War in Iraq does not compute

According to the wikipedia article on the War in Iraq the war has cost $845 billion to the U.S., with the total cost to the U.S. economy estimated at $3 to 5 trillion.

Back in 2003, the administration was making it look on several occasions like costs being estimated in the $50-60 billion range were too high. Bush’s economic advisor Lawerence Lindsay in 2002 estimated at most it costing $100-200 billion in the Wall Street Journal. Bush didn’t like that image, so he fired him.

Now a Nobel prize winning econmist is estimating that the total cost of the war will be upwards of 3 trillion dollars to the US, and upwards of 5-6 trillion worldwide.  In excess of $10,000 per person living in the US. Perhaps it’s just me, but that compounded with higher energy costs, a screwed economy, thousands of americans dead, yet more Iraqis dead… it simply doesn’t feel that I’m getting anything out of that tax bill.

Oh right, also back home we have a massive trade deficit, social security about to fall over, millions of americans with poor education and medical care, homeless problems and countless other issues that 3 trillion dollars might help fix.

I’m not debating the “bad man” aspect of Saddam’s regime. Yea, he was a bad man. Bush is a bad man too. There’s plenty of bad people in the world. Iraq actually wasn’t a half-bad place to live compared to many places in the Middle East like Saudi Arabia that’s we are great pals with.

I realized something however. What would people have done for money instead?  A few things to consider from the CIA Factbook:

• The GDP PPP in Iraq in 2007 is estimated at $100 Billion
• At official exchange rate GDP it’s more like $55.4 Billion
• Their PPP per capita is $3,600
• They have a labor force of 7.4 million people
• They have insanely high unemployment between 18-30% (2006 est). In the US we’re hovering in the 4% range.
• They can export 1.67 million barrells of oil per day (at 107/barrel this is worth about 178 million a day).
• And they have about 27 million people

Right. So, instead of going to war with them. We could have literally GIVEN every man, woman, child and baby $111,111USD in exchange for them telling their leader to step down, or even just handing the country over to us. We would tell them that no buildings would be bombed, no one would be harmed, no one would die. We would imprison and try their leaders for warcrimes, but asides from those findings… no one else would die or be harmed. The only situplation would be that people would have to live peacefully.

Ok, maybe it’s a stretch, and ignores some things. At the same time… umm, it sounds like a not crazy idea in some ways. Less killing is good, less violence is good. Oh yea, we wouldn’t have dead us soldiers then either!

Downsides being that Halliburton and other great companies like Blackwater wouldn’t get a cut. How sad. Oh, and we wouldn’t be able to torture people. Damn. I know how much the right wingers like that.

Surely, people are saying, “That wouldn’t work”. Yes it would. Let’s assume for a minute you live in a country that you don’t like the leader and feel that he’s done a few wrong things. Maybe you live in the US and don’t like Bush. A “better” country with a higher standard of living comes along. They don’t like your leader and government either, plus they like your country’s national resources. Let’s say the country is Norway which is generally FAR above the US on all standard of living charts. They offer you (and everyone you’ve ever met) 1.1 million USD to turn over your government and leader to them. They will now rule your country, but they will try to make life better and more like it is in their country. There will be no blood loss, no death. Better yet, also assume that if you don’t accept at least one or two good friends of yours will die and they will take over the country and destroy it’s infrastructure horribly.  Would you do it? I for one would welcome our new Norwegian overlords.

1.1 million dollars is the equivalent incomewise to what we’d give the Iraqis in that situation. (Proof: 3 trillion divided by 27 million = 111,111. Average income in Iraq being 3,600/year. Average income in US being around 36,000/year. Difference by factor of 10. Multiple 111,111 by 10. You get ~1.1 Million.)

This entry was posted on Monday, March 10th, 2008 at 5:13 pm and is filed under life. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.