Money Mayhem

From the stock market to the Icelandic banks the financial situation has become sour from a situation that seems vague and often too far away fro the average person. At the same time "Americans retirement plans have lost as much as $2 trillion in the past 15 months" about a twenty percent decrease in value banks like the kind in Iceland are making citizens concerned. The Iceland government took over the Landsbanki bank, a national bank that like many other national banks around the world are receiving bad news over the foggy Wall Street troubles. The bank has invested in foreign debt (particularly American debt in regards to Iceland) and its shown by the 'nationalizing through emergency laws by Iceland government'.

The United States in this manner has not provided the right answer, but at least it's provided something. The whole ordeal obviously started long before this year long before this current administration, Bush, was even in office. It could probably be tracked from the late 1960's to 1970's. However, it starts with the Clinton administration and its need to give every American a home. While a great idea and rather humane, this was the start of the main housing problem. For this to happen requires a push against higher credit scores and lower down payments. This eventually created the standard of no down payment needed and poor credit score. It of course doesn’t stop there. Any business minded person can tell you only a few things can happen here. If more people are capable of purchasing houses and some times more costly houses then the price of houses will drive up higher as demand for houses increase. This only further the thought process that house prices would increase as it had been doing prior.

The Federal Reserve and the actions of Alan Greenspan forced the housing markets to only increase as interest rates and adjustable rate mortgages commonly known as ARMs were encouraged. At a 2004 Credit Union National Association Governmental Affairs Conference Greenspan said:
"Homeowners pay a lot of money for the right to refinance and for the insurance against increasing mortgage payments. Calculations by market analysts of the "option adjusted spread" on mortgages suggest that the cost of these benefits conferred by fixed-rate mortgages can range from 0.5 percent to 1.2 percent, raising homeowners' annual after-tax mortgage payments by several thousand dollars. Indeed, recent research within the Federal Reserve suggests that many homeowners might have saved tens of thousands of dollars had they held adjustable-rate mortgages rather than fixed-rate mortgages during the past decade, though this would not have been the case, of course, had interest rates trended sharply upward."

The collective market of buyers, realtors and mortgages drove the prices up as market depend pushed for more construction. Cheaper credit and low interest rates from the fed allowed for pricier houses to be purchased and average houses to be purchased by individuals who couldn’t afford it driving the debt ratio.

Clinton was not the only administration to let the housing market keep growing in price and trouble Bush was just as guilty. In fact the majority of the housing problems were caused by both parties and both presidents have allowed or encouraged it.

What are the benefits of suicide bombers in terrorist acts?

The success of suicide bombers is relatively subjective and dependent upon the organization conducting it. For example the US would view the use of Suicide Bombers as inefficient due to the fact the US has enough resources and technical capabilities to fund weapons such as rockets and fighter jets with smart bombs. Now suicide bombings in regards to say Hamas or another low resourced (compared to rich countries like the US, Spain, France and the UK) organization might consider suicide bombings as beneficial.

Suicide bombing can be militarily efficient if the organization is incapable of delivering symmetrical warfare or even guerilla warfare. For example military leaders, when planning for a conventional attack, calculate the possible casualty losses. Military leadership might side with an unconventional suicide attack if they find casualties too high in a conventional attack.It is possible for these organizations especially lower resourced ones to engage in suicide attacks. Suicide attacks specifically determine who is going to die instead of the randomness of conventional attacks. However sometimes the choice of suicide attacks in this regard is obvious if a conventional attack would bring a hundred casualties and the same attack with suicide bombers would result in three dead.

In regards to certain organizations, suicide attacks are an effective weapon when taking a look at estimations of casualties due to low resources, poor training or fear of superior firepower from opponents. Lower resourced organizations may use suicide bombers due to the aspects of a ‘smart bomb’. Just as effective as the airborne ranger lazing a target for a smart bomb delivered from a jet. A suicide bomber has the human touch most other major weapons lack. The human aspect can make choices on when to explode or to abort if need be (though in most attacks abortion of the operation is not positively viewed due to the emotional stress expressed by all). Of course one facet of the suicide bomber is it destroys one of the individuals supporting the organization. This may seem like a disadvantage but when estimations of casualties during conventional fights it may appear advantageous. Also, individuals killed can recruit others as they see the romanticized videos of the suicide bombers last few moments before the operation. Assuming such a video is made.

There is also a very strong psychological aspect of suicide bombers. Throughout the years organizations popular in conducting suicide attacks have noticed the media focuses on such attacks. As well there is a certain sense of dread to security forces tasked with defending a region if they know their opponent has individuals who are willing to die no matter.

