A new Congressional Research Service report has found that the costs for the Iraq and Afganistan conflicts are now running at close to $10 billion per month up from $8.2 billion a year ago. This info from a
Raw story report quoting a Washigton Post article to come out Thursday. So what? Think about it this way....
A cool $10 billion is such a big number that it makes no sense to most of us, so let's break it down.
$10 billion per month is about $330 million PER DAY.
With a population of about 295 million that works out at $1.13 per person per day. Of course this isn't really paid for. With the US running a huge budget deficit, it is just put on your tab, which keeps getting bigger and bigger.
So think about it. Every day, our typical family of four will shell out about $4.50 just to pay for Iraq/Afganistan. That is $32 per week, or $136 per month for the family of 4. Just think of how many families could really use an extra $136 a month.
The human costs to Iraqis and to Americans of this war have been and continue to be huge. But the economic costs are truly staggering. At a time when China and India are rising as major competitors to the US it is sickening to see so many resources being recklessly squandered. How many schools could this money fund, how many teachers, how much research, how much health care, how much energy conservation, ... how much true security.
No wonder Osama is laughing in his cave. He will go down as one of the greatest investors of all time. For the couple of hundred thousand dollars used to fund 9/11 he has been able to get the US to waste and continue to waste $10 billion a month. No other investor in history has done so well!
Final Caution/Warning: the price of gold hit another 25 year high again today. For those of you that don't know, Gold is the canary in the coal mine. It is signalling (screaming in fact)very rough seas ahead. The US dollar has broken key support levels and is now headed even lower. The standard of living of the average American is about to get really hit. Wasting even more money in Iraq is definitely not going to help.