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blue bits. red rocks.
Monday 28 January 2008

And no meaningful discussion of our economic problems can ignore the impact of our Iraq spending. An upcoming book by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz will peg the U.S. tab at $3 trillion. It’s difficult to conceive of that number, but it represents a full one third of our national debt. That debt adversely affects the strength of the dollar and the interest rates that we must pay on Treasury bonds. Another way to look at the cost of Iraq is to consider all of the lost opportunities for those dollars: fixing our health care system; investing in our schools; repairing our infrastructure. These costs will be ongoing as long as we remain in Iraq and so long as we continue to support military bases there. Some are starting to call our current economic condition the “Iraq Recession.” We will soon be writing more about the meaning of this. Fixated on Stimulation

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