Will Dollars Save Iraq?
The New York Times is reporting that: "The $87 billion price tag makes the package the most expensive postwar military and civilian effort since the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II, after adjusting for inflation. Combined with the earlier $79 billion approved by Congress to conduct the war and pay initial postwar expenses, it would bring the cost to the United States of deposing Saddam Hussein and stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan this year and next to $166 billion. That is more than 25 times the $6.4 billion bill to American taxpayers, in today's dollars, for the Persian Gulf war in 1991 to expel Iraq from Kuwait."
This is not a new concept. The U.S. sent millions to Europe after World War II, leading Henry Hazlitt to comment: “It is grimly ironic that many of the same people who now tell us that we must pour our money and goods into Europe because European revival is essential to our own, are the very people who have been the most insistent on the policies that make and keep Germany an economic vacuum.” (Will Dollars Save the World?, 10).
It seems that history repeats itself as supporters of 12 years of ruinous economic sanctions now demand that Iraq be "reconstructed" in order to protect U.S. "national interests."
Diverting resources (U.S. dollars) from more highly valued means to less valued means continues the impoverishment of the U.S. and the world. This aside, Hazlitt quickly disposes of the last remnants of the argument for foreign aid: “This principle is recognized quickly enough when dealing with individuals. If you make a loan to a family that keeps a car for pleasure, nothing is gained by the assurance that the particular dollars you have loaned have gone only to buy food, and that the automobile was bought and run with the family’s own earnings. Even if you could verify by the numbers on the bills that your particular dollars were spent only for food, you would know that your loan was being used in effect to keep the car—because the family would otherwise have to give up the car and use its own earnings for the food.” (Will Dollars Save the World?, 27-28)
The U.S. taxpayers continue to subsidize socialism worldwide.
This is not a new concept. The U.S. sent millions to Europe after World War II, leading Henry Hazlitt to comment: “It is grimly ironic that many of the same people who now tell us that we must pour our money and goods into Europe because European revival is essential to our own, are the very people who have been the most insistent on the policies that make and keep Germany an economic vacuum.” (Will Dollars Save the World?, 10).
It seems that history repeats itself as supporters of 12 years of ruinous economic sanctions now demand that Iraq be "reconstructed" in order to protect U.S. "national interests."
Diverting resources (U.S. dollars) from more highly valued means to less valued means continues the impoverishment of the U.S. and the world. This aside, Hazlitt quickly disposes of the last remnants of the argument for foreign aid: “This principle is recognized quickly enough when dealing with individuals. If you make a loan to a family that keeps a car for pleasure, nothing is gained by the assurance that the particular dollars you have loaned have gone only to buy food, and that the automobile was bought and run with the family’s own earