that it is going UP, not coming down "faster than expected". The following table shows the total (gross) federal debt and the debt held by the public since 1997:

           TOTAL FEDERAL DEBT (billions of dollars)

                                 Intra-
  Fiscal   Debt Held              Gov't              Total
 Year End  by Public   Change  Holdings   Change      Debt   Change
---------- --------- -------- --------- -------- --------- --------
 9/29/2006    4843.1    241.9    3663.9    332.4    8507.0    574.3
 9/30/2005    4601.2    293.9    3331.5    259.8    7932.7    553.7
 9/30/2004    4307.3    383.3    3071.7    212.6    7379.1    595.8
 9/30/2003    3924.1    370.9    2859.1    184.1    6783.2    555.0
 9/30/2002    3553.2    213.9    2675.1    206.9    6228.2    420.8
 9/28/2001    3339.3    -66.0    2468.2    199.3    5807.5    133.3
 9/28/2000    3405.3   -230.8    2268.9    248.7    5674.2     17.9
 9/30/1999    3636.1    -97.8    2020.2    227.8    5656.3    130.1
 9/30/1998    3733.9    -55.8    1792.3    168.9    5526.2    113.0
 9/30/1997    3789.7             1623.5             5413.1

Source: U.S. Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Public Debt,
        online at http://www.publicdebt.treas.gov/opd/opdpdodt.htm

As can be seen, the total debt has been increasing by over a half trillion dollars a year for the past 4 years. This includes the monies being borrowed from Social Security and other trust funds. Even the debt held by the public (which excludes the trust fund borrowing) has been increasing for the past five years. McCullough would likely claim to have been talking about the DEFICIT rather than the DEBT. But, by the standard he set in his first sentence, he is a liar.

McCullough states that U.S. GDP growth is coming in at about 4 percent. According to a 12/21/06 BEA news release, however, real GDP increased at just 2.0 percent in the last quarter. McCullough appears to be talking about the current-dollar (uncorrected for inflation) growth of 3.8 percent. It's possible that the 13 percent growth in Iraq's GDP is likewise not corrected for inflation. This is significant in that an article on the Online NewsHour website states the following:

The IMF reports insurgent violence is responsible for much of the markup on consumer products as well, and predicts Iraq's year-end inflation will sit near the same rate it's been since 2004, 30 percent.

In addition, the article states the following:

Following the Persian Gulf War oil export sanctions crippled the country's social programs. Even after the United Nations negotiated the 1996 oil-for-food program to allow limited exports in exchange for food and medicine -- and after the export caps were ultimately removed in 1999 -- the country was unable to achieve pre-1990 oil production levels.

That blow has been felt throughout the economy. Per capita income also has yet to recover. The International Monetary Fund estimated a 2006 GDP per capita of $1,687, less than half its early 80s $3,600 peak.

Hence, per capita GDP is less than half the level it was at in the early 80s. Much of this drop was due to the economic sanctions. It's therefore not surprising that the GDP is rebounding now that those sanctions have been removed and the U.S. is spending reconstruction money to rebuild the infrastructure.

When and if the problems that the Online NewsHour article lists (such as security, unemployment, corruption, and inflation) are addressed, there's little doubt that the economy will do better than it did under a dictator. But Iraq has not yet solved those problems adequately to be called a success and those who suggest otherwise, as McCullough would say, "are simply lying".