Iraq hurting long-term economic future.
Iraq hurting long-term economic future.
Reuters reports the economic experts are worried about the impact of the Iraq war’s increasing costs. “The short-term economic consequences of the war have been manageable and modest. But the long-term consequences will be substantial,” said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Economy.com. “Much of the problem, economists say, is that every month of combat adds more than $10 billion to a U.S. debt that now tops $9 trillion.”
Robert Reischauer, head of the Urban Institute and a former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said the benefits of war spending for the U.S. economy had been “muted” because so much of the money is spent on goods and services abroad. That, he said, was “stimulating economies elsewhere, not the least being the economies of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.”
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Hey,let’s keep surging. We’ll win bush’s ill-gotten folly if’n we throw enough blood and treasure at it.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:05 pmBaghdad for us is as Moscow was for Napoleon and that other dude.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:06 pmeconomic experts are worried about the impact of the Iraq war’s increasing costs.
Okay, all together now, trolls:
“Nuh-uh”
Cheap Gin, I didn’t hear you…
March 13th, 2008 at 3:08 pmBut will we ever hear the MSM get on the issue and publicize how this foolish and unending war is destroying our country’s economic security? Will we ever see the MSM talk about the fact that the Bush tax cuts will create havoc with vastly greater deficits if extended? Will we ever hear the MSM rebut the Republican party propaganda that they are the party of fiscal responsibility while the Democrats are the party of tax and spend liberals.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:09 pmal-Qaeda’s strategy was never to topple democracies on a field of battle, but economically. They’re out to figuratively “sap our precious bodily fluids,” continuing the Dr. Strangelove theme from yesterday.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:10 pmBaghdad, soon to be renamed Bagbush. Bush is just a bagman for Halliburton, KBR, Bechtel, et al.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:13 pmThe day will come when we have to pay the piper. And then we will be royally screwed. I have the feeling that day is getting closer and closer.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:15 pm$9,000,000,000,000
That’s Nine Trillion dollars, folks. More zeros than Bush’s family tree.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:15 pm$10 BILLION/MONTH?
that’s only the immediate trackable costs……you can probably triple that if you want the TRUE costs.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:19 pmand of course when a Dem administration has to clean up this mess, Republics will be screaming it’s the fault of anyone but the warmongers who JUST HAD to invade Iraq….they probably think invading Iran is just the ticket to economic prosperity…
March 13th, 2008 at 3:20 pmas of today….
9.4 TRILLION
The estimated population of the United States is 303,616,166
so each citizen’s share of this debt is $30,979.49.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/
March 13th, 2008 at 3:21 pmAt $10 MILLION per month, OF COURSE Iraq hurts our economic (and our children’s) future.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:21 pmNo shit.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:25 pmPersonally, I’d like several hundred thousand two color embroidered towels for my $30,000 + contribution.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:26 pmCan I get a troll to pick up my share of this disaster? After all, they’re the ones supporting it!
March 13th, 2008 at 3:27 pmFritz, that’s Billion…
March 13th, 2008 at 3:29 pmI think the new site needs to be called “www.bushbashingiswhyibreath.comâ€
Comment by Thecairngman
You should try it……it lets some of the pus out of folks like you…..course it hurts for a while.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:35 pmFritz, that’s Billion…
Comment by Zimzone
Well, that’s even WORSE!!!
*embarrassment* – thanks for catching that Zimzone>
March 13th, 2008 at 3:36 pmCaringKlown should get his own site “www.BushLickingIsWhyIExist.com”
March 13th, 2008 at 3:37 pmBush to announce new stock-market index…
March 13th, 2008 at 3:39 pmthe Business Security 500 (or BS 500) will include Halliburton, KBR, Defense Contractors and Oil Companies…
Hey, the long-term outlook for the market suddenly looks Bullish!!
I think the new site needs to be called “www.bushbashingiswhyibreath.comâ€
Comment by Thecairngman
I will enjoy the role reversal soon……..we complain about bush but we back it up with facts.
I still remember the sound and the fury that came from your type when Bill Clinton was the president……difference is you guys just sound like a bunch of whiney kids that are mad but you don’t know why…….everything was going so well but you just can’t be happy with that can you?
March 13th, 2008 at 3:42 pmCertain US industries benefited from US WWI neutrality, but far more from US involvement 1917/18. That instituted the conceptual “benefits” of the modern military-industrial complex, but it lay dormant for two decades, thanks to a lack of cause and uncontrolled market speculation ( the Crash of ‘29).
