9-11-01: Just another day in America.

What if a faction whithin AQ took hold and vetoed the idea of ANY KIND of attack on the grounds that "

"in AMerica's history when they are attacked on their home soil they ALWAYS react with overpowering force that destroys their attackers. This Always happens. Only when they lack such justification do they vacillate and falter and show weakness. If we attack their homes, even the poorest and most abused AMericans will join with the fat cats to bring us down, if we do not attack them, they will let us act as we choose in the rest of the Arab World."
 

Hnau

Banned
SergeantHeretic said:
What if a faction whithin AQ took hold and vetoed the idea of ANY KIND of attack on the grounds that "

"in AMerica's history when they are attacked on their home soil they ALWAYS react with overpowering force that destroys their attackers. This Always happens. Only when they lack such justification do they vacillate and falter and show weakness. If we attack their homes, even the poorest and most abused AMericans will join with the fat cats to bring us down, if we do not attack them, they will let us act as we choose in the rest of the Arab World."

As I've outlined earlier on, this is very possible. The faction of the Al Qaeda leadership that wanted attacks on American soil, led by Osama Bin Laden, would have lost a lot of face after the 9/11 plot is uncovered by the CIA. Instead, they'll focus their attention on easier targets in the Middle East and the rest of their own hemisphere. It could get pretty nasty there, but it would be a while before someone would try something as big as 9/11 in the United States.

BTW, just because there is no War in Afghanistan or wider War on Terror, just an Iraq War (which will probably wrap up pretty quickly after 2004, doesn't mean that the housing bubble won't burst. Sub-prime lending is still going to be happening, mortgage-backed securities will most likely still happen (a different Congress might be able to nip that in the bud, but I doubt it), and a whole host of other problems will still happen. What's different is potentially we wouldn't be so deep in our deficit spending when the crisis hits, and we could potentially spend more on economic stimulus. That depends on who wins in 2004 and 2008, sure, and what Congress looks like, but chances are we'll have a lot more breathing room than we do now.
 
Yeah, the housing bubble and it's collapse, and the subsequent problems on Wall Street due to all the financial instruments tied to housing is still going to happen even without 9/11, unless you get a Congress and President that suddenly decides to crack down on sub-prime mortgage lending and regulate credit default swaps, but that's unlikely.

Even adjusting for inflation, house prices were already outpacing the historical trend between 1999 and 9/11/2001. The lowered rates set by the Fed and the long period they held it there caused those prices to take off rapidly between 2002-2004 and even after they began raising rates the bubble continued to grow for another couple of years. So without 9/11 you probably won't get rates as low or for the same length of time, but that still won't stop housing prices to continue to rise above the historical trend. That means the bubble will grow at a slightly slower pace than OTL.

But no matter what, as soon as housing prices start to correct themselves and drop back toward the trend line, all those crazy mortgages will begin defaulting and pretty soon afterward the troubles on Wall Street we saw in 2008 will begin. It just might be delayed a year or two.
 
Yeah, the housing bubble and it's collapse, and the subsequent problems on Wall Street due to all the financial instruments tied to housing is still going to happen even without 9/11, unless you get a Congress and President that suddenly decides to crack down on sub-prime mortgage lending and regulate credit default swaps, but that's unlikely.

Even adjusting for inflation, house prices were already outpacing the historical trend between 1999 and 9/11/2001. The lowered rates set by the Fed and the long period they held it there caused those prices to take off rapidly between 2002-2004 and even after they began raising rates the bubble continued to grow for another couple of years. So without 9/11 you probably won't get rates as low or for the same length of time, but that still won't stop housing prices to continue to rise above the historical trend. That means the bubble will grow at a slightly slower pace than OTL.

But no matter what, as soon as housing prices start to correct themselves and drop back toward the trend line, all those crazy mortgages will begin defaulting and pretty soon afterward the troubles on Wall Street we saw in 2008 will begin. It just might be delayed a year or two.

Which could have interesting consequences for an alternate successor to George W. Bush.
 
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