That's a lotta simoleans

March 18, 2006 2:08 PM

Cost of Iraq war may exceed $1 trillion dollars. That number is hard to comprehend. To get a grip on it, observe that the CIA says the average annual purchasing power of Iraqi citizens is $3,400, and there are about 7,500,000 males between 15-65 years old in Iraq. Divide this out, and it turns out that by the time we're "done" with Iraq, we could have hired each and every man in Iraq and paid them their average annual income for 39 years. Yup - we could have hired every man in Iraq for their entire career. In the past, when great pharaohs hired thousands (let alone millions) of men for decades, he'd have some big damned pyramids or something to show for it.
posted by gregor-e (96 comments total)

"Sire, the slaves are revolting."
"Yes, they are."
posted by mischief at 2:14 PM on March 18, 2006

no one had bigger stones than the pharoahs ...
posted by pyramid termite at 2:23 PM on March 18, 2006

why we fight
posted by nitsuj at 2:23 PM on March 18, 2006

I sure wish I could get that kind of job security.
posted by sswiller at 2:27 PM on March 18, 2006

At this point I'm not so concerned with the actual, huge, dollar amount of the war. At this point I'm not so concerned with all of the other, quite probably more practical, things such a dollar amount could have provided for the Iraqi's. At this point I am concerned with the answer to one question: WHY are we fighting this war?

And please, don't say "terrorists", "WMD's", or "the spread of democracy"....
posted by Raoul.Duke at 2:34 PM on March 18, 2006

'Why we fight' is a good recommendation (and a good movie). Among other things, it contains the shortest, most succinct explanation of modern Mideast history that I've heard. Blowback is a bitch.

Back in the day, Eisenhower recognized that "Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. The world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."
posted by jellicle at 2:36 PM on March 18, 2006

What a fine investment.
posted by caddis at 2:38 PM on March 18, 2006

"WHY are we fighting this war?"

Look at a map. Note Iraq's strategic location as it relates to Russia's oil fields and the Indian Ocean. Also, Turkey/SE Europe.
posted by mischief at 2:45 PM on March 18, 2006

umm, so the Pharaoh was an employer now?
A trillion is a lot of money, though, you're right.
I've found that since 2000 the numbers (at first positive "$5 trillion surplus! it's your money!", and later negative "Enron accounting scam hides billions of losses") have gotten staggeringly high, so as to effectively blow the mind of any rational soul.
the best part is that they fired the Lindsey, who estimated it'd cost $200 billion, because that would sap the support.
posted by Busithoth at 2:52 PM on March 18, 2006

Out of curiosity, what would it have cost to just buy up their oilfields outright?
posted by Soliloquy at 2:53 PM on March 18, 2006

Soliloquy: 112 billion barrels times between 15 and 50 dollars a barrel: ~1.5 to ~5.5 trillion dollars. So we're actually getting a pretty good deal!
posted by hoverboards don't work on water at 3:01 PM on March 18, 2006

What, no quantity discount?
posted by caddis at 3:02 PM on March 18, 2006

Why did Eisenhower hate America?
posted by orthogonality at 3:04 PM on March 18, 2006

Busithoth - Okay, so the pharohs paid their employees in "coin of the spirit", i.e.: 'you do this work, we keep your spirit right where it is, capisce?'

Soliloquy - Iraq's proven reserves are 112.5 billion bbl. With oil now going for $63/bbl, that would come to a bit over $7 trillion. Of course, that's today's prices and it assumes you can get all 112.5 billion bbl out of the ground. Still, with oil costs sure to rise, yet only about half that oil actually being usable, we still end up in that upper-single-digit-trillion ballpark.
posted by gregor-e at 3:05 PM on March 18, 2006

Nitsuj's link completes this post.

