The Three Trillion Dollar War

The Three Trillion Dollar War
By Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz

A few comments:

Bush's Iraqi adventure will cost America - just America - a conservatively estimated $3 trillion.

Even one of these trillions could have paid for: 8 million housing units, or 15 million public school teachers, or healthcare for 530 million children for a year, or scholarships to university for 43 million students. Three trillion could have fixed America's social security problem for half a century. America, says Stiglitz, is currently spending $5bn a year in Africa, and worrying about being outflanked by China there: "Five billion is roughly 10 days' fighting, so you get a new metric of thinking about everything."

Oh Bush & Co save money:

You lose your helmet, you have to pay. If you get blown up and you lose your helmet, they still bill you." One soldier was sued for $12,000 even though he had suffered massive brain damage. Some families have had to buy their children body armour, saving the government costs in the short term; those too poor to afford it sustain injuries that the government then has to pay for.

at interest of couple of hundred billion dollars a year, which, by 2017, will add up to another trillion dollars or so. This government will be gone in nine months; subsequent administrations, and generations, will have to pay it off.


Michael

 

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Yeah, but the oilmen making all the decisions in the country know that the money used to fight the war is not coming out of their pockets. They waste the country's money, sitting back and reaping the illustrious oil rewards.

Yahoo! had an article out today claiming that studies showed the Iraq War cost $12,000,000,000 a month (yes, that's nine zeroes).

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080309/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_war_costs

 

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How dare you question the Republican Fuhrer?

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WAR IS PEACE. IGNORANCE IS KNOWLEDGE.

 

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So when does the US go broke?

 

It already is. It is borrowing money to stay affloat.

 

Didn't GW run several companies into the ground, after being handed the reins by his pa?

I wouldn't sell the guy a horse, that's for sure.

 

Ahhh Yes the good ole' Ministry of Truth

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War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

Gee I miss those simpler days gone by....

It's a little known fact George Orwell actually wanted to name his book 2004 - Reelection The Rise of Pecker-Head but Secker and Warburg thought nineteen Eighty Four sounded more omnimus and while the theme in 1984 was sound, there was no way people could be so idiotic as to reelected some one of the likes of President Shrub - too much fantasy, 1984 was more the likely and thus the choice.

Good Publishers those two

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Michael

Love for Julia has been replaced by love for Big Brother - the only form of love that is approved in Oceania. Scarily, there are places were the love of the imaginary really is the only approved love.

 

Senators: Where is Iraq's oil money going?

I suspect soon, Iraq will begin the process of being drained dry - it's the only acceptable solution to Joe SUV American.

 

The article appears to be reporting from a position some distance above actual ground.

Iraq has no government. The oil being pumped is not even metered at the wellhead, last I heard, and has not been at any time. (there was a project to install meters that was supposed to be in progress now, but I can't find any word on it). The US money spent on "reconstruction" in Iraq has never been audited - much of it was paid in cash to parties unknown for services never verified. What little auditing has been successfully and thoroughly completed has found massive fraud and waste.

My guess would be that as high a percentage of the US money has ended up in banks outside of Iraq - and outside of the US - as Iraqi money from oil sales.

 

Next administration will not be able to "pay it off." US economy is already sliding down and with it the net IRS collections. (Soon GWB & Co. will have the IRS sending out printing press dollars, this time not just to the already rich.)*

Thus the next administration will be lucky if it can still borrow money to pay the INTEREST on the GWB doubled debt. The worst ever depression is inevitable now. It comes within months after the run on the dollar. That will be in the 6 year window starting this October, as I specified couple of years ago (well before you ever heard the words "subprime mortgage").

All you can do is vote for McCain and other Republicans to make sure they do not pass the blame onto the Democrats in office when the dollar run triggers the depression.
--------------------
*Expect more than that, if needed, to get to end of GWB's term before dollar does collapse. Probably a mandatory moratorium on forecloses -but I am just guessing. It is an election year -that is when the Republicans discover Joe American still exists even if he has not been sending in any big campaign checks to deserved "special considerations."

 

But the Republicans will continue to get away with this idea that they cut taxes and are for small government.

The current and future medical costs, including psychiatric, rehabilitative, surgical, etc., for veterans of the war will also cost taxpayers directly and indirectly for a couple of generations.

And this will be no small sum.

 

Billy T,

how does the run on the dollar affect places like, say, Japan, China, Australia, Germany or England? If the USA tanks then doesn't that mean other currencies must go up?

Also, does GW have the authority to actually force the press to print money? can't they just say - nope.

lastly, is it right that people who borrowed form the banks DON'T get boned for borrowing to much? I mean - they borrow the money right? So they just go back to renting I suppose? Which is, I guess, where they're suppose to be anyway? Right?

