Price tag

17 Mar 08: Zachary Coile writes in the San Francisco Chronicle: "The United States has poured more than $500 billion into Iraq, mostly for military operations. But that figure is just a small piece of the much larger bill that taxpayers will pay in the future.

"Because the money for the war is being borrowed, interest payments could add another $615 billion. A heavily depleted military will have to be rebuilt at a cost of $280 billion. Disability benefits and health care for Iraq war veterans, many of them severely injured, could add another half-trillion dollars over their lifetime. . . .

"The price tag in Iraq now is more than double the cost of the Korean War and a third more expensive than the Vietnam War, which lasted 12 years. . . .

"Only World War II was more expensive. That four-year war - in which 16 million U.S. troops were deployed on two fronts, fighting against Germany and Japan - cost about $5 trillion in inflation-adjusted dollars."

Dave Lindorff explains why the Iraq War is driving the deficit and price of oil and food up.

Senate report (PDF) on the role of speculation in rising oil & gas prices.

Bad Money by Kevin Phillips. Subtitle: Reckless Finance, Failed Politics, and the Global Crisis of American Capitalism. In Bad Money, Phillips describes the consequences of our misguided economic policies, our mounting debt, our collapsing housing market, our threatened oil, and the end of American domination of world markets. [emphasis added]