■"In Iraq, Tradesmen Shift to Bleaker Jobs: Violence Creates a Boom in the Business of Death; Carving a Friend's Coffin," by Philip Shiskin, Wall Street Journal, 14 November 2005, p. A20.

Depressing story that speaks to our failure to restart the Iraqi economy: tradesman are trading down on their skills. Instead of making furniture they make coffins.

The need for coffins and their inability to find work is highly related. If there is economic activity and connectivity to the outside world that brings in investment, then's there's a virtous circle of jobs, money in your pockets, and playing up with your skills.

But when there's not, there are idle hands, pissed-off young men, and skilled workers playing down.

The problem isn't that we're not giving Iraq enough aid, it's that the money isn't reaching the pockets of the average Iraqi. Don't build stuff for them, given them money to start economic activity and let the building come on its own.

It's a cute phrase from that baseball movie: build it and they will come. But it's all wrong. We should be thinking "great depression," as in, when nobody had any money. That's the real problem in Iraq: no one has any money. In that situation, they don't need huge sewage treatment plants. They need money.

You wanna build a nation? Build up its people first. Their desire and need drives the infrastructure requirements.

We did this backasswards, and we should learn better, because we're going to be doing this again and again and again to shrink the Gap.