While services are vital, it takes something far greater than social services to end homelessness. It takes a willingness to risk on our part. The homeless will be with us so long as we are willing to exclude them from our lives. But if we take a risk, make ourselves vulnerable, we just might make an impact.

Editor's note: This may be double-posted, since OlyBlog seems to be trapped in Groundhog Day (as Crenshaw put it).

Since we recently touched on whether there is money to be made in Iraq, I thought this was an interesting read.

Newsweek (Dec 25-Jan 1): "Blood and Money":

Consider Iraqna, the leading mobile-phone company. For sure, its quarterly reports seldom make for dull reading. Despite employees kidnapped, cell-phone towers bombed, storefronts shot up and a huge security budget—up to four guards for each employee—the company posted revenues of $333 million in 2005. This year, it's on track to take in $520 million.

Real estate is booming. Construction, retail and wholesale trade sectors are healthy, too, according to a report by Global Insight in London.

National oil revenues and foreign grants look set to total $41 billion this year, according to the IMF.

Unfortunately, this money is largely going toward security, a poor investment in the long-term. But the light at the end of the tunnel? The price of real estate.

Real-estate prices have risen several hundred percent, suggesting that Iraqis are more optimistic about the future than most Americans are.

So is a pullout of U.S. troops the best thing?

The withdrawal of a certain great power could drastically reduce the foreign money flow, and knock the crippled economy flat.

I think it's time to work hand-in-hand with private industry in Iraq, figure out a way for the United States to recoup as much money as possible and get down to the dirty business of ensuring the security situation is stable enough for that money to be made.