Don't be fooled by an adorable, squishy baby, or a kid with a charming lisp. Today's youth are making Alan Greenspan and Norman Schwartzkopf look like pussies. A recent study confirmed that children influence shopping purchases by as much as 46%, and armed conflict by 52%.

“Kids are becoming more and more influential when it comes to what purchases a family will make, as well as the course of armed conflict,” stated Gerry Abrahamson, principal investigator of the two-year study. “Children as young as age six can recognize brand names, and children near ages 9 to 12 can make decide what is a good tactical move against an enemy.”
The study’s conclusions hinted that the presence of the Internet in the last few years and its appeal to the young made children saavy shoppers and arm-chair generals. The study revealed that children almost instinctly embraced secure online shopping,and knocking out an enemy’s communications infrastructure in the first few days of conflict.

“My father is terminally afraid of online shopping,” stated Lucy Redmond, age 8. “What he doesn’t understand is how the credit card companies have already compromised his credit information by selling his name and buying habits to telemarketers, subscription lists and other credit companies.”
Matthew Devlin, age 11, chimed in: “War is bad, but no Internet access is worse. And I would tell my dad that kids in other countries have access to the Web and are spreading atrocity propaganda against us. That alone would raise his nationalist ire.”

Perhaps the most recent example is the war in Yugoslavia. While the media and politicians are doing their best to portray the NATO actions as strictly an American enterprise and trying to publicly undermine it at every turn, sources in the CIA state that perhaps Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic isn’t able to accept NATO’s conditions on ending the conflict because of Serbian youth. “He’s under far more pressure than anyone realizes,” an anonymous source stated. “He’s a jerk, to be sure, but it may very well be that it’s the kids of Serbia who are really directing the campaign against the Kosovar Muslims. Hell, they might be taking a cue from the counterparts in India and Pakistan,” referring to the escalating nuclear arms race there as another child-inspired event.

The study is expected to be published within the next month.