No Serious Game Plan For the Postwar Era
In the wake of the Iraqi offer to withdraw from Kuwait, which could be the first step toward a quick end to the war, the Bush administration's economic plans, based on such a scenario, merit a close look.</br></br>The prospect that the recession, if peace should really come about, would end by mid-year, has been the basis of the spectacular run-up in Wall Street, despite day-by-day bad news in the real economy and the well-advertised possibility of a bloody ground war.</br></br>The stock market, sometimes the nation's most accurate leading indicator, looks beyond current events. But skeptics question whether Wall Street - and the administration - have looked far enough down the road.</br></br>The bull-marketeers are betting that consumer and business confidence will immediately re-emerge after the war is over, lubricated by declining oil prices and low interest rates.</br></br>There can be little doubt that the war's end, when it comes, will bring a sense of relief, generating a positive effect on the economy: Consumers, who have been holding back in buying big-ticket items or spending money on vacations, will loosen up to a substantial extent.