Search the web
Sign In
New User? Sign Up
cannabisaction · Global Cannabis. Million Marijuana March
? Already a member? Sign in to Yahoo!

Yahoo! Groups Tips

Did you know...
Want your group to be featured on the Yahoo! Groups website? Add a group photo to Flickr.

Best of Y! Groups

   Check them out and nominate your group.
Having problems with message search? Fill out this form to ensure your group is one of the first to be migrated to the new message search system.

Messages

  Messages Help
Advanced
War Costing $720 Million Each Day. Washington Post. Sept 23 2007.   Message List  
Reply | Forward Message #1418 of 1509 |

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi violent deaths due to the war.
Some casualty photos, stats:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Iraq_War_casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War


====start====

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says.
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/23/4049/

 
Common Dreams NewsCenter
Bioneers 2007
 
     
  Sunday, September 23, 2007  
 
     
   
 

War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

by Kari Lydersen

CHICAGO  — 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.

0923 05The 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.

The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware.

"The wounded are coming home, and many of them have severe brain and spinal injuries, which will require round-the-clock care for the rest of their lives," said Michael McConnell, Great Lakes regional director of the AFSC, a peace group affiliated with the Quaker church.

The $720 million figure breaks down into $280 million a day from Iraq war supplementary funding bills passed by Congress, plus $440 million daily in incurred, but unpaid, long-term costs.

But some supporters of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq say that even if the war is costly, that fact is essentially immaterial.

"Either you think the war in Iraq supports America's national security, or not," said Frederick W. Kagan, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. "If you think national security won't be harmed by withdrawing from Iraq, of course you would want to see that money spent elsewhere. I myself think that belief, on a certain level, is absurd, so the question of focusing on how much money we are spending there is irrelevant."

The war's unpaid long-term costs do not include "macro-economic consequences" described by Bilmes and Stiglitz, including higher oil prices, loss of trade because of anti-American sentiments and lost productivity of killed or injured U.S. soldiers.

In 2006, Bilmes, who was an assistant secretary of commerce under President Bill Clinton, and Stiglitz, a former chief economist at the World Bank, placed the total cost of the Iraq war at more than $2.2 trillion, not counting interest. The American Friends group used cost breakdowns and interest projections from the Congressional Budget Office to calculate the daily cost of war emblazoned on the banners flown in Boston, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Chicago and other cities.

The banners show what this could buy in terms of health care, Head Start programs, new elementary schools, free school lunches, renewable energy and hiring new teachers. Protest organizers say they hope to turn more people against the war by laying out its true financial impact.

"I think people are becoming more aware of these guns or butter questions," said Gary Gillespie, director of the group's Baltimore Urban Peace Program, which displayed the banners in the Baltimore suburb of Bel Air on Friday. "But when you talk about $720 million a day, even people who work on this issue are shocked by the number and shocked by what could have been done with that money. War has no return — you're not producing a product."

© 2007 The Washington Post Company

These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.
 

12 Comments so far

  1. KEM PATRICK September 23rd, 2007 4:07 pm

    Pehaps I missed somethng, but I thought the daily cost of the war figures was pretty well known in 2002. This is a well written and swell reminder however, of how stupid humanity and governments can be. I understand Halliburton and all of its many subs, including Blackwater, etc, collect about 20% of this money figure. That must be some "benefit" for our shakey economy.

  2. saywhat September 23rd, 2007 4:08 pm

    Hey mister, can you spare a dime?

  3. wild rose September 23rd, 2007 4:26 pm

    That's what y'all get for voting Democrat instead of voting for Nader.

  4. ezeflyer September 23rd, 2007 4:32 pm

    All that money is going to other corporations instead of to We the People Inc.

  5. wild rose September 23rd, 2007 4:37 pm

    ezeflyer.. Yup. Plus, all that money has been going to the corporations since FDR's finalizing of the Federal Reserve. http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/22/4014/

  6. Gail Moore September 23rd, 2007 4:43 pm

    Well, gosh - no WONDER we "can't afford" health care for children. You know, the bill that George is going to veto because it's "too expensive". What's too expensive is George.

    Incidentally, have you heard that Karl Rove's emails did NOT all get erased as he'd hoped when he quit? Greg Palast set up a very similar website to Rove's, and quite a few of them were misdirected to Greg Palast. Check out http://brasschecktv.com for the full story.

  7. iwarrior September 23rd, 2007 4:58 pm

    Sweet Jesus, what the people could do with that money.

  8. ezeflyer September 23rd, 2007 5:06 pm

    iwarrior said:

    "Sweet Jesus, what the people could do with that money."

    And all We the People have to do to get it is to incorporate.

