Dollars out of your pocket.

I've been wondering why so little attention has been paid to the connection between the Iraq war and the crumbling economy. Here's an article from The Australian about an attempt to quantify it.

The Iraq war has cost the US 50-60 times more than the Bush administration predicted and was a central cause of the sub-prime banking crisis threatening the world economy, according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz.

The former World Bank vice-president yesterday said the war had, so far, cost the US something like $US3trillion ($3.3 trillion) compared with the $US50-$US60-billion predicted in 2003.

Think of all the useful and productive things that could have been done in America with an additional $10,000 per person. Health care, education, infrastructure, research, elimination of hunger, energy independence, ...

Details and documentation in the book. Reviews.