Re: "...I did not redefine it. I suggested the cost ...be compared to something useful."
No, Scott... that is NOT all that you said. You SPECIFICALLY said that "It is ridiculous." [to point out the plain FACT that if you spend a million dollars a day for a million days, that adds up to ONE TRILLION.]
There is nothing 'ridiculous' about that at all --- it is just the plain and ordinary truth.
Re: "(which is not even at or that close to one trillion btw)"
Not so, I believe (as the article made reference to).
FYI:
1) We are *currently spending* more month-to-month then in any previous year for this war. (As the Pentagon experts testified to Congress --- Iraq/Afghanistan War costs have *increased* significantly from approximately the 4 to 5 Billion dollars per month we were spending two years ago... to a current outlay of greater the 10 Billion dollars per month.)
Reasons given for the increase included such things as sharply increased medical expenses, much larger equipment replacement costs then forecast (effects of IEDs, sand and desert climate on wear and tear), etc. Other factors include higher energy costs, and more expensive 'high tech' gear then was deployed in previous engagements....
2) Congressional Research Service's official forecast is: 'Iraq to cost More than Vietnam'. (And, yes, that's AFTER adjusting for inflation's effect upon the dollar.)
The Congressional Research Service (CRS) inquiry concluded that around $261 billion had already been spent directly on Iraq (by April 2006....)
The same CRS report indicated that before it ends, the war will likely cost somewhat more than the $549 billion spent (adjusted for inflation) in the much more lethal Vietnam War. But even this figure will likely prove to be off by hundreds of billions of dollars because it accounts only for funds directly appropriated for war fighting.
As Linda Bilmes, a leading Harvard budgetary expert, and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz point out in their January 2006 paper, "The Economic Costs of the Iraq War," the spending captured by the CRS, even in strict budgetary terms, is "only the tip of a very deep iceberg."
Wartime appropriations do not, for example, include:
a) the cost of disability payments to veterans wounded in the war, payments that will continue throughout their life spans.
b) Nor do they cover the costs of medical treatment for those seriously injured in the war,
c) or even such basic war-related costs as the replacement of equipment and munitions expended in the conflict or the need to transport soldiers back to their home bases when they rotate out of country.
d) The war has also substantially increased the military's overall recruiting costs, reflected in bigger bonuses and additional recruiters.
e) What's more, Iraq is being 'paid for' entirely by borrowing money on which interest will need to be paid. INTEREST on that DEBT is a real factor that cannot be ignored from the cost calculus.
According to Bilmes and Stiglitz, if one applies the Congressional Budget Office's basic assumptions about the duration of the conflict ("a small but continuous presence"), it will cost nearly a $1.27 trillion dollars before all is said and done.
And THAT assumes that Iraq doesn't turn into a 'permanent' insurgency, a la the Israel/Palestine experience. God only knows what the tab would be if the US stayed there in force for 20 or 30 years or so....
Re: "I suggested the cost ...be compared to something useful."
An EXCELLENT IDEA!
That's what I've been suggesting from the beginning!
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"...a trillion is what you get if you spend a million dollars a day ... for a million days. That's 2,737 years -- a cool mil a day, every day, in other words, until the Year of Our Lord 4743. Or, working backward, from the time when Homer wrote the Iliad up to now."
"The $270 billion in rounding error is worth another 750 years at the million-a-day rate. That takes us up to the year 5493 -- or back to when Moses fled Egypt. Anyway you slice it, it's a lot of money."
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