  9. locust September 23rd, 2007 5:41 pm

    Keep in mind that nobody is actually paying for this credit card war and occupation. The debt just piles up.
    Have you told your children how much they owe already? Get those 5 year olds to work, if they want to even pay the interest, let alone balance of $9 trillion. Otherwise they'll owe even more when they grow up and wonder why this generation hated their children this much, and impoverished them.

    It's nice to hear again from the American Empire Institute. Tell us some more about how money grows on trees and this misadministration can spend whatever it wants on Iraq, and the next crisis, and the next.
    At what point does America go bankrupt?

  10. matthood September 23rd, 2007 6:31 pm

    America is still paying for WW1 and WW2. Why do the people imagine a vain thing hoping Bush would ever dream of telling the truth. I said from the begining that the war would cost a minuim 3 trillion dollars. I was mocked and laugh at! The elite have shifted the tax burden under the leadership of former Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon who caused the great depression when the nation realized it had no money in its treasury from the 5 tax breaks he gave the wealthy who shifted the tax burden to the non-wealthy who had no money! The non-wealthy have been paying for every american military action since FDR. Our tax structure is design on kissing the butt of the wealthy in this countrty! It would be cheaper to get rid of this nations wealthy by taking away their citizenship and start over without them by deporting them all! The wealthy have committed economic treason! They are using america has their personal slush fund in conquering Iraq for Exxon-Mobil! I wonder how many of our elected officials have been given cheap oil stocks to buy their loyality! Treason is on a massive scale by the oil companies and Washington! The truth is that JD Rockefeller found oil in the middle east to avoid paying taxes in America and to avoid Washington having any control over his companies that the anti-sherman act had broken up!Corporate law was written and created to circumvent the constitution and the Bill of Rights. Corporate law is a form of long term treason where international corporation like those who gave money to Hitler to build up Germany's economy by weakinging America economy! Bush's war in Iraq is a war against us! He deliberatly went to war without no regard for this nation. I am sure he will be well paid after he leaves office! He prayed for war before he came to office. His father if he had been re-elected would have gone back to war in IrAq. President Clinton was impeached because he did not obey the orders of the Bush adminstratin fanatical foot soldiers. Bush war to go back to Iraq was written in stone and ojn the wall before he became President! If Clinton gets elected the war will go on! She is a Yale graduate! This is Yale's war. What the press have failed to ask President Bush Jr. is-has he or as he ever been on the pay role of the CIA. Bush Jr is a covert CIA officer who is on the domestic pay role of the CIA like his father! It is a felony for a covert CIA officer to be a federaly elected official without disclosing that he is a CIA officer! It is a crime!

  11. figmentzenguitar September 23rd, 2007 6:35 pm

    If we had all voted for Nader, they would have shot him or crashed his plane.

  12. imagineusa September 23rd, 2007 6:41 pm

    GREAT ARTICLE, Our adversarys are not on the battle field in Iraq! We created those foe's. Americas real enemies are right here at home and we elected them. Our current leadership will bankrupt America both financially and morally. What we need is a good old fashion revolution. Thats what it will take if "we the people" what to restore America values (pre-Bush) and protect the Constitution.

Join the discussion:

You must be logged in to post a comment. If you haven't registered yet, click here to register. (It's quick, easy and free. And we won't give your email address to anyone.)

 
   FAIR USE NOTICE  
  This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
 
 

 
Common Dreams NewsCenter
A non-profit news service providing breaking news & views for the progressive community.
Home | Newswire | Contacting Us | About Us | Donate | Sign-Up | Archives

© Copyrighted 1997-2007
www.commondreams.org




=====end=====

--
regards,
eco man,
MMM (Global Million Marijuana March):
http://cannabis.wikia.com/wiki/Global_Marijuana_March_2008
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_Marijuana_March
http://gallery.marihemp.com/years
http://www.myspace.com/ecommm
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/mmmworld
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction

CHEAP SOLAR POWER IS HERE NOW,
when the subsidy and health costs of fossil fuel pollution are accounted for.
http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/cannabisaction/message/1351
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml
Chart of cumulative installed photovoltaic solar power in the IEA PVPS countries 1992 to 2005. In megawatts:
http://www.iea-pvps.org/isr/images/2005_graph01.gif
Why are the sheeple (sheep-like people) following oil companies into Iraq and possibly Iran?
Solar power in detail:
http://www.iea-pvps.org/isr/index.htm
Wiki: http://peswiki.com/energy/Directory:Solar

Sun Sep 23, 2007 10:55 pm

tents444
Offline Offline
Send Email Send Email

Forward
Message #1418 of 1509 |
Expand Messages Author Sort by Date

Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi violent deaths due to the war. Some casualty photos, stats: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Iraq_War_casualties ...
Eco Man
tents444
Offline Send Email
Sep 23, 2007
10:57 pm
Advanced

Copyright © 2009 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy - Terms of Service - Guidelines - Help