Economic threat

Over the past 8 or 9 months, I have devoted much of this blog to economic issues. My overall interest in conflict and warfare has not diminished. I would like to point out that I am a firm believer that economics is a root cause of conflict and warfare. (It was no coincidence that the greatest war in man’s history was immediately preceded by the greatest economic downturn in man’s history) People will fight over resources more quickly than anything else. What do you argue with your spouse more than anything else? Conflict over the allocation of resources is what my wife and I fight about. How we are going to allocate our time? How are we going to use the space in the house? How much we can spend on our new washing machine? (Or even if we need a new one) The study of conflict and warfare is the study of human nature. Many times you hear how history repeats itself. It does not. No two people are the same, nor are any two situations the same. What remains the same is human nature. While people do react differently to different situations, we can expect to see patterns or what historians call ‘parallels’. These are similar situations where people react in similar ways. Panic in a fire or other disaster. Rioting and looting in certain situations. We are all like this, no matter what we believe. Think Americans are different? Just look at what happened during hurricane Katrina. And this was a more extreme version of what happened during hurricane Betsy in 1965. They had looting back then also. We are all human and subject too human weakness. This is why I have been stressing economic issues for the past year. The war against Islamic nationalism goes on. I believe that the phase the war is in is relatively ‘quiet’ right now because of consolidations that are going on in the Middle East. At the same time, I believe that it is the economic time bomb that is ready to go off that will provide the match that lights the fuse. Europe is in serious financial trouble. But it is not just Europe. The U.S. is in serious financial trouble. The economic problem does not stop there. China is in serious financial trouble as well and Japan is not exactly booming. These are the four largest economies in the world. In other words, we could be looking right at a worldwide financial and economic disaster that would make the Great Depression look like a warm up routine. The war that could result would easily qualify as World War III. The very reason why I am spending so much of our time focused upon these economic issues.