[big campaign] Today's Cost of War Receipt to the American People: Panic on Wall Street

From:Weiner@americansunitedforchange.org To: bigcampaign@googlegroups.com Date: 2008-09-15 20:31 Subject: [big campaign] Today's Cost of War Receipt to the American People: Panic on Wall Street

BANK OF U.S. TAXPAYERS ::: RECEIPT<http://www.iankoski.com/aufc/¨ O> BANK OF U.S. TAXPAYERS ::: RECEIPT DATE: September 15th, 2008 Purchases: Item: Costly, Mismanaged, Endless War in Iraq Quantity: 1 Today's Tack On to the 'Cost of War' - Wall Street in Panic Mode... To offset the depressive effect of massive spending on Iraq, the Fed flooded the economy with liquidity and regulators, turned a blind eye to extremely risky lending, according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. The result is the credit crunch and its latest victims: Lehmann Brothers and Merrill Lynch. From Joseph Stiglitz's March 9, 2008 column, "The Iraq War Will Cost Us $3 Trillion, and Much More:" <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846_pf.html> Until recently, many marveled at the way the United States could spend hundreds of billions of dollars on oil and blow through hundreds of billions more in Iraq with what seemed to be strikingly little short-run impact on the economy. But there's no great mystery here. The economy's weaknesses were concealed by the Federal Reserve, which pumped in liquidity, and by regulators that looked away as loans were handed out well beyond borrowers' ability to repay them. Meanwhile, banks and credit-rating agencies pretended that financial alchemy could convert bad mortgages into AAA assets, and the Fed looked the other way as the U.S. household-savings rate plummeted to zero. Original Iraq War Purchase Price: "The administration's top budget official [Mitch Daniels] estimated today that the cost of a war with Iraq could be in the range of $50 billion to $60 billion." -- New York Times, 2/2/03 <http://www.iraqfoundation.org/news/2003/ajan/2_whitehouse.html> "The oil revenues of Iraq could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the course of the next two or three years. We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon." - Former U.S. Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz [Congressional Testimony, 3/27/03 <http://www.americanprogress.org/kf/priraqclaimfact1029.htm> ] "[F]rom the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." - Vice-President Dick Cheney [Meet the Press, 3/16/2003 <http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5145.htm> ] Current Iraq War Price Tag: 4,155 Fallen U.S. Soldiers [Source: icasualties.org <http://icasualties.org/oif/> ] $553+ Billion [Source: National Priorities Project <http://www.nationalpriorities.org/costofwar_home> ] "The Iraq adventure has seriously weakened the U.S. economy, whose woes now go far beyond loose mortgage lending. You can't spend $3 trillion -- yes, $3 trillion -- on a failed war abroad and not feel the pain at home." -- Joseph E. Stiglitz, Nobel Prize Winning Economist and professor at Columbia University <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846_pf.html> Additional Costs: * Over 4,100 American lives lost and rising as U.S. troops remain in the crossfire of daily Iraqi civil, religious, sectarian violence with no end in sight * Eye off the ball of the real 'central front' against terrorism in Afghanistan * Less safe with U.S. military stretched dangerously thin * Shortchanged priorities here at home, from education to healthcare for children and veterans, while trillions of dollars spent in Iraq * Economy in shambles as massive financial drain of war exacerbates the credit crisis * Skyrocketing gas prices due to instability in the Middle East * Less prepared to respond to emergencies and disasters at home with National Guard resources bogged down in Iraq * Underfunded veterans healthcare system overwhelmed with incoming injured, maimed, and veterans suffering from PTSD * Military families torn apart Total Cost of War: Unimaginable The daily 'Cost of War Receipt' is a project of Americans United for Change <http://www.americansunitedforchange.org> , which will continue to provide on a daily basis recent news articles, reports, studies or statistics that underscore the incredible sacrifices our nation is making every day by staying the course with the failed Bush-McCain '100 years or more' war policy in Iraq. ________________________________ --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the "big campaign" group. To post to this group, send to bigcampaign@googlegroups.com To unsubscribe, send email to bigcampaign-unsubscribe@googlegroups.com E-mail ryan@campaigntodefendamerica.org with questions or concerns This is a list of individuals. It is not affiliated with any group or organization. -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---