| Penny Wise, Pound Foolish 10-29-10 mpg How the Wars Are Sinking the Economy Special Note - Some quotes...."Nobel Prize recipient Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard budget guru Linda J. Bilmes are revising their original $3 trillion war cost estimate. [For a second time, they did a prior revision a few months ago - mpg]" -- "Already, we've spent more than $1 trillion in Iraq, not counting the $700 billion consumed each year by the Pentagon budget. [It's a lot more than thet, the DoD hides an awful lot. We should just round it up to a trillion dollars a year - mpg] And spending in Iraq and Afghanistan now comes to more than -- $3 billion weekly, making the wars a major reason for record-level budget deficits. -- Two years ago, Joseph Stiglitz and I published The Three Trillion Dollar War in which we estimated that the budgetary and economic costs of the war would reach $3 trillion. -- Taking new numbers into account, however, we now believe that our initial estimate was far too conservative—the cost of the wars will reach between $4 trillion and $6 trillion." - bold by website editor Hey folks, guess how much the 9/11 Commission was initially allocated to "investigate" 9/11? C'mon take a guess.... Well, after kicking and screaming, and delaying the creation of the commission for over a year till they were forced to set it up by some of the families who lost relatives on 9/11, after trying to appoint Kissinger to run it (of all people)....and failing, after its officials refused to testify at the commission till again being forced to do so....the Bush administration allocated to the Commission.... $3 whole million dollars to carry out its mission. Yep, that's right folks, what they initially gave to the commission for its funding is about what it would've cost you (before the housing crunch) to buy a large home with a view in Malibu. After making a huge political ruckus the Commission did manage to get another ten to eleven million more. But that doesn't really matter. What DOES matter is that this country, in the end, is going to spend in direct costs around $4 trillion to $6 trillion dollars (it may very well be a lot more) for illegal, immoral, murderous, criminal, occupations of other countries, another $7 trillion to $15 trillion in direct costs for the mortgage mess, and finally another $7 trillion to $15 trillion to clean up the $600 trillion to over $1,000 trillion worth of toxic derivatives out there (notational value). All of this Bankster created crap was designed to fund, and also hide, the true costs of building America's Neo-Roman Empire during the last decade while trying to pay for this whole empire fling on the cheap. Not to mention passing some of the costs on to gullible, or corruptible, foreign officials by selling them hundreds of billions worth of this toxic waste. It's the reason Cheney kept running around for years telling anyone and everyone who would listen that "debt doesn't matter". He knew how the empire really worked, he knew this was the plan as far back as the early seventies when the US-NRE went off the gold standard, he always knew this is how the Banksters, the AIPAC/Israeli Consortium and the Military Industrial Complex were going to fund their little Middle Eastern enterprise. And all of these vast efforts at monetary creation, to fund this ruinously expensive empire needed was just one more pretext, just one more trigger, to set in motion the Bankster's plans for endless wars of aggression and endless profits. (Timed to take place at the start of a new ten year cycle one might add) That trigger of course being 9/11, for which the "good people" of this country initially paid, after a year of collectively dragging their feet, just $3 million dollars to investigate. But for which they, their children, their grand children, and even their great grand children, will pay tens of trillions more for in the end. Possibly much more. Had a proper investigation been done. One that "followed the money", one that determined cui bono, one that examined "means, motive and opportunity" and who the real "players" were, along with their extensive prior relationships with each other. These wars, and the consequent bankrupting of this nation, probably would never have happened. As some would say....penny wise, pound foolish. That's a sad fact that will go down in history as a black mark against every single person living in this country. Something that cannot be forgotten or forgiven, but something which can be redeemed. Let's hold an impartial, independent, complete and through investigation of what really happened on 9/11 and salvage what little dignity this country still has left. - mpg |