The successes of Nazi Germany and their alliance with a militaristic Japan threatened important US economic gains in the Pacific hemisphere (gained from the Spanish American war) as well as traditional European trade. The totalitarian Nazi ideology was a cultural threat that was also an economic threat–a confluence that HAD to be met, if the US wished to expand its influence and increase its national wealth further.
The US actually went into massive debt in its war effort ( national debt reached 120% of GDP) but the debt was investment which paid-off in the post war years (the Marshall Plan was vitally important in this regard). The UK actually finally satisfied its WWII debt to the US a couple of years ago–a fact that has gone notably unremarked in the US.
The effect of the WWII war effort on the US was remarkable–incredible production and innovation ( and the benefit of technologies provided by the UK (radar, jet propulsion, computers and atomic knowledge) and later by the capture of German scientists and technical records (aerodynamics, chemistry and rocketry).
US industry, expanded by the requirements of total war. found itself with a xapacity and expertise suddenly without a pressing demand. Unlike the 20s and 30s however they had the option to generate demand to match their increased ability to supply as money from the rest of the world flowed back to the US.
In the current circumstances US money has not been invested, but merely spent, and such profits as have been realised have not been redistributed and returned to the many, but to a priviliged and protected few.
For al the war profiteering that occured during WWII the general public earned benefits too. WIth this Iraq war such is not the case, due to its inherent privatisation as a result of an ideology promoted and entrenched by the GOP and its supporters for partisan gain.
March 13th, 2008 at 3:51 pmThe estimated population of the United States is 303,616,166
so each citizen’s share of this debt is $30,979.49.
Comment by rastaman — March 13, 2008 @ 3:21 pm
It’s not just the debt itself that’s killing us — nobody’s being asked right now to pony up their share so we can get the debt retired. No, what’s killing us is the INTEREST on the debt — which was just under $500 billion (that’s half a TRILLION) dollars in 2007. This works out to — hmmm, let’s see — over $1,600 for every man, woman, and child in the U.S. for 2007 (or $6,400 for a family of four). And that DOES have to be paid.
Of course, there’s not enough revenue to cover expenses, so we just get deeper into debt, causing the interest burden to become higher with each passing year. And tax cuts just make this downward spiral move downward a lot faster. Never mind that if it wasn’t for this interest, the budget would be balanced. We’d even have a surplus — or we could lower tax rates and still break even.
That’s YOUR taxes, folks! Next time you think they’re too high, remember what they are going for.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:07 pmComment by Thecairngman
March 13th, 2008 at 4:10 pmWhy isn’t your goat smellin’ ass over there. Afterall you’re such a good cheerleader like your dreeeemy hero “Lips” boosh.
It’s like the War Criminal Bush Administration is trying to destroy the country on purpose, notice those gas prices, which now effect everything you buy, food, heating, clothes.
This is bad, and I fear that just not a recession is on the way, but a depression which will completely destroy this country.
OBL got just what he wanted and the moron Bush delivered it on a golden platter.
It’s too late, the next Pres. (Obama) will not be able to slow down this train wreck.
Bush/Cheney
March 13th, 2008 at 4:31 pmHague Trials ‘09
That, he said, was “stimulating economies elsewhere, not the least being the economies of Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.â€
Kuwait’s economy is also doing much better now that they’ve unpegged their dinar from the falling dollar. Qatar may be next, as the falling dollar is contributing to about 40% of the country’s inflation.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:32 pmAnd guys ignore “thecarelessman”, if you have not noticed it’s total lack of coherent posts, and the mentality of a 8 year old, you haven’t been paying attention.
Plus it tries to post Conservative Humor which an oxymoron to begin with.
March 13th, 2008 at 4:35 pmBecause of people like you
March 13th, 2008 at 4:43 pmHUH? I know it’s hard to be coherent in your Oxy induced stuper,but do try. I’ve done my time, 4 years in the U.S.Army,how about you,DOOFUS!
Kuwait’s economy is also doing much better now that they’ve unpegged their dinar from the falling dollar. Qatar may be next, as the falling dollar is contributing to about 40% of the country’s inflation.
Comment by toasterhead — March 13, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
And just wait until the Saudi’s de-link the dollar in 2009!
March 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pm“Oh, we’ve only just begun… to stag-flate…”
Of course, by 2009 it will be all the democrats fault…
Comment by Thecairngman — March 13, 2008 @ 4:45 pm
(Yawn)
March 13th, 2008 at 4:52 pmIt’s funny, Bush has managed to take the foriegn policy of Gerrmany in 1939 and combine it with the economic policy of Germany in 1923… and re-discover a unique solution to the heating oil crisis!