Would Eisenhower be villified as a treasonous radical liberal if he delivered his speech in 2003?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:10 PM on March 18, 2006

Eisenhower was a conservative. In America, they don't exist any more.
posted by bardic at 3:11 PM on March 18, 2006

This seems like a good time to paraphrase a quote from the book "Innumeracy":

One million seconds takes about 11 days to tick by. A billion seconds would take almost 32 years. A trillion seconds equals 32,000 years.
posted by Turtles all the way down at 3:13 PM on March 18, 2006

I'm perfectly aware of that. Still, the question remains, would he be slandered as a traitorous liberal by the "conservatives" of today?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 3:15 PM on March 18, 2006

Thank God Congress just set a new federal debt limit at $9 trillion.
posted by ericb at 3:20 PM on March 18, 2006

I'm perfectly aware of that. Still, the question remains, would he be slandered as a traitorous liberal by the "conservatives" of today?
posted by [expletive deleted] at 6:15 PM EST on March 18 [!]

Absolutely.
posted by juiceCake at 3:22 PM on March 18, 2006

Although it's an interesting and politically useful analogy to make, the comparison to hiring all male Iraqis (or universal health care, or a universal one-off issue of Maseratis to all Americans, which could be done at that price) is avoiding the larger issue. See, the US didn't and doesn't "have" that money, all at one time in one place. Much of it is recirculated. For instance, consider money given to soldiers: it is largely paid on some schedule. I don't know US Army pay cycles, but I'll take an educated guess that almost all soldiers are paid on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly payday. There will be some incidental variations and one-off payments such as up-front advances and final payouts, but on the whole, "cost of soldiers" is more validly expressed as $x per pay cycle rather than as a total over N pay cycles. Between pay cycles, soldiers spend the money given to them, much of which finds its way back to the US Treasury, to be given out again a few pay cycles later. Even if they don't personally spend it, the bank(s) in which their money is kept will spend it. Banks have not had their total financial stock on hand for hundreds of years - they exist in financial flux.

So, the $1T spent on pursuing the Iraq war can be viewed as, at a specific time, a total of amounts in various places that can be considered "Iraq war" related. Had the decision been made to stop pursuing the Iraq war, where else would money be, and would that be better?

Note that the question is not "where would [i]the[/i] money be", because there is no "[i]the[/i] money". The Bush administration, US Congress and US Treasury have "created" some of the money paid to war suppliers such as the Haliburton corporation, to soldiers who would otherwise not have received it, to mercenaries of various nationalities, etc. They didn't have the money, until they said that they did have the money, and were believed, and hence, those who they paid now have the money. Of course this is dangerous, and requires tremendous power over the world's finances, to do it on such a scale.

The repercussion is the US deficit. If the Americans are stupid enough and the world unfortunate enough that a Bush-aligned control of the USA continues after the next election, my prediction is that that administration will divest itself of the deficit by fiat, and defy the world to do anything about it. Actually, a Democrat administration may have to do the same, at least to some extent of the debt. In either case the consequences for US international trade will be dire.

So the answer is, if they had stopped (or never started) pursuing the Iraq war, the money would be nowhere, and this would be much, much better for the USA.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 3:24 PM on March 18, 2006

Eisenhower also recognized, in that very same speech, that:

The amassing of the Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of aggression. It compelled them in self-defense to spend unprecedented money and energy for armaments. It forced them to develop weapons of war now capable of inflicting instant and terrible punishment upon any aggressor.

It instilled in the free nations-and let none doubt this-the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war.

Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap.
posted by techgnollogic at 3:31 PM on March 18, 2006

I can't wait until the whole Iraq thing is sorted out and we can start enjoying all that extra freedom we've been paying for.
posted by mcsweetie at 3:37 PM on March 18, 2006

techgnollogic; can you even read? That statement isn't equivalent to "This is the way it is." It's equivalent (due to "it instilled in the free nations") to "This is the way we're choosing to see it, due to the perceived Soviet threat.

Was there a true Soviet threat? Well, that's certainly up for debate, and has been for decades now. See The Power of Nightmares for some more information.

What exactly have you done with your freedom lately?
posted by odinsdream at 3:39 PM on March 18, 2006

Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap.