Michael

 

#@$%^$#*&^%&& TAXES!!!!!!!!

3 Trillion dollars divided by 300 million people = $10,000 + interest per person in the USA. Half of these people pay little or no taxes. My share then is going to be....ugh no, I don't want to know.

And I have to pay all this for what? I think the NeoCons little experiment makes Americans more hated and less safe. And we don't even get to keep the oil??!!!! Damn those idiot Neocon bastards and damn the fools who elected them.

 

Congress gave Bush the authority to invade Iraq. The vote was 296-133 in the House and 77-23 in the Democrat-controlled Senate. So, I suppose you could also say 'Damn those idiot Democrat bastards and damn the fools who elected them'. Most politicians just jump on whatever bandwagon that happens to be rolling by. Bandwagons are popular on sciforums too.

 

Basically yes to all. All the cuntries you named plus many other like Brazil have already had very significant increase in the currency WRT dollar (even China is up16% YoY despite their efforts to "soft tie" it to the dollar. The Brazian Real will now buy about twice as manny dollars as it did 3 or 4 years ago.

I do not know if GWB can order printing of more dollars, but heand congress can spend dollars that the IRS etc do not collect and so it is the same effect when the treasury can not borrow them. Govenment workers, bond interest etc will be paid.

 

Your realizations and responses are someting Israel should be concerned about. - Joe American will soon come to the same conclusion about aid to Israel.

 

No, you couldn't. Failure to stop disaster is not as guilty as planning and launching it.

The Dems in the House voted against it, 3:2. It wouldn't have passed without the almost unanimous Republican vote in both Houses. The Iraq War was and is a Republican Party project dominated by the current administration. So was the reduction of oversight of the financial and banking sector, the large tax cuts and other tax favoritism toward the wealthy, the bidding and contracting system installed, and the variosu subsidy boosts and expansions, et etc etc. No Dems had much say, or do now. This has not been a bipartisan folly, essentially not since '81.

 

The Dems were lied to. But they are responsible for either being stupid or cowardly or both. The Reps are resposible for being war mongering greedy or stupid or cowardly or all three.

 

I consider the Clintons "Neocon light" in their foreign policy. If Hillary gets 8 years in office, I expect the US to still have 50,000 + slodiers in Iraq at the end of the 8 years.
More trillions down the drain. My Senator, Democrat Diane Feinstein is a Neocon, and a corporate welfare whore. Anybody who votes for her is part of the problem.

I didn't say Republicans were the problem. Republican Ron Paul is not frivolous with my tax dollars. In the House, six Republicans -- Ron Paul of Texas; Connie Morella of Maryland; Jim Leach of Iowa; Amo Houghton of New York; John Hostettler of Indiana; and John Duncan of Tennessee -- joined 126 Democrats in voting against the resolution. Republican Senator Lincoln Chafee was part of the 23.

Anybody who votes to re-elect anybody who was not part of the 133 or the 23 is part of the problem.

These 29 Democrats were part of the 77. Edwards outright apologized.
Max Baucus (D-MT)
Evan Bayh (D-IN)
Joe Biden (D-DE)
John Breaux (D-LA)
Maria Cantwell (D-WA)
Jean Carnahan (D-MO)
Tom Carper (D-DE)
Max Cleland (D-GA)
Hillary Clinton (D-NY)
Tom Daschle (D-SD)
Christopher Dodd (D-CT)
Byron Dorgan (D-ND)
John Edwards (D-NC)
Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)
Tom Harkin (D-IA)
Fritz Hollings (D-SC)
Tim Johnson(D-SD)
John Kerry (D-MA)
Herb Kohl (D-WI)
Mary Landrieu (D-LA)
Joe Lieberman (D-CT)
Blanche Lincoln (D-AR)
Zell Miller (D-GA)
Ben Nelson (D-NE)
Bill Nelson (D-FL)
Harry Reid (D-NV)
Jay Rockefeller (D-WV)
Chuck Schumer (D-NY)
Robert Torricelli (D-NJ)
These Senators should not be reelected. They waste our tax dollars.

 

They knew or should have been able to guess what the lies were. There are a lot of Dems who believe large parts of Neocon theory. Some Democrats are Neocons or Neocon light, they also need to be gotten rid of. Neoconservatism is wrong. US foreign policy is too important to allow people who believe in Neoconservatism to remain in congress.

Some may just be cowards. We need to get the cowards out of congress.

Corporate Welfare is fraud. Voting based on campaign contributions is fraud. If a congress person voted for the war to make defense contractors happy, they need to be gotten rid of.

Some may just believe what ever the last person they talked to said. And they talk to the wrong people. They are too manipulable and or stupid to be in congress. They need to be gotten rid of.