March 13th, 2008 at 4:58 pmIt’s funny, Bush has managed to take the foriegn policy of Gerrmany in 1939 and combine it with the economic policy of Germany in 1923… and re-discover a unique solution to the heating oil crisis!
Comment by belac — March 13, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
Interesting… Is that why the Treasury is putting out a new $5 bill?
March 13th, 2008 at 5:00 pmInteresting… Is that why the Treasury is putting out a new $5 bill?
Comment by toasterhead — March 13, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
Well, we wouldn’t want people heating their homes with counterfeit currency, would we?
March 13th, 2008 at 5:03 pmActually cairngman 7 trillion of that 9 trillion debt was created by under Republican leaders. And if Stiglitz and Bilmes are correct you can add 3 trillion to that 7 trillion.
Republicans have screamfests about government spending the elect the guys who do the most of it.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:25 pmBush has also assured Poland that the U.S. will (pay to) modernize Poland’s military IF they will allow us to put our anti-missile system in their country.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:43 pmImperial Germany went to war in 1914 thinking that it would make its opponents pay for the war too. After all, they had managed to saddle France in 1871 with an immense reparation bill which had proved a real economic boon for Wilhemine Germany. As WW1 progressed and the butcher’s bill and economic costs zoomed into the stratosphere, Imperial German policy makers determined they would just do the same thing all over again. Their acquisition of Ukraine from the nascent Soviet Union just demonstrated what they had in mind for the Western Allies.
Alas, for the German burghers, WW1 did not turn out quite the way they had planned. Worse, the German middle class had committed itself to financing the Kaiser’s war effort. So, suddenly in 1918, the German high command tells the Kaiser and the German people that they had lost the war, after having been told for three years that events were going swimmingly. Imagine facing the prospect of not receiving that planned war reparation to pay off the enormous war debt Ludendorf and the boys had racked up and the prospect of paying an enormous war reparation to the Allies. Double whammy. The German Reichsbank opted for hyperinflation as its way out of the bind it was in.
We went to war in Iraq being told the war would pay for itself. Then, things didn’t go quite according to plan. We ultimately find ourselves with a potential war debt of somewhere between $3T and $5T, which is still a chunk of change by anyone’s calculation. Worse, our current fiscal posture projects fiscal and trade deficits as far as the eye can see. What other option does the Fed have but to accept hyperinflation to navigate its way out of the morass Republican neocon policies have landed us in? Otherwise, those same policies will demand that any government program of any benefit to the average citizen be eliminated in order to pay for the debt. What fool thinks that the current military budget will survive in such an environment? Once the citizenry turns against government spending, it will be against all government spending. At least we could house the homeless in the aircraft carriers we’ll have moored in former naval bases.
March 13th, 2008 at 5:45 pmal-Qaeda’s strategy was never to topple democracies on a field of battle, but economically. They’re out to figuratively “sap our precious bodily fluids,†continuing the Dr. Strangelove theme from yesterday.
Comment by Badmoodman — March 13, 2008 @ 3:10 pm
The results today are no different than if Bush was conspiring with them.
Everything he has done has facilitated al-Qaeda’s achieving their vision. From drawing us into conflict with a muslim nation/s to the wrecking of our economy.
The dollar nosedives…….petroeconomies are awash in new wealth.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:07 pmThe last 7 years have seen some of the greatest transfers of wealth in U.S. history and it ain’t going to the U.S. middle class.
Kuwait’s economy is also doing much better now that they’ve unpegged their dinar from the falling dollar. Qatar may be next, as the falling dollar is contributing to about 40% of the country’s inflation.
Comment by toasterhead — March 13, 2008 @ 4:32 pm
And just wait until the Saudi’s de-link the dollar in 2009!
“Oh, we’ve only just begun… to stag-flate…â€
Of course, by 2009 it will be all the democrats fault…
Comment by belac — March 13, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
Of course they will wait until their partner in crime is out of office.
March 13th, 2008 at 6:09 pmI think the new site needs to be called “www.bushbashingiswhyibreath.comâ€
How about
March 13th, 2008 at 6:14 pmhttp://www.letsstopthe sociopathbeforehecompletelywreckstheU.S.economystartsWWW3destroysanycompetencyinthe federalgovenmentdestroysanyrespecttheworldhasleftforusandburiesourgrandchildreninamountainofdebttheywillnevercomeoutofandshredstheUSConstitutionandourtraditions