“You’d think,” goes the breathless text in this PowerhouseProfts.net
testimonial, “You’d think with both the Iraq and Afghanistan wars well
under way and with the war on terrorism being more than two years old
that the share price of any bullet proof vest manufacturer would be
fully valued. Not so!”
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I know it's sad and I truly hope that peace will return to these regions but I happen to own that stock (at least I this it's the stock that he talks about) and so far it has doubled in the last couple of months. It was recommend in one of the motley fool investment letters and I bought it after reading it (and the war was not the reason why they mentioned it; it had good fundamentals and was undervalued (at that time)).
Do I feel bad about owning this stock? A little, but I also know that owning this stock or not is not going to impact that length of the unrest.
Nevertheless the headline is certainly awful and even disgusting.
BTW the stock is DHB
Hey, Richard, I understand completely.
The "family business" run by my great-uncle on my mom's side is P.B. Dionisio, which once (and may still be) the go-to dealer for firearms in the Philippines. We'll never know how much his sales contributed to the country's ills (the Marcos regime, the sorry-even-for-communists New People's Army) or good (some security guards, some police, much of the military, especially when they're dealing with Abu Sayyaf), but it's a fair bit that there's a little of each. I know the man, and he's not just some guy profiting off the darker impulses of the human soul, but someone who's trying to make a living of what he knows best -- firearms -- and someone who's trying to contribute to the general security of a place that's well-known for not being secure. You know how it is: third world + former spanish colony = lawlesspalooza!
Anyhow, regardless of the way one feels about the deployment of troops to Iraq (my thinking is "right invasion, wrong country"), the US Armed Forces do dangerous work in dangerous places and should have the best protective gear they can get their hands on. I might have different feelings about mines and cluster bombs, but not with something defensive like body armour. As for the police, it's often hip to talk about what "fascists" they are, but as Gideon Strauss (who's from South Africa) and I will attest, try living in a country where lawlessness reigns supreme.
I agree with you about PowerhouseProfits.net's headline. The tone puts me right off. I have no problem with the profit motive, but the profit motive to the exclusion of all else is just plain wrong.
...then let me see:
let's part you: your family: your family's friends: your family's friend's family: your family's friend's family's friend's -- all down the line until we can fill a small and desolate country with you and all of these individuals:
..then let us proceed to invade your country on false accusations --that your country has been involved in terrorist activities where there clearly exists no evidence whatsoever (..no weapons: no funds to weapons: no weapons to fund: nothing at all but accusations...) but let us now begin an occupation of your country where we can begin to systematically abuse you: your family: your friends: your friend's families: your family's friends: and all down the line with torture: with false imprisonments: with beatings and rapes: with murders and sudden acts of 'disappearances' where your mother: your father: and any possible siblings can no longer be traced nor found at all:
and then lets sit around and talk about how well the invading country's stocks are doing so well and how this 'war' has fueled the economy despite the fact that you and your friends and families and friend's families and family's friends are pretty much fucked because they are standing before a greedy and corrupt system that carries nothing about human life because the stocks are doubling and tripling and there doesn't seem an end in sight as long as the murders and brutality continues...
your response to the fact that this seems all right reflects your own contemptous view towards life that doesn't involve you at all: that as long as those others over there are getting 'what they deserve' and your stocks continue to make you more money then you are not going to have to deal with any of this at all are you....
except to spend that blood money that has tainted your essence and your spirit as you sit there and like the other fool's comment --- attempt to justify yourself with this soft sale about lawlessness and how body armour represents a 'good investment'...
but perhaps you and mr. strauss need to ask yourself the most basic question --why does supreme lawlessness exist within africa and any other country where corruption and betrayal also exists with the concept of a governing body (...i believe i have just answered that question for you now didn't i...)
....this type of parasitism has been going on for many centuries: where the weak become fodder for the grinding wheels to make money and more money from this exploitation -- but for all of the body armour to invest in soliders are still dying in iraq and those cluster bombs and landmines are part of the total package:
blood money means blood money means people are being slaughtered and slain to make you and the other fools more money that you can't take with you when you die and that won't save the lives of those brutualised and destroyed because a facist country called the united states has decided to wage war on a country of brown skinned people.....
being half cherokee and half african: i am very aware of history -- your soft sale smacks of ignorance and your need to get in on the action smacks of a soulless and petty individual whom would be very fortunate to suffer the loss of friend in iraq whom didn't die for 'justice' but whom died for the greed and corruption of invidiuals such as yourself.....
Whoa, buddy.
I'm actually not a supporter of the Iraq war -- I think the claims made by the Bush administration linking Iraq to 9/11 are far too tenuous. I believe that if one really "follows the money", it traces back to Saudi Arabia, not Iraq.
I'm not "getting in on the action", either. I don't own any of these stocks.
The rest I'd be tempted to answer, but I stilll have a few hours of vacation left, and given your vicious tone, you don't strike me as the reasonable debating type. I have better things to do.
Excellent!