Over-Reaction to a Non-Event

[kalian]

http://www.financialsense.com/Market/wrapup.htm

The big story for today has to be the sudden strengthening of the U.S. dollar. The market activity throughout the day has been a continuation of the knee-jerk reactions to Alan Greenspan’s comments yesterday. The bond market has been selling-off in anticipation of interest rates moving higher much sooner than expected. Investors are speculating that the Fed’s “measured” rate increases can now mean an increase of 50 basis points rather than the originally expected increases of a quarter-percent at each Fed meeting. The expectation of higher interest rates lit the fuse and the dollar took off like a rocket today closing at 89.7 on the U.S. Dollar Index, a gain of 1.38%. Of the major currencies, the euro took the biggest hit by dropping 1.79% to 1.2023, the yen fell 0.73% to 0.9084 and the Canadian dollar also fell 0.73% to close at 0.7351. I have to sit back and wonder how much the threat of higher interest rates and the subsequent dollar strength has to do with window dressing for the G-8 Summit (a strong display of power) currently underway along with Treasury auctions worth $25 billion today and tomorrow.

...more..

But, what I found interesting about his editorial was this:
Unless I’m crazy, there hasn’t been much in the news with regard to the twin bills in front of Congress. The bills are identified as “S.89” and “H.R.163.” I went to www.congress.gov and found the following summary of the two bills:

“Universal National Service Act of 2003 – Declares that it is the obligation of every U.S. citizen, and every other person residing in the United States, between the ages of 18 an 26 to perform a two-year period of national service, unless exempted, either as a member of an active or reserve component of the armed forces or in a civilian capacity that promotes national defense. Requires induction into national service by the President. Sets forth provisions governing: 1) induction deferments, postponements, and exemptions, including exemption of a conscientious objector from military service that includes combatant training; and 2) discharge following national service.” It also says the bill, “Amends the Military Selective Service Act to authorize the military registration of females.”

I suspect we aren’t hearing much about this because it probably won’t win many votes in November, but could be implemented as soon as summer next year. Did you ever think your daughter would be facing the draft? This could well be a solution to the ongoing job creation problems we are facing. The complete details of the Universal National Service Act are available on the website shown above. I sure hope this doesn’t happen, but is a distinct possibility for next year. Something to think about…

.......

Its definitely coming folks...the perpetual war is going to start
feeding off the unemployed masses. People that have absolutely ZERO
job prospects will be sucked into pepetual military service. In
a dark sort of way, it makes sense what the neo-cons are doing
with the economy.... Too bad they don't pay attention to history:
The Soviets ran a military based society/economy and they lost
everything...

[tritsofme]

1. Not so sure what the two have to do with eachother

And those bills were introduced by Hagel and Rangel IIRC, to make a point about the fallacy of Iraq, not to reinstitute the draft.