Eisenhower, if he were alive today, would bitchslap you for tying this idiotic invasion to "freedom."
posted by Space Coyote at 3:41 PM on March 18, 2006

If Eisenhower wanted to deliver that speech today he would have to do so in front of 12 people at an alternative book store, one of whom would write about it in the local free weekly. Then, Charles Krauthammer, Bill O'Reilly, Jonah Goldberg, Andrew Sullivan, Rush Limbaugh and Joe Scarborough would spend weeks telling millions of people that he's an anti-American traitor and the single biggest reason why their lives suck.
posted by aaronetc at 3:43 PM on March 18, 2006

techgno - spare us the drivel of the cost of freedom. . .
what this is about is the cost of not-freedom, not-liberation and not-security.

You think the trillion is going to leverage you one iota of phreedom? This is more an issue of throwing good money after bad. How much of that does your phreedom require?
posted by isopraxis at 3:43 PM on March 18, 2006

"they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war"
posted by 2sheets at 3:43 PM on March 18, 2006

So we're actually getting a pretty good deal!

If by "good deal" you mean: spending a large portion of what it would have cost to buy the fields outright, and getting nothing in return. Other than, of course, the dead Americans, rising national debt, loss of international credibility, and enduring hatred of a brutalized population.

Good deal!
posted by nakedcodemonkey at 3:46 PM on March 18, 2006

Good Deal!
posted by 2sheets at 3:47 PM on March 18, 2006

"Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap."


You know, I bet those suicide bombing "terrorists" who are out to "destroy your way of life" have a very, very clear conception of the cost of "freedom".
posted by Raoul.Duke at 3:50 PM on March 18, 2006

Thank you, aeschenkarnos. I think that you stated that very well. We never had the money.
It's like this whole war was created, and paid for, out of pure air.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 3:51 PM on March 18, 2006

'You know, I bet those suicide bombing "terrorists" who are out to "destroy your way of life" have a very, very clear conception of the cost of "freedom".'

lol

terra! terra!

duck'n'cover!11!!!
posted by mr_crash_davis at 3:59 PM on March 18, 2006

umm, so the Pharaoh was an employer now?

Most likely.
posted by dhartung at 4:06 PM on March 18, 2006

techgnollogic Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap.

"Freedom" as you are trying to define it doesn't exist. The best humans can hope for are societies where we're more or less free to do what we want so long as no-one else is harmed. This comes with a huge weight of moral responsibility. Republicans are shirking the responsibilities of freedom in pursuit of short-term financial gain for their support base, which may be roughly summarized as evil corporations. They do this partially by exploiting the gullibility of the economically ignorant, like you, and the hatred and fears of religious lunatics.

What action of the Bush administration has in any way advanced the "freedom" of any real human being, anywhere? Can you point to even one?

Also, "not cheap" has a difference in degree from "unsustainably expensive". Your vulnerability to this rhetorical device, ie telling you "it's not cheap" while spending ludicrous amounts of money on doing things that will not achieve any end goal you might sanely desire, is your fault. "We guys" are the ones in touch with reality, because economic analysis is a device of reality, and economic analysis has shown over and over and over what the horrible consequences of Bush's policies are and will be. It's not in any reasonable doubt.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:06 PM on March 18, 2006

Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap.

Of course freedom doesn't come cheap - especially when a country single-handedly starts an arms race unlike any the world could have ever imagined, held much of the world hostage for air and missle bases in exchange for "protection" from the so-called Red Menace, fuelled the paranoia through fear, uncertainty and doubt and otherwise acted like a scared little rain soaked chimpanzee - even though they were really already the biggest, baddest silverback ape in the jungle.

And what freedoms did we grant ourselves during this dark and darkening age? McCarthyism? A pervasive, stultifying nightmare of conformity in nearly all facets of American life? A vast empire of government meddling in media and censorship? Thousands of square miles of ruined, poisoned lands? A pervasive culture of violence and doom? An unstoppable juggernaut of might-equalling-right?

Insanity.

What if they threw a war and nobody came?

I don't think we've actually tried that one, yet.

How many violent, angry Iraqi "insurgents" would there be if, say, instead of bombing the shit out of their country, we simply built them a bunch of schools, hospitals, museums and the like? It would probably cost a lot less.

I believe that a man is the strongest soldier for daring to die unarmed.

A coward is incapable of exhibiting love; it is the prerogative of the brave.

The pursuit of truth does not permit violence on one's opponent.

