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Originally Posted by Elphaba
I don't care for the hyperbolic expression in this article, but I believe there are valid concerns to be found.
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There are a few contridictions and misleading points:
"Neocons promised minimal US casualties. Iraq already has cost 2,200 dead Americans and 16,000 seriously wounded-and Bush's war is not over yet.
The cost of lifetime care and disability payments for the thousands of US troops who have suffered brain and spinal damage was not part of the unrealistic rosy picture that Bush painted. Dr. Stiglitz's $2 trillion estimate is OK as far as it goes. But it doesn't go far enough. My own estimate is a multiple of Stiglitz's."
If we take a population of young men and woman the size and make up of our military in Iraq over the same period, how many would have died even if they had not been sent? The question should be what was the real incremental cost? How many would have died as a result of taking no military action? Or how many non-military people would have died by taking no military action? People, like me, who support our military action honestly believe that if we had taken no action potentially hundreds of thousands if not millions would have died. The cost of delayed action agaist Hilter cost millions of lives.
"In 2005 for the first time on record consumer, business, and government spending exceeded the total income of the country. Net national savings actually fell."
Does not take into consideration the underground economy, or wealth generated through investment and realestate.
'America can consume more than it produces only if foreigners supply the difference. China recently announced that it intends to diversify its foreign exchange holdings away from the US dollar. If this is not merely a threat in order to extort even more concessions from Bush, Americans' ability to consume will be brought up short by a fall in the dollar's value as China ceases to be a sponge that is absorbing an excessive outpouring of dollars. Oil producing countries might follow China's lead."
The value of currency fluctuates around an equalibrium point. When the dollar gets cheap we sell more goods overseas. When the dollar is expensive and other currencies cheap we buy more overseas goods.
"A decline in living standards is an enormous cost and will make existing debt burdens unbearable. Stiglitz did not include this cost in his estimate."
National debt as a percentage of GNP is in our economy's normal range.
"Even more serious is the war's diversion of attention from the disappearance of middle class jobs for university graduates. The ladders of upward mobility are being rapidly dismantled by offshore production for US markets, job outsourcing and importation of foreign professionals on work visas. In almost every US corporation, US employees are being dismissed and replaced by foreigners who work for lower pay. Even American public school teachers and hospital nurses are being replaced by foreigners imported on work visas."
We have shifted from an agricultural economy to an industrial economy, to a service economy, and are now in a shift to the information age. At one point people who made horse shoes lost their jobs. They had to adapt. Today, Americans are showing an unwillingness to change, that is the real problem. We still have some people stuck in the industrial age and longing for the good old days of smoke stack industries and life long employment.
"The American Dream has become a nightmare for college graduates who cannot find meaningful work."
What is meaningful? Do you know a college grad not able to find work?
I am getting bored, but I sure you can see some of the problems with his position.