Author Topic: $720 million a day  (Read 1219 times)

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Lanya

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$720 million a day
« on: September 22, 2007, 08:20:17 PM »
War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

By Kari Lydersen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 22, 2007; Page A11

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 -- The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074.html
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Michael Tee

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Re: $720 million a day
« Reply #1 on: September 23, 2007, 12:13:01 PM »
Following the course of the U.S. as it blunders from one costly and disastrous war to another, is like watching the decline of a once-promising young man into a downward spiral of drug addiction, petty crime and squandered talent.  While the rest of the industrialized world seems to have recognized the folly and waste of war, the U.S. seems to be addicted to a cult of death and violence, the slavish public adulation of its death-dealing military forces and the production of ever more deadly and destructive weapons as the solution to all of life's problems.  While most of its traditional rivals in Asia and Europe concentrate on rational and constructive means of conflict solving and economy building, America is diverging further and further onto the path of militarism and war.

I see a cumulative negative effect of the Viet Nam and Iraq wars in just about every area of national life but primarily in the economic and moral areas.  A large part of the daily $720 million is future losses, such as cost of care for the injured, debt interest, etc., some of which is admittedly speculative and ignores the possibility of future advances in health care permitting more effective treatment at lower cost, but one might as well also speculate on more advanced solutions costing exorbitant amounts of money that will be insisted upon for the vets.

Hopefully this is karmic law in action.  What goes around comes around and the evil done by the U.S. in and to the world may be returning enlarged to many times its original size.

Xavier_Onassis

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Re: $720 million a day
« Reply #2 on: September 23, 2007, 03:10:09 PM »
On the other hand, peaceful Canada's dollar has floated ever upward.

Sell Raytheon, invest in Athabaska Tar Sands?
"Time flies like an arrow; fruit flies like a banana."

Amianthus

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Re: $720 million a day
« Reply #3 on: September 23, 2007, 03:20:07 PM »
On the other hand, peaceful Canada's dollar has floated ever upward.

That's good for the tourist industry. More Canadians will want to come to the US.

Also, it makes it cheaper for those who come to the US for medical treatment.
Do not anticipate trouble, or worry about what may never happen. Keep in the sunlight. (Benjamin Franklin)

Michael Tee

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Re: $720 million a day
« Reply #4 on: September 23, 2007, 05:11:56 PM »
<<On the other hand, peaceful Canada's dollar has floated ever upward.>>

It is not just the Canadian dollar which has risen against the U.S. dollar.  Euros and other currency will inevitably rise too, against the U.S. dollar, if they have not already done so. 

If you read Prof. Gabriel Kolko's excellent historical analysis of the Viet Nam war, "Anatomy of a War," he explains how that war's non-stop draining of U.S. dollar reserves led to a weakening of the currency which ultimately forced the U.S. business community, whose voice is the most influential on any issue that it considers of vital interest, to force Mel Laird to deliver to  Nixon the unwelcome news that the time had come to pull the plug on the whole venture. 

When the currency starts to slide, it cannot be allowed to continue indefinitely.  A certain interval can go by, then the process has to stop.  This, and the apparent failure of the "surge" are probably the final signs of the impending withdrawal

BT

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Re: $720 million a day
« Reply #5 on: September 23, 2007, 06:52:30 PM »
Quote
apparent failure of the "surge"

What failure?

Lanya

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