We must become the change we want to see in the world.

In a gentle way, you can shake the world.

-Mahatma Gandhi

posted by loquacious at 4:15 PM on March 18, 2006

Thank God Congress just set a new federal debt limit at $9 trillion.

When you pass that will you please invade yourselves?
posted by dobbs at 4:23 PM on March 18, 2006

What if we declared war on ourselves, and all became war profiteers?
We would have wages going toward fighting the war, and lawsuits going to people whose lives are damaged because of the war. Everyone could cash in!
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 4:39 PM on March 18, 2006

As an aside..
I was in Las Vegas NV this christmas and read in the local paper where several local companies received compensation from the 9/11 compensation funds.
Local companies like a car wash, baby daycare, two Supercuts, Vet services, tanning salon, construction trash removal, etc. all received funds, often in the hundred thousand, and a couple past a million, for "adverse buisiness directly related to the 9/11 terrorist attack"
This was a news piece on fraud.
The fund managers said that there was a very low threshhold to accepting claimants. Basically, all you had to do was have a buisiness operating durring and after 9/11.

I sure hope there isn't any of this funny buisiness going on in the current war/struggle.
Katrina either.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 4:51 PM on March 18, 2006

Here's an article on how and why kleptocracies fail.
posted by aeschenkarnos at 4:56 PM on March 18, 2006

Thanks for that pyramid-research link, dhartung.
posted by cgc373 at 5:06 PM on March 18, 2006

'I hate to say it, but we were better off under Saddam.'
posted by fold_and_mutilate at 5:12 PM on March 18, 2006

"Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap."

BTW -- a vast majority of the American people aren't buying Bush's mandate from God:

Only 3% of Americans believe Bush decided to go to war to free the Iraqis or promote democracy. [CBS News Poll -- PDF | March 13, 2006].
posted by ericb at 5:39 PM on March 18, 2006

I think we were better off with Saddam about 2 years and 333 days ago.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 5:40 PM on March 18, 2006

"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose."
posted by ericb at 5:41 PM on March 18, 2006

Wikipedia: "Although his 1952 landslide gave the Republicans control of both houses of the Congress, Eisenhower believed that taxes could not be cut until the budget was balanced."
posted by kirkaracha at 6:08 PM on March 18, 2006

The fund managers said that there was a very low threshhold to accepting claimants. Basically, all you had to do was have a buisiness operating durring and after 9/11.

To put a little more context into your statement, their specific justification was that their businesses faltered on the substantial drop in tourism after 9/11. After all, a large (perhaps too large) chunk of LV's economy is based on tourism. If you follow the economic chain, tourists lose money in casinos, sspend it on food, drinks, etc, and it ripples throughout southern nevada.

I agree their claims are probably fraudulent. If they really have enough data to support their claim then go for it - but they need to show that their business went down more than normal after 9/11. I doubt thats the case.
posted by SirOmega at 6:21 PM on March 18, 2006

Out of curiosity, what would it have cost to just buy up their oilfields outright?

That reminded me of a quote by journalist Eric Margolis, when talking about colonialism and the Iraq war a couple years ago wrote: "It’s always cheaper to buy resources than plunder them." I don't agree with that but I do like this other quote: "People will accept misrule, robbery, abuse, and torture by their own fellow citizens- but not by foreigners."
posted by bobo123 at 6:35 PM on March 18, 2006

"Eisenhower also recognized, in that very same speech, that:

The amassing of the Soviet power alerted free nations to a new danger of aggression. It compelled them in self-defense to spend unprecedented money and energy for armaments. It forced them to develop weapons of war now capable of inflicting instant and terrible punishment upon any aggressor.

It instilled in the free nations-and let none doubt this-the unshakable conviction that, as long as there persists a threat to freedom, they must, at any cost, remain armed, strong, and ready for the risk of war.

Reality asked me to let you guys know that it apologizes for freedom not coming cheap."


Funny.

This notion is such an utterly false idea, that, ironically, was directly demonstrated to be a "mistaken certainty" by the man Jesus, who is supposedly walking side-by-side with those who promote it now.

