As we all know, we are in a recession or heading into a recession. Call it what you want to call it. From my perspective, I think we've been in somewhat of a recession since Fall 2007.
Dee, Anand and I were talking today about several issues of our current economy and just thought, what if we didn't go to war in Iraq?
Last night on 60 minutes, there was an interview with the FBI agent that interviewed Saddam Hussein for 7 months while he was in captivity before his death. The issue of weapons of mass destruction came up and as many of us expected, there was none really left when the US went to war with Iraq.
So then we wanted to know what the cost of the war was to date, and typed in to google, "money spent on Iraq war" and low and behold we came across a website called www.costofwar.com that redirects itself to a site www.nationalpriorities.org, the link is here
So how much are we in the hole for Iraq? As of 8:26pm PST on 1/28/08 we are $489,689,477,954. Yes, that's billions.
According to the US Census Bureau, our population today is 303,327,366.
With the talks of a stimulus package being created by the government to increase consumer spending, there are reports of a few hundred dollars being given to individuals, anywhere from $300-600. I personally think it's not going to really help, people seem scared at the economy right now and I figure most people are going to save their money, at least that's what most people I'm speaking to are doing, everywhere from higher economic levels to mid to low.
If we didn't go to war in Iraq, we could hypothetically split up that $ to every US American down to $1614.39 per person, if you are a family of 5 that adds up to a lot of money. Now obviously, no one is naive to think that would ever happen, but it's just a thought.
With the elections coming this year, we all need to get out there and voice our opinion. We definitely need a change.