END OF WARS (Part 3)

The following is excerpted from Chapter 1 of SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.

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Adjusted for 2000 dollars, our wars have cost:

o Civil War ...........................$ 62 billion
o Spanish American War ...$ 5 billion
o World War I ......................$ 290 billion
o World War II .....................$2,300 billion

.................................................(or $2.3 trillion)
o Korean Conflict .................$ 111 billion
o Vietnam War ....................$ 165 billion
o Iraq War ...........................$2,400 billion

................................................(estimated, $2.4 trillion)

These wars are certainly not cheap, and it is startling that this second Iraq War will cost more than the entire World War II. Further, we LOST that Vietnam War to communists, and they still went away, while we rose to become #1. If those Iraq War funds were instead used to sidestep Peak Oil or prevent Global Warming, where would we be today?

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The Dow Jones Industrials dropped 243 to 8091. The $15 billion bailout to GM and Chrysler is on track, but the Big 3 will be back next year. As this sum will be drawn from the $25 billion already available for innovation, signs are that this fund will be doubled to $50 billion next year. The three auto companies are also counting on their financial lending arms drawing from the $700 billion Wall Street rescue package, certainly not a sure thing. Plus, there is that $75 billion to $125 billion projected real total need hanging over the official requests. So Congress will again be visited by the three CEO's for even more money early next year. I wonder if they will car pool this time, or regain sanity and catch economy class flights. Maybe use one corporate jet so that they can talk to each other. World markets were mixed today, with nothing + or - more than 3%.

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Crude oil inched up 51 cents to $42.58/barrel. Participants of the Barclay's U.S. Commodities Investor Conference held in New York yesterday predicted that energy stocks will be the best performing commodities next year. The consensus was that oil prices would average higher than $100/barrel over the next FIVE years. So, perhaps we will reach a kind of stability, if you believe them. Gold rose $4 to $776/toz.

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Gasoline Prices

NOTE THAT INSTEAD OF ALPHABETICALLY WAITING, YOU CAN TYPE IN YOUR STATE SYMBOL AT THE BOTTOM, SUCH AS “HI” FOR HAWAII. You can get the USA average price of gasoline by CLICKING on the State Symbol at the bottom. In comparison, gasoline was $4/gallon on July 7, 2008. You can also CLICK on “Gasoline Prices” at the top and go directly to the source.