The belief that "there can be no peace in the world without a credible threat of force" is a very seductive lie.
posted by RoseyD at 7:03 PM on March 18, 2006

Isn't that the premise of perpetual war, so much sought after by the neocon movement, and fundamentalist religions in general?
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 7:38 PM on March 18, 2006

We build our pyramids upside down, in the form of craters, and it isn't very hard work.
posted by Clamwacker at 7:52 PM on March 18, 2006

We should name a couple craters after Bush, Rice and Rumsfield, for prosperity.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 8:05 PM on March 18, 2006

Maybe even re-name Falujah, Cheneyville.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 8:25 PM on March 18, 2006

Project for a New American Fucking Century - CENTURY folks!!!
posted by visit beautiful mount weather! at 8:30 PM on March 18, 2006

CENTURY folks

If we're lucky and prudent, Vigilent, even, we won't let these "principles" last another three years.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 8:34 PM on March 18, 2006

"Soliloquy - Iraq's proven reserves are 112.5 billion bbl. With oil now going for $63/bbl, that would come to a bit over $7 trillion. Of course, that's today's prices and it assumes you can get all 112.5 billion bbl out of the ground. Still, with oil costs sure to rise, yet only about half that oil actually being usable, we still end up in that upper-single-digit-trillion ballpark."

You're valuing this "investment" based on a pricing architecture that relies upon a limited scarcity.

This texas tea is an investment for post-Peak protection. When there ain't no more, and half the world is shooting it out over what's left, while the other half starves, what is now $7 trillion in crude becomes more valuable by orders of magnitude.

As a sidenote, if Ike were around today, he'd have W. lined up against a wall and shot, for treason.
posted by stenseng at 9:23 PM on March 18, 2006

As others have pointed out, the dollar numbers don't mean anything to most people - they're so big, so far beyond normal experience, that the difference between million, billion, and trillion is just "lots".

Or, the way I usually put it to people - "If I gave you $100,000 for every year since monkeys climbed down from the trees and tried walking upright, you still wouldn't have that much money!"

(Creationists get a similar explanation, using Archbishop Ussher's numbers...)
posted by Pinback at 9:28 PM on March 18, 2006

Turtles all the way down - This seems like a good time to paraphrase a quote from the book "Innumeracy":

One million seconds takes about 11 days to tick by. A billion seconds would take almost 32 years. A trillion seconds equals 32,000 years.

thanks. that really helps to put these numbers in perspective.
posted by pruner at 9:59 PM on March 18, 2006

Clearly, the perceived Soviet threat was an hallucination, and you cowards are all mack daddies. Congratulations.
posted by techgnollogic at 10:11 PM on March 18, 2006

Are you even trying to pay attention any more?
posted by odinsdream at 10:27 PM on March 18, 2006

"Clearly, the perceived Soviet threat was an hallucination, and you cowards are all mack daddies. Congratulations."


To a certain extent, and certainly in later years, yes. The RED MENACE was certainly overestimated, and often intentionally exaggerated.

"you cowards are all mack daddies."

Uh. What? I'm assuming that you've volunteered for active duty in a combat zone in Iraq then, tough guy? Since you think this whole boondoggle is such a fantastic plan?

Oh, wait, I forgot. The real cowards are the jackasses like yourself all too willing to spill someone else's blood over this insane horseshit.
posted by stenseng at 10:30 PM on March 18, 2006

Which later years?
posted by techgnollogic at 10:58 PM on March 18, 2006

Clearly, the perceived Soviet threat was an hallucination, and you cowards are all mack daddies. Congratulations.

Did you skip the whole part about the nuclear arms race (and related space race) with the Soviets as being pretty much self-created by the USA's own actions, or are you simply relying on your 8th grade revisionist history textbook for the highly questionable "truth"?
posted by loquacious at 11:36 PM on March 18, 2006

"The passages on the 'missile gap' are a little dated, since Mr Kennedy has now told us that it scarcely ever existed."
posted by kirkaracha at 11:38 PM on March 18, 2006

The idea of "money spent" on the war is misleading. In reality, it's "money moved" from one part of our economy to another. Specifically money moved from the rapidly vanishing middle class, in the form of cash, and money moved from the working and under classes, in the form of services discontinued.

