] The global economy is in very very very very bad shape.
] Last year when WEF met here in New York all I heard was,
] "Yeah, it's bad, but recovery is right around the corner".
] This year "recovery" was a word never uttered. Fear was
] palpable -- fear of enormous fiscal hysteria. The watchwords
] were "deflation", "long term stagnation" and "collapse of
] the dollar". All of this is without war.
]
] - If the U.S. unilaterally goes to war, and it is
] anything short of a quick surgical strike (lasting less
] than 30 days), the economists were all predicting extreme
] economic gloom: falling dollar value, rising spot market
] oil prices, the Fed pushing interest rates down towards zero
] with resulting increase in national debt, severe trouble in
] all countries whose currency is guaranteed agains the dollar
] (which is just about everybody except the EU), a near
] cessation of all development and humanitarian programs for
] poor countries. Very few economists or ministers of finance
] predicted the world getting out of that economic funk for
] minimally five-10 years, once the downward spiral ensues.

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