How America Can Use Osama's Death To Better Position Its Economy

The New York Times:

NEW YORK — Osama bin Laden is dead. Now it is time for the peace dividend. That’s a phrase you may remember from the early 1990s, when Soviet Communism, the big existential threat of the second half of the 20th century, collapsed. Today, America needs a peace dividend even more than it did 20 years ago. But cashing it in will be a challenge.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[tacevad]

08:02 AM on 05/09/2011

Should Islamic Terrorism slip substanially as a cause d'etre the CIA already no doubt has a new "enemy" for us to spend money fighting. The MIC commands too much as had been warned about all those years ago.
The Communist fear card fizzled out , The Islamists fear card is nearing it's end as a useful tool for seperating the cowering masses from their money. Indeed the cowering masses are nearing empty pockets..but the greed is still in charge of America and it is in search of more "profit$". Fear as a policy standard is still in the drivers seat. What will you irrationally be fearing next?

[moonbay]

08:50 PM on 05/06/2011

Hmm, Peace Dividend. Sound good. However, it's a sad day that we talk of actually receiving our due as hard working members of this Nation, only when we have a "military" situation that justifies it. Here's what I mean. It is as if the citizen's of this Nation all agree that the military (industrial-complex) has first rights use to our money created by our efforts (along w/ Wall Street - because they look good in suits???). THEN, when they
(the military of the world's super power) don't need it we then come running in and say, "hey, isn't it our turn? give us a little of it for schools and home building and bank loans and such!"
I went home (to another country) recently for a visit. They cannot even pretend they are or ever will be a world super power, so they don't throw their money away on such concepts. They get along with their neighbors and have built a HUGE educational structure. Where not many years ago, every other commercial space was empty, where PhD's drove taxi's, where a hovel was still the only vision of a home; now I find that with their "peace dividend" (they haven't been at war for decades, generations) they built schools, created jobs, built a still growing middle class, and are building homes non-stop. The citizens are being able to have lives better than ours! The only difference is they have a different concept of the term "peace dividend."

[rtaylor352]

02:48 PM on 05/06/2011

Just out of curiosity, if all the active duty troops get brought back, doesn't that stimulate all the economies adjacent to bases?

[ThePeacemakers]

02:41 PM on 05/06/2011

In the Beltway, I don't think they know how to conceptualize "peace". It's outside their limited imagination. Violence is the usually the result of limited imagination - an inability to find other ways to deal with problems. They are technocrats and systems managers, as many have started recognizing. They do what they were taught to do, because to question it would make them outsiders and, most likely, less wealthy.

[neolow]

02:20 PM on 05/06/2011

Kerry in '04 tried to get the US to reexamine the intensity of resources we were throwing into the war on terror. He tried to get us to see it more as a long-term nuisance that would require intelligence (human and data) not military muscle. Well, now it's time to act seriously on this. We have been on a war-time footing for 10 years. only the cold war lasted longer. We've been duped, cheated, panicked, and lied to. It's time to call an end to this. And get back to taking care of us, America. We need a healthier, happier, more hopeful country. The last 10 years has been anything but.

[AStranger]

02:00 PM on 05/06/2011

Peace dividend? Don't we have to have peace for that to happen?

Have I taken the crazy pill or are we still in two wars?!

[UtahSlim]

01:59 PM on 05/06/2011

In addition to the military - industrial complex, we now have the entire homeland security apparatus to redirect. Too many jobs in too many districts to be optimistic about change. Best to start by repatriating troops from foreign countries. At least their support and payroll will be spent in the US.

[GuyCybershy]

12:55 PM on 05/06/2011

That headline neatly sums up the utter madness of the times we are living in.

[gerald4]

12:53 PM on 05/06/2011

The death of Osama bin Laden will have no effect on the continued destruction of US jobs and US industries VIA the Free Trade treaties negotiated by US presidents and ratified by various US congresses.

Maybe President Obama will ask Congress and the Senate to reject or not ratify his proposed South Korea Free Trade Agreement (SKFTA) treaty that he “negotiated” on his recent junket/vacation to South Korea because it will further cause the relocation of more existing US jobs to South Korea?

SKFTA will probably have the same results of "sucking our US jobs to Mexico" as when President Clinton signed NAFTA into law except that these US jobs will go to South Korea this time. NAFTA was the first of many subsequent treaties created by many subsequent the "FREE TRADE" legislation actions!

Why did President Clinton sign NAFTA into law?