Don't worry folks, the trillion is still there; it just belongs to fewer people now. People like the stockholders of KBR and a wide array of weapons manufacturers. They have the money, thanks very much, so it's not like it's just gone.
posted by squirrel at 11:52 PM on March 18, 2006

"Cost of Iraq war may exceed $1 trillion dollars."

I'll see your trillion dollars and raise you a trillion...!
posted by insomnia_lj at 1:34 AM on March 19, 2006

"Cost of Iraq war may exceed $1 trillion dollars."

So, how much of that would we have spent anyway paying our guys to just sit around in peacetime?
posted by mischief at 5:34 AM on March 19, 2006

"They have the money, thanks very much, so it's not like it's just gone."

Then they turned around and invested it, buying products and services, or in other companies, creating (or at least sustaining) jobs.
posted by mischief at 5:37 AM on March 19, 2006

Back in 2000, if we had elected a group of career criminals to plunder the treasury of the USA for their own personal gain, we would be better off than we are now.

The question is, how could we tell the difference?
posted by Enron Hubbard at 5:50 AM on March 19, 2006

This texas tea is an investment for post-Peak protection. When there ain't no more, and half the world is shooting it out over what's left, while the other half starves, what is now $7 trillion in crude becomes more valuable by orders of magnitude.

That assumes that whoever wants to take the fruits of that source needs to remain forever in the area and most importantly take total perennial control of the distribution and extraction of oil ; that can only be achieved by military means as the local populations, rightly so , claim that the oil is theirs and aren't going to put down. Also its incrasing value give more reason not to put down.

Expecially when the rest of the world starts looking 30 years in the future they can see

a) strong interest into obtaining a quota of oil
b) stronger interest into reducing dependence from oil by any mean necessary
c) very strong interest in alternative energy sources

yet if one wants to have a reserve of value for money , the price of oil has to remain high so demand must necessarily remain high ; consequentially the discovery of ways of sensibly reducing demand for crude (and therefore its price) will be OPPOSED at any level as that would devalue the trillion investment

Then they turned around and invested it, buying products and services, or in other companies, creating (or at least sustaining) jobs.

What in your mind makes you believe that the trillion spent by government in war effort contracts (assuming it all was in contract to US contractors, which is unlikely) is refinancing US middle and lower classes or is going to be enjoyed by some other country middle to low class ?
posted by elpapacito at 5:57 AM on March 19, 2006

Because money is liquid. The only way to take it out of the global economy is to stuff it in the mattress (which in its own right affects the economy by lowering the cash supply). Even if they stuck it in savings accounts, the banks are going to use it to make loans. Who takes out those loans? People who buy stuff (employs manufacturers), purchase services (employs service workers), or people who start or grow business (hiring employees).

Where do you think the money is going?
posted by mischief at 6:34 AM on March 19, 2006

mischief: Money that is owed loses a lot of liquidity, particularly on that scale.

The Fed's wholesale free money sale is another matter entirely, but one that debases the money we've borrowed even as we take on yet more debt to cover our interest from the previous cycle.

So where is the money going? It's not going anywhere, but it's getting thinner and less useful because it is owed.

These pressures tend to make real wealth that the money represents flow upwards, from the poorer demographics to the richer ones. So this sort of crazy spending spree does effect the allocation of real wealth, even if we know that ultimately all the checks will be cashed, so to speak. That will take decades (if ever), and in the meantime people will feel real effects from the terrible economic policies of the last mumbly-odd years.
posted by sonofsamiam at 8:09 AM on March 19, 2006

"Then they turned around and invested it, buying products and services, or in other companies, creating (or at least sustaining) jobs."

I love it. Militant trickle down economics.
posted by stenseng at 12:12 PM on March 19, 2006

posted by matteo at 12:38 PM on March 19, 2006

Ah but, sonofsamiam, while the liquidity of one instance of money owed is decreased, because of fractional reserve banking, liquidity is recreated. Granted, this is a simplification but one way or another, the money is still in circulation and creating opportunity.
posted by mischief at 1:33 PM on March 19, 2006

No. Money allocated for the war through taxes cannot be used as efficiently as possible, since the most efficient allocation of capital (i.e. how capital would be allocated if it was at maximum liquidity) would not be spent on the war effort. Liquidity has been decreased, and cannot be made up for by taking on further debt.

