They did a story about it after the fact. The United States currency is going to collapse with or without Iran trying to buy oil in Euro's. On and off the book debt is rated at 100 trillion dollars with 78 million baby boomers retiring in the next decade. This means 200 million workers owe half a million dollars each, to pay this debt down. The United States governments only alternative is to print money and devalue the currency. Hyperinflation will occur. It could be a run on the money next week or in a few years. Lots of companies like Countrywide, Fannie Mae, E-Trade .com, and some of the bigger banks may take us for a ride in the next few months with insolvencies. We may be seeing the dollars collapse from the housing credit crisis. Billions of dollars have been lost....possibly a trillion dollars. Iran won't be the cause. It is banking and government mismanagement that has done that all by itself.

Steven is a beam of shinning intelligence from the far cold wintry north of Alaska. Sock it to'em Steve. Kudos!

Let's face it, Iran is controlled by religious fruitcakes, they have loads of money (oil & gas) which the world is running short of. No way is China going to forgo its energy needs. Russia also want s to keep USA and the West strapped for oil so they want an independent Iran. Neither of these two give a damn about civil rights. Iran will get the atomic bomb sooner or later. So what? Israel can attack them now, before Bush and Cheney leave or get used to the idea. Iran with a bomb will actually be a lot more cautious than it is now. One slip and the USA will obliterate the whole place with a nuclear retaliation. On the other hand, attacking it and failing to destroy every hidden weapons plant will guarantee future attacks by Iran of a much more significant nature. The more money Iran chucks away on defence the less it has to appease its people and the more likely they are to kick out the fruitcakes. In the end, the darkages nut cases will lose: that's why they are stirring up the ignorant - they can read the writing on the wall and don't want to lose their women hating/fearing social control and power bases.

the only way this will go. You need to look at the deflationary senario as well ... find it and read up on it ... good economist see both possibilities. And then there is the most likely that the Fed will finnese us through it as slowly as they can to molify and spread out the effects. What do you think all these Mexicans are doing here? What's happening is not that unusual and it is not the first time. I think our biggest danger is that so much of our investment capital is being pulled out of the country rather than being used to ramp up prodoctivity here. That is a first at the level it is happening. American need to get more realistic about what they can afford, but the only way to get that to happen is to force it on them.

Stewart #15: There is a great deal of completely speculative guesswork out there about when Iran might theoretically be able to create a nuclear weapon, all of which exists despite the fact that there is no evidence whatsoever – meaning absolutely none – that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. It is sort of like arguing over when the US government is going to evacuate Manhattan and return it to the Native Americans, despite the fact that there is absolutely no reason to believe the US has any intention of doing so. Will it happen next year, or ten years from now? Ben Ish #23: Been spending a lot of time reading conspiracy sites like DebkaFiles? Leaving aside empty conspiracy theory and false warmongering propaganda, all responsible parties – you know, the people who have actually visited the Iranian nuclear sites and know what they are looking at and for – have concluded that there is no evidence, none at all, that Iran has a weapons program. There are – all parties agree – some gaps in the Iranian historical accounts of its nuclear program and these gaps are precisely what are being closed presently. If you had bothered to read the Nov. 17 report you would know that most of it dealt specifically with providing answers to “the information regarding procurement sources,” you ask about, including the Pakistani black market. “Not one shred???” – that’s right, not one shred, absolutely no substantive proof whatsoever of a weapons program. And, for the record, current enrichment levels are exactly what are needed for energy production, but far too low for a weapons program, reflecting what Iran has said all along. Rivkah #25: Yes, plainly there is no nuclear threat so there must be one or more ulterior motives behind all the alarmist nonsense being spewed out of Washington & Jerusalem. As to whether or not it has to do with Iran dropping the dollar for oil trading, keep in mind that Venezuela and Russia have already done the same while most of the other OPEC states are either loosening their dollar pegs, refusing to follow the US Federal Reserve’s lead on interest rates, or considering dropping their dollar-only policies. So the cascade has already begun, attacking Iran would not reverse this trend; but it would result in oil prices skyrocketing, which would frankly hurt us more (and encourage decoupling oil trading from the US$) than any possible “victory” scenario would help us. So, while the Iranian decision to turn against the dollar certainly added some fuel to the fire, I don’t think this alone explains all the warmongering nonsense. Abel #26: Neither Russia nor China have any interest in seeing a nuclear armed Iran, which is precisely why Russia and China’s refusal to take all the empty US/Israeli propaganda seriously speaks volumes. Russia is more than willing to help Iran establish a civilian nuclear program (for a price, of course) but not a weapons program and if anyone knows exactly what the Iranians are up to, it would be the Russians. The simple fact that Russia and China are preventing any UN action against Iran strongly suggests – and substantiates – the contention that Iran has no nuclear weapons program at all.

see any news about the hooligan in Iran with his Holocaust denial conferences and statements about wiping Israel off the map...wiping the Jewish state off the map... does any of that matter to you? or do you just read what you want to read and ignore anything else of substance?

"see any news about the hooligan in Iran with his Holocaust denial conferences and statements about wiping Israel off the map...wiping the Jewish state off the map..." I - like most reasonable people - agree that Ahmadinejad is a total jackass. But he isn't a viable threat to Israel, empty rhetoric notwithstanding. The country of Iran (whose military is not under Ahmadinejad's control any more than "President" Peres controls the IDF) is not a threat either. Nor is the Iranian nuclear program. Israel, and the US for that matter, has a long history of having to put up with hostile world leaders that spout off nonsense, but that doesn't justify military action; nor does any of Ahmadinejad's rhetoric. War is not a reasonable response to blowhards spewing out completely empty and meaningless rhetoric.

Nailing Iran would be the best thing that ever happened. Higher oil prices mean alternate energy will have to be explored. I remember the hostage crisis. I don't feel a bit of pity for good old Iran like you do You hug your friends when you see them. Hitler wasn't developing anything either....but we still had to lose a half million people because we didn't take the initiative to get rid of him before his country became to powerful to control.

From one John to another: You are a fine , ntelligent and free man.