Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: BengalTiger on August 25, 2010, 09:00:41 am
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http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/iraq_the_war_that_broke_us_not.html
It's pretty long, has an image or 2 in it and I'm lazy today so I won't copy it.
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I'm just going to wait for someone to post the article debunking it.
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I'm just going to say that the site is a load of garbage. Just looking over recent articles has them calling Obama Muslim and a bunch of other bull****. The only way they could have less credibility would be to declare that the ocean has dried up and that pigs are really aliens from outer space.
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I'm just going to wait for someone to post the article debunking it.
I'm just going to say that the site is a load of garbage. Just looking over recent articles has them calling Obama Muslim and a bunch of other bull****. The only way they could have less credibility would be to declare that the ocean has dried up and that pigs are really aliens from outer space.
I'm wary too: the Iraq war cost numbers look suspiciously low. but until someone can dig up something disproving the claims, I have to at least pay some attention to it. I'm not interested in "we'll ignore you because you're not a credible source": I want a solid rebuttal. :)
I do think that the basic premise, that Iraq war spending is not as big of a factor in the deficit as people give it credit for, probably has some merit.
What I really would like to see is a complete, hierarchical breakdown of all federal government spending. A visualization like this (http://windirstat.info/) would be perfect, and would make it a lot easier for Average Joes like me to evaluate which quoted statistics are true, which are technically true but highly cherrypicked, and which are utter crap.
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That article in specific (the one the OP supplied) is a half-interesting reading. I'm more curious about the economic impact of the war than just a budgetary deficit. Further, this war has been going on for soon 9 years now. It's impossible to say with ANY certainty where we'd have been had we not went into Iraq. It could be anything--we could have had a new golden age, a bigger economic collapse, a war with a large power (N. Korea, perhaps), et cetera.
Now then, a credible publication with credible authors who are experts in their fields would be one thing. A conservative site which regularly flings mud and has relative nobodies writing for it has the credibility of a tabloid. Sure, some things might be true. However, most of it is one tiny aspect being zoomed in upon a thousand times over.
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anyone know how those fiqures compare to the financial cost of other wars?
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Adjusted for inflation, or not?
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Adjusted for inflation it's nothing compared to the World Wars, but that's hardly surprising.
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What worries me is that, in 2007, the Iraq war was apperently the only thing worth investing in 0_o.
Oh, and. Didn't I read somewhere that Iraq and Afghani war spendings were... classified or something?
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What worries me is that, in 2007, the Iraq war was apperently the only thing worth investing in 0_o.
Oh, and. Didn't I read somewhere that Iraq and Afghani war spendings were... classified or something?
Wrong. That chart is of the budgetary deficit. In 2007, the chart (claims) says that the lowest deficit since 2002 was primarily composed of Iraq war spending. Without the war, the deficit would have been much smaller but the overall government debt would still have increased.
Now then, the real issue is that Obama has greatly increased the overall national debt (as well as the budgetary deficit). If, within the next decade or two, politicians continue to spend more money than the USA makes, the interest payment on the debt will exceed government revenue and thus the debt will accumulate faster. In fact, at that point, there may be three options. The first is to print enough money to repay the debt, causing a period of severe inflation which may be difficult to stop or at least slow. The second is to declare war on major lenders and basically destroy them or at least their ability to be repaid. The third is to overthrow the Federal Government and replace it with either one or multiple new governments.
Of all options, causing massive inflation would be the safest but also will rebury the USA. Timing would be everything. A major war might be a good second choice but will have a large risk and possibly long-standing international consequences. The third choice may be the most dangerous as a war against the federal government would be tough--they control various espionage agencies and the military, so getting the wheels turning on revolution would be difficult unless these parts of the government defect. If they don't defect, the revolt is basically crushed. It also has the possibility to turn from revolution to civil war and end with multiple wars. It also would leave us the most vulnerable to large wars--we might not have to declare war on an enemy as they'll declare a war on us. That said, we have relative security thanks to our geographic location, but any half-industrial or half-developed country could invade. The prevalence of nuclear weapons is also scary as there are too many scenarios to account for.
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I think lenders will still come calling no matter what government's in charge.
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If a company that owes you money goes out of business, and another company that doesn't owe you money moves into the abandoned building, do you push to get your money from them?
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If a company that owes you money goes out of business, and another company that doesn't owe you money moves into the abandoned building, do you push to get your money from them?
If said company has also taken all their other assets, yes.
EDIT: Also, I gotta ask. What "gay bird debate"? You wouldn't be trying to delegitimize something based on non-existant controversy like some kind of intelligent design proponent would you Bengal?
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If a company that owes you money goes out of business, and another company that doesn't owe you money moves into the abandoned building, do you push to get your money from them?
If they bought the debts, then yes they may. The point would be to say "we aien't repayin' no stink debt!" Likewise, the debts don't have to be purchased. If there were, say, two new national governments, each could refuse and say that it's not their debt and try to blame the other. Likewise, if there's only one, they can still refuse and so the lenders are screwed
Retrieving all money lent is not a sure thing. In this case, the government entity is legally dead and thus any debts it carries are dead as well. If Grandpa Joe dies and is survived by Grandma Jane, it's Grandma Jane's debt. If Grandma Jane's estate shrivels up and she dies, then the worst that can happen for her children is to have no estate to inherit from. What Grandma Jane might try to do is to give away family heirlooms prior to her death--they can't take and sell what she no longer owns. Likewise, Grandma Jane could give away all remaining assets to charity or otherwise hide them and, upon her death, whatever assets she has are still not enough to repay her debt and thus her estate would be seized.
