WW3?

Modern wars are no longer fought over territory or religion or Helens of Troy. They're fought over money, plainly and simply. We're not in Iraq right now to kill terrorists or liberate people or establish democratic governments. While we'll undoubtedly accomplish all these things (eventually), I think it's clear to just about everyone that we're in the Middle East to control the oil. Oil is gold, and now that our planet is beginning to show signs of running out of it, it's more important and expensive than ever. Suffice it to say that the current administration of the US will pay any short term price to have control of the world economy in the long run. We'll pay in monetary debt, in the lives of young soldiers, and we'll pay with our international reputations.

I haven't looked at the data yet, but I'm pretty confident that I will find reason to believe that the Euro will continue to increase in value far into the future. As more and more countries see the benefits of belonging to the EU and adopt the Euro as their currency, the EU will become more and more like a single entity - a single country. It won't be long before the EU is the largest economic entity on the planet - and this may already be the case.

I support our president as a fiscal conservative, but I think he's kind of a cowboy - literally and figuratively. How long will conservatives in this country be willing to play second fiddle to the Europeans? How long will it be before it's going to be made clear who's really in charge of the world economy? And once we realize it's the EU, how long after that will we tolerate paying higher prices for European goods?

Not long, I don't think. War is good for the economy, and there are plenty of political buddies in the defense industry. Will we negotiate with the Europeans to try to come to some sort of agreement about pricing and tariffs...or will we nuke Berlin?

I foresee that the US is going to have a lot of problems with the EU in the not-too-distant future. I think that war between the US and the EU is an inevitability - maybe not in my lifetime, but shortly thereafter. Resources on this planet are becoming scarce, and one need look only as far as the nearest history book to find out what happens when resources among humans get too scarce - people start killing each other. I just hope that people have enough sense to prevent this when it happens.