In fact, the situation is that citizens' discretion in their spending is plummeting as their debt and the debt of their government continually increase and constrain their choices.
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:46 PM on March 19, 2006

mischief: owning lots, truckload of money doesn't make you spend more of it , simply because there's a natural limit to the good you can demand, no matter how expensive they are.

Yet at the same time you demand banks to offer you a return that is at least enough to cover inflation and opportunity cost, but banks will not offer that unless you invest for a certain amount of time..when money is invested (either in a trillion dollar enterprise or in a lemonade stand) it becomes less liquid because you can't just sell the lemonade stand and obtain all the money back or even part of it..there's a risk nobody will ever buy the stand.

You could argue that somebody produced the goods that made the lemonade stand, so money still was used in producing something , it wasn't destroyed. You would be correct, BUT

a) investorts don't buy into lemonade stand because it offer ZERO return..investors are stupid maybe , but not crazy..they prefer to sit on a slowly devaluing pile of money then throw it into an useless enteprise

b) money that is poorly invested doesn't produce wealth. For instance lets say you paid $1 and hour to people to dig holes into ground. People is happy , but they contribution to economy was NIHIL unless digging holes into ground produces benefit like the ones of nuclear technology , space tech etc. It doesn't, so now the $1 still exist, but people wasted time into an useless enteprise they could have done something better, but that $1 was spent on holes digging.

Similarly, one spends 500 billion in defence budget, the return is US conquered a bunch of oil ? So far a bunch of sand and even if the 500 billion are still in american hands, the venture destroyed 500 billion of value or more UNLESS that oil is recovered.

Which judgding from the willingness of the local to see their state plundered, is unlikely.
posted by elpapacito at 1:49 PM on March 19, 2006

banks will not offer that unless you invest for a certain amount of time

So invest for the 'certain amount of time'.

stenseng: trickle down economy is a two-way street; the other side is personal ambition and achievement.
posted by mischief at 1:56 PM on March 19, 2006

trickle down economy is a two-way street; the other side is personal ambition and achievement.

So, after we forcably appropriate a large portion of your income to and spend it on our own projects, if you find that you have less spending discretion at your disposal, that's your fault?

"Trickle-down" originated (iirc) as a trope in arguments against progressive taxation. Hardly the same situation. Whereas trickle-down proponents would oppose progressive taxes because they inordinately burden the wealthy, the current situation is a trickle-up dynamic: the continually increasing debt rate serves to enrich a few entities at the expense of the majority.

Not to get into an argument about progressive taxation (yawn, agreed?) but let's not conflate separate issues.
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:10 PM on March 19, 2006

Trickle down economy is a one-way street. The only side is personal connections and grandfathered wealth.
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 2:12 PM on March 19, 2006

Why would anyone defending the government pulling $3,400 out of my pocket and putting it in someone else's pocket for no very clear gain?
The local school board wants a tax increase and wants to hit me up for an extra $3,400, I make damn sure they're operating efficiently.
But no, Mother Courage asks for it and you get Sylvester Viereck types arguing that it's just fine.
It's inexcusable.
posted by Smedleyman at 2:22 PM on March 19, 2006

So invest for the 'certain amount of time'.

Ahahah yeah sure if you want to believe bankers ! Here's a candy, sonny !
posted by elpapacito at 2:44 PM on March 19, 2006

"WHY are we fighting this war?"

Terrorists, WMD's, and the spread of democracy.
posted by ParisParamus at 2:55 PM on March 19, 2006

PS: Chances are, your school district already gets too much money.
posted by ParisParamus at 2:56 PM on March 19, 2006

Nevermind, Paris has convinced me with his cogent and well-composed arguments.