Lending isn't a sure thing. There are risks involved--one of which is losing your money.
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EDIT: Also, I gotta ask. What "gay bird debate"? You wouldn't be trying to delegitimize something based on non-existant controversy like some kind of intelligent design proponent would you Bengal?
The one you just posted in (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71155.msg1407186#msg1407186). :P
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The one you just posted in (http://www.hard-light.net/forums/index.php?topic=71155.msg1407186#msg1407186). :P
Check the posting order. :P
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Budget deficit, eh? > 300% discrepancy, they say?
Is this the thing where they tried to get away with not counting the defense budget as being part of the budget?
Or am I remembering stuff that never happened, again?
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Emergency spending, Aard.
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There's a gay bird debate?
Looks like a perfectly sensible gay bird acknowledgment to me. There's so much homosexuality in nature you'd need an agenda to miss it.
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Emergency spending, Aard.
The interesting thing about that is the majority has been repaid and the remainder will also be repaid in due time. In the long-term, it was probably a <$50m loss (thanks to inflation).
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EDIT: Also, I gotta ask. What "gay bird debate"? You wouldn't be trying to delegitimize something based on non-existant controversy like some kind of intelligent design proponent would you Bengal?
I just didn't have any good title (and something similar to "Democrats are bad" or "Obama stimulus sucks" just wasn't enough), and I've seen that thread moments earlier. Nothing personal or offensive intended.
As for the sources they pull their numbers from, the cost of both wars is on page 33 of this: http://cbo.gov/ftpdocs/117xx/doc11705/08-18-Update.pdf and it is 1.109 trillion (using the short scale; as in 1.109*10^12 USD), the rest of the stuff is (should be at least, I don't have the time and will to check all the sources) under the links in the article, and they also have a:
[Data sources: ....]
part right under the article. Also, I wouldn't call .gov web publications that the author is using tabloids.
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part right under the article. Also, I wouldn't call .gov web publications that the author is using tabloids.
I agree with this, but I'm saying that The American Thinker publication seems more like a conservative tabloid than a valid source. I agree with some aspects of the conservative agenda and some aspects of the liberal agenda. That article in particular is interesting. They're probably right, too--Republicans asking "where are the jobs?" may be a large promotion for areas with significant job loss. Even so, their accusations plus their name are at odds with each other.
I like the article and it illustrates a good point.
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Well I ran into the article on another forum, that's probably the only thing I've read on American Thinker.
And BTW, where are those jobs? The unemployment rate didn't go down as much as the amount of money spent to fight it grew...
http://www.google.com/publicdata?ds=usunemployment&met=unemployment_rate&tdim=true&dl=en&hl=en&q=us+unemployment+rate
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Maybe on topic... depending what the topic was... Considering the Republicans did anything and everything they could do to weaken the stimulus package, I wouldn't be surprised if it's failing.
Also,
Emergency spending, Aard.
The interesting thing about that is the majority has been repaid and the remainder will also be repaid in due time. In the long-term, it was probably a <$50m loss (thanks to inflation).
Wha??? When did this happen?
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Maybe on topic... depending what the topic was... Considering the Republicans did anything and everything they could do to weaken the stimulus package, I wouldn't be surprised if it's failing.
Also,
Emergency spending, Aard.
The interesting thing about that is the majority has been repaid and the remainder will also be repaid in due time. In the long-term, it was probably a <$50m loss (thanks to inflation).
Wha??? When did this happen?
You really didn't hear about all of this? A lot of financial corporations converted to bank holding companies in order to have access to that (original) batch of money. $800-900b could be borrowed for a lower rate than from other lenders and with much lower interest payments. However, taking the money meant that they were required to adhere to a hodgepodge of laws including limitations on corporate reimbursement. Anyways, they took the money for a few months to bolster liquid assets. Most of it had been repaid last I heard a few months ago. It did get things rolling a bit for venture capitalist firms as well as allow other companies to start lending and others to start borrowing. Many of the best companies, such as Goldman Sacks, took the money to keep their financial ratios in balance and thus perform better coming out of 2008 and into 2009.
The surviving companies are on much better footing now. What I'm really curious about is how Obama's new limits on consumer borrowing and fees associated will do to these major companies' bottom lines as well as their survivability. Banks typically make the majority of their revenue from service fees--not just late fees, but also on commercial services. As a consumer, I'm happy that Obama's revising the laws so that we're not screwed out of $30+ because we missed by $0.10. The new limits basically say that the fee cannot exceed the amount--so instead of $20-40 fee for missing by $0.10, you now owe the bank $0.20 ($0.10 missed plus $0.10 fee). I haven't read the full law so I don't know what the limit will be, but people who miss by tens or hundreds of dollars might have a fee of the same amount.
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Huh? No, that's not where the 3-trillion dollar figure came from. The 3-trillion figure came from military expenditures back during the middle of the Bush derpdom.
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yeah, Bush was paying for the war with emergency spending to keep it off the regular budget figures.
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yeah, Bush was paying for the war with emergency spending to keep it off the regular budget figures.
Any .gov website with the numbers on emergency spending I could visit?