ability to bring dollars back home without pay a heavy price or penalty? how do they respond to that? and what do you think they are going to do with the next administration, whether it s obama or romney, to push them in the right direction? look, personally, i think the repatriation issue is a side show. i m not saying it s completely irrelevant, but it s really not the point for reasons i can explain. the real problem in this country or the two problems we have to deal with are overleveraging at the household level and overleveraging at the government level. the corporate sector is in very good shape financially. it s the households and the government that are still overleveraged and trying to work their way out of that debt. and the second problem is the continuing downward pressure on wages in this country. what people don t notice in those monthly unemployment numbers is they also announce the weekly earnings figures, and earnings are simply not going up. they haven t recovered
respect in the absence of americans that had the overwhelming force to drive it down everyone s throat. enormous relief here that these troops will be coming home given the vast sacrifices made financially and indeed in terms of the lives of people. what do you think ordinary families are thinking? are they celebrating the document by the president? that depends on who you ask. iraq has paid a heavy, heavy price. 100,000 iraqis have died. iraqis have paid dearly and some of them are going to say is america s involvement after nine years brought about a better iraq? that s a very tough question. is it on the right path? some will be concerned. we can say that today s document by president obama did not come as a result of agreement, but came as a result of the absence of an agreement which is that the iraqis could not provide