Well played.
posted by sonofsamiam at 3:04 PM on March 19, 2006

(Paris isn't fighting this war.)
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 3:08 PM on March 19, 2006

Ceci n'est pa un Paris
posted by elpapacito at 3:21 PM on March 19, 2006

I'm not fighting it, but you aren't either.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:01 PM on March 19, 2006

You can think that George Bush isn't perfect without thinking he's the Devil--sorry for the candor and sobriety.
posted by ParisParamus at 4:19 PM on March 19, 2006

WHY we're fighting these wars (Afghanistan? Hello?) is not the question.
What is being done to further the goals we generally agree that our government should be doing - for example providing for the common defense, promoting the general welfare, securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity?

Specifically that is. By some measures one could argue that the purpose of the United States in Iraq is to provide both defense and promote the general welfare of our own people.

While there is little question a case could be made and debated as to the why's of it - there is little question that the evidence that we're succeeding in the goals put forth by the administration is threadbare. There is ample evidence to show we are not working well towards those ends. Indeed enough to make those ends themselves suspect.

This is self evident to anyone paying attention or not blinded by partisanship or some other form of myopia.

There is also a great deal of evidence that the methods used to attempt to achieve the ends this administration has set forth have had a deleterious affect on the other reasons in the preamble for establishing the Constitution of the U.S.

This administration has broadened wide gaps in the union, it has made justice - publicly - a capricious thing, domestic tranquility is more and more being insured by the threat of force or the intimidation of surveillance, and the blessings of liberty are being cashed in for the hard currency of power, and our posterity - our principles and traditions - have been forsaken for the expediency of the now.

It is not a question of why it's a question of how.
Analysis of method reveals the motive.

/btw - PP was responding to Raoul.Duke's "And please, don't say "terrorists", "WMD's", or "the spread of democracy" - it'd be a joke I believe.
posted by Smedleyman at 4:19 PM on March 19, 2006

Speaking of Afganistan...

Apparently, not only are the drug lords being given amnesty, but they are seen as the saviors for the country.
Are the worlds heroin addicts supporting the war on terror, ir is it the other way around?
posted by shnoz-gobblin at 4:53 PM on March 19, 2006

And there are many conservatives who oppose now or had opposed going into Iraq. W. James Antle III (writer for The American Conservative) f'rinstance thinks the exact opposite of Rummy. That the only thing unifying the insurgency is the continued American presence and if we left, it's the insurgency which would divide against itself, not the whole country.
Jon Basil Utley (publisher of The American Conservative - apparently they're all liberals over there) - said we should retire the Rusmfeld-Cheney Gang because they are just trying to retroactively justify their mistakes.

But who's going to argue with money?
posted by Smedleyman at 5:36 PM on March 19, 2006

So is this why my "defense" company stocks are doing so well then?
A more applicable Eisenhower quote for this discussion:

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

Oops! Too late!
posted by nofundy at 7:20 AM on March 20, 2006

PS: Chances are, your school district already gets too much money.

Yes... PLEASE NO MORE MONEY FOR EDUCATION.

That way all of our children can grow up to be as gullible and misinformed as PP.
posted by BobFrapples at 8:39 AM on March 20, 2006

/“Chances are, your school district already gets too much money.”

Good talking point.

My school district gives too much money. It goes out of my pocket (because I have the unmitigated gall to be able to afford a nice house and a decent piece of property) and down to Springfield (I’m in Illinois - yes, I do accept pity, thank you) and comes back at about 11% - roughly 40% less than where it should be (the state is mandated *chuckle* to fund education at *guffaw* 51%). So the school district has to make that up by taxing me more. I’m not going to argue whether teachers get too much money or not - there is a relationship between property values and the quality of the school system - but at least we have a property tax cap and if the district wants more money they have to ask voters for a referendum.
And I can say ‘no.’
We can shovel enough money at them to hire Harvard grads or we can choke them until there’s no talent left in our teaching pool - the point is we have local control.

Where’s the tax referendum on the war?
posted by Smedleyman at 10:48 AM on March 20, 2006

Meanwhile, "the president cut every cancer program. He cut the colorectal cancer program. He cut research at the National Cancer Institute. He cut literally every one of our cancer-specific programs. It's incomprehensible."
posted by homunculus at 12:52 PM on March 20, 2006