Another one from the "won't see it in the American media" file - The Guardian interviews economist Joseph Stiglitz about his new book ("The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" - it's on sale at Amazon). When the Congressional Budget Office estimated the cost of the war at "only" $500,000,000,000, Stiglitz thought that seemed low. So he spent a couple of years looking into it.
Three trillion. That's just America, folks. Not Britain's expenditures, for instance. And it's a conservative estimate, because it ignores the cost of economic burdens, just looks at actual expenditures.
The article's worth reading. Did you know the Pentagon spends $400,000 a year on a contractor who replaces a grunt costing only $40,000 a year? That's what they mean when they say "privatization". Remember how "privatization" is supposed to "save us money"? What they really mean is it will save them money, if by "save" you mean that their friends will make a lot of money.
Leave a comment