“When you’re spending over $50 to fill up your car because the price of oil is four times what it was before Iraq, you’re paying a price for this war. When Iraq is costing each household about $100 a month, you’re paying a price for this war…”
“And the price our families and communities are paying reflects the price America is paying. The most conservative estimates say that Iraq has now cost more than half a trillion dollars, more than any other war in our history besides World War II. Some say the true cost is even higher and that by the time it’s over, this could be a $3 trillion war…”- excerpts from a speech by Barack Obama on the war.
Finally, a politician is speaking the truth about why our economy is in a tailspin. With oil costing $100 a barrel, we are experiencing the double whammy of both the budgeted cost of the Iraq invasion and the hidden cost of energy price increases in every thing we buy, including necessities such as food and electricity. It is not very complicated. When folks need to spend more on necessities, they spend less at the mall and save less.
It’s the war, stupid.
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3 comments:
No, it's not (just) the war. The war is certainly a contributing factor, but the American economy has been running on borrowed time (and money) for several decades now. See e.g.:
http://falkvinge.com/2008/03/why-us-is-collapsing.html
for a detailed analysis.
In WWII we spent over half of GDP during the war. We now spend a fraction, annually, of what we spent during the 45 years of the Cold War,currently maybe 2.5% on defense. Our GDP is fast approaching $14 trillion per annum and there has been no surtax to pay for this war. So what is the nexus between our present economic condition and our war on terror?
When the invasion of Iraq began in 2003 the price of oil was $25 a barrel. Now 5 years later it is over $100 a barrel. The effect of this on our economy is not a trifle. And with the price of oil sky rocketing more and more dollars pour into Saudi Arabia and finance Al Qaeda. Had we concentrated our efforts on the war on terror in Afghanistan instead of this horrible distraction of invading Iraq, we and the world would be in a much better place today.
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