Quote Originally Posted by tony
If Iraq's economy suffered it was due to Economic sanctions after Desert Storm, kind of hard to grow when nobody will trade with you.. and that was the fault of Saddam. Nonetheless their economy slowly rebuilt itself and as I said before Hussein decided to switch Iraq's oil reserves to Euro's in the late 90's as the U.N authorized Iraq to begin trade again. Trust me.. their economy was so much better than it is now, we've done them no favors in that respect.

On the press.. let's see here. If 10 Soldiers were killed here in Atlanta this week but a school opened up which one do you think the media is going to run with? Probably the one that garners the most ratings.. which is going to be about the soldiers not the school, positive press doesn't sell.

It's the same reason why if I start a thread about something positive on this forum it will get a few views and no replies, but drama will have 20 pages of content. Do your part and turn the Tv off, write the producer about your feelings on what they put out there and if enough people do this you will see results.
I actually did turn the TV off at that point, because it made me realize what a waste of time it was. Lately my TV only gets turned on to watch a movie, or run a console.

As to your point about the media: I don't disagree. I don't expect them to portray anything in a positive light because it doesn't attract the kind of attention and response that negativity does. However, I was pointing out that they are sinking to what seems to me to be a new low by reporting what's sadly a common fact of life around the world as news on a major international news network.

And as to their economy: I dunno if you'd noticed, but there are very few economies in the world right now who can brag about having massive growth over the past 24 months, and not many more who can say they're still experiencing a positive trending in growth. Overall the world's economy is experiencing, at the least, a correction due in part at least to overinvestment in subprime mortgages. Betting on bad loans cost lots of people large sums of money they are now seeking to liquidate assets to cover. Iraq is no different there, since currently their economy is being funded by the steadily sinking USD, they're not exactly floating in cash right now. However the future looks sunny for them, since they primarily sell oil to nations to transact in EUD's rather than USD's. Their own weak currency combined with an export to a strong currency is what fueled European and Japanese growth through most of the last quarter century. While Iraq's economy had been recovering before, it still had an intense income disparity as a result of the political system in place there. Instead of looking like Saudi Arabia, Iraq has a chance to look more like some of it's more economically modern neighbors.