The following is mostly excerpted from Chapter 1 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity:
Well, perhaps we still can democratize the Middle East. But, things are not going well, so one wonders what better priorities for those trillions of dollars. There is a book by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz entitled The Three Trillion Dollar War and a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the Afghanistan/Iraq War if continued over the next decade will cost $2.4 trillion (that is $8,000/person in the U.S.). There are, of course, hidden costs to all wars, and a Joint Economic Committee of Congress reported that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have already cost $1.5 trillion, that is 1,500 billion dollars. Remember that the entire annual renewable energy budget for the U.S. Department of Energy for the past decade averaged under $1 billion/year, or one-thousandth of a trillion dollar.
Jumping to today, the latest report by Anup Shah shows that the world spends at least a trillion dollars each year on war. At least a third of all arms sales in the 1998-2005 period, close to $100 million, can be attributed to the U.S:
o We specialize in providing arms and training to countries harboring terrorists, good because our soldiers are not killed, but one wonders where these rifles go, and whether they might someday be pointed right back at us.
o Twenty of the top twenty-five U.S. arms clients in the developing world were either undemocratic regimes or governments with records of major human rights abuses. But, then, again, maybe this is the way to wean them towards democracy.
Russia is #2 with about $41 million. Numbers alone, however, do not portray the reality. The U.S. government provides subsidies to allow countries to purchase these military arms, a kind of foreign aid. There is, of course, widespread corruption and bribes, for this international industry has no oversight, generally because the matter of national security provides for confidentiality. President Jimmy Carter in 1976 said that “we can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.” But we are!
Well, perhaps we still can democratize the Middle East. But, things are not going well, so one wonders what better priorities for those trillions of dollars. There is a book by Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz entitled The Three Trillion Dollar War and a Congressional Budget Office estimate that the Afghanistan/Iraq War if continued over the next decade will cost $2.4 trillion (that is $8,000/person in the U.S.). There are, of course, hidden costs to all wars, and a Joint Economic Committee of Congress reported that the Iraq and Afghanistan wars have already cost $1.5 trillion, that is 1,500 billion dollars. Remember that the entire annual renewable energy budget for the U.S. Department of Energy for the past decade averaged under $1 billion/year, or one-thousandth of a trillion dollar.
Jumping to today, the latest report by Anup Shah shows that the world spends at least a trillion dollars each year on war. At least a third of all arms sales in the 1998-2005 period, close to $100 million, can be attributed to the U.S:
o We specialize in providing arms and training to countries harboring terrorists, good because our soldiers are not killed, but one wonders where these rifles go, and whether they might someday be pointed right back at us.
o Twenty of the top twenty-five U.S. arms clients in the developing world were either undemocratic regimes or governments with records of major human rights abuses. But, then, again, maybe this is the way to wean them towards democracy.
Russia is #2 with about $41 million. Numbers alone, however, do not portray the reality. The U.S. government provides subsidies to allow countries to purchase these military arms, a kind of foreign aid. There is, of course, widespread corruption and bribes, for this international industry has no oversight, generally because the matter of national security provides for confidentiality. President Jimmy Carter in 1976 said that “we can’t be both the world’s leading champion of peace and the world’s leading supplier of arms.” But we are!
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The Dow Jones Industrials went up to 8879, then dropped to 8646, only to end at 8761, +70 for the day. With minor exceptions, the world markets also barely increased.
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The stopgap auto bailout bill hopes for passage on Friday, depending on the Senate Republicans. The sum is $14 billion to GM and Chrysler. While this is but a loan with a lot of restrictions,this is about the grand total the U.S. Department of Energy spent on renewable energy research over the past 15-2o years. Something wrong with priorities here...although crude oil is only at $43.73/barrel, up $1.65. Gold went up $32/toz to $808.
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You want to be truly frightened? Fortune reports on the view of eight eminent thinkers, where DJI of 4,000 was suggested as possible.
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