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Cost of War
2007-11-13 15:28Congressional Democrats estimate cost of the wars so far to be $1.5 trillion. $800 billion requested, with the rest coming from high oil costs, reservists being pulled out of the productive economy, interest on money borrowed to pay for the war, forgone investment return on war expenditures, and veteran treatments (though the bottom of the article puts that at $30 billion, chump change on this scale.) White House calls it inaccurate and politically motivated.
Apparently reservists often come home, if they do, to find that they don't have a job anymore, with minimal help from the government.
Do the numbers make sense? Let's make some estimates -- not for precision, not even ballparks I'd necessarily bet on; sometimes the estimation itself is informative, or at least pleasant.
( crunch those numbers )
The exchange rate GDP of Iraq is about $40 billion/year, by the way. So just the amount we've openly spent so far, never mind these additional estimates, has been a decade's worth of Iraq's entire economy. We're spending twice as much money on Iraq as it produces, per year. Somehow I don't think their standard of living has tripled.
Apparently reservists often come home, if they do, to find that they don't have a job anymore, with minimal help from the government.
Do the numbers make sense? Let's make some estimates -- not for precision, not even ballparks I'd necessarily bet on; sometimes the estimation itself is informative, or at least pleasant.
( crunch those numbers )
The exchange rate GDP of Iraq is about $40 billion/year, by the way. So just the amount we've openly spent so far, never mind these additional estimates, has been a decade's worth of Iraq's entire economy. We're spending twice as much money on Iraq as it produces, per year. Somehow I don't think their standard of living has tripled.