Another benefit of a suicide bomber is the ‘life insurance’ thought process. Some organizations are willing to insure the family a certain sum of money for the death of the bomber. In areas like Afghanistan where the average worker makes 270 a year makes for a viable solution. The money is more of a justification for it as suicide bombers can include those who are infirmed with a fatal disease, an example would be aides or even cancer. Individuals who are growing closer to death may also be willing to sacrifice themselves for the benefit of the family. The man who cannot be healed and has received a promise of his family being paid well for his death may indeed take it. In situations like this poverty and lack of technological power are weaknesses.

However this only explains benefits in regards to how the majority of the world looks at it. To get to the real motivation of suicide bombers and the organizations you would have to get down and dirty and as close as possible to them. This unfortunately is not a viable solution. The majority of suicide bombers are well…dead the entire point of the tactic. Those few that broke and did not blow themselves up can provide us a window but it is a broken window as in the end they were unwilling to sacrifice themselves. So while tactically suicide bombings are explained, the emotional and motivational reasons are sometimes clouded due to the lack of access.

Yemen's president condemns US embassy attack

Yemen's president condemned the US Embassy attack and vowed to "pursue the criminals who carry out such acts." (1) President Ali Abdullah Saleh stated these actions "were from 'faulty upbringing' (2.) Fortunately for the embassy the walls held and only one American died in the attack.

This is just one part of the focus in Yemen. The nation has been divided violently off and on for the last several decades. This combined with the nourthern rebels of Al-Houthi, small pockets of extremist Salfi's, Sufi's and the notorious Islamic Brotherhood make this attack look small in regards to the potential of problems Yemen presents. This doesn't put into calculation the number of Islamic Jihadis who were fighting in Iraq against Americans coming back to Yemen or Afghanistan. This assumption is made off of the fact large portions of Iraq is being handed over to Iraqis and is no longer in the hands of 'Christian Crusaders'.

The current president has allowed more religious power in a variety of sects that were willing to fight against Al-Houthi a rebel cleric of Northern Yemen. This could be one problem on why these extremists are growing in power. The government has sponsored anti-terrorism programs the most recent is the "Losing Bet" a movie focused on the negative effects of Islamic Extremism. Because of Yemen's lack of funds and impoverished society, some reports show unemployment as high as forty percent. (3) Obviously the goal of the movie is to reduce the amount of people willing to join extremist groups.

This is more than likely just the start of more focus on Yemen. The major concerns from the US point of view is the lack of security in regards to Al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda leaders and operatives escaped from a Yemen high security prison and other leaders have openly been in the Yemen Capitol at formal functions. The problem however is with the younger group of mujahedeen. The majority of the youth do not honor the non-aggression pact designed between the older Al Qaeda and Yemen government, the majority of the youth fights against the government and westerners.

If you ask me, and most people don't, this looks like the start of more US media focus on Yemen, however with or without the US focus violence will continue in Yemen.

Cite:

1. DONNA ABU-NASR, Associated Press http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080919/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen_us_embassy;_ylt=AmZIbXrlSTuyRnv0OlZWKy4LewgF

2. Ibid Abu-Nasr

3. Kent Davis-Packard, Christian Science Monitor, http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0829/p04s01-wome.html

Blogging? You don't say!

Well hello my future readers of the world. Turns out nothing is more awesome than rambling on about things you find interesting and hoping others will pay attention to them. So now that I'm hear and you are reading this, or actually just about ready to exit out of this horrible blog, let me start with some things of interest to me.

Money, who doesn't love this stuff right? well in all reality I'll be discussing what I see in the financial department. I'll start off by saying no I have no formal training in economy or anything of the sorts which means the majority of this will be arm chair.

Politics, just because it can get people pretty riled up for no reason. I won't be bashing either side in regards to the votes, but I will take a look as objectively as possible. For those Americans out there, politics doesn't just mean who is our president and what is he doing, I like to shy away from the ethnocentrism of American thought process all too often identified by foreigners as American Ego. So yes foreign politics will be wrapped up in here.

Terrorism and War, nothing like good ol' media hype sell what people are aghast about! Alright, I will be talking about these things hopefully more extensively than the other two topics. Especially since I have tons of experience in the area of terrorism and war. Also terrorism doesn't mean guys who don't shower, shave and wear weird dress like garbs, that is the more common view of a terrorist and known through some circles as Islamo-terrorism. I'll be talking about terrorism all over the world from the Tamil Tigers, not a Circus Olay act, to the dreaded Al Qaeda.

So with that I'll wrap it up real quick just so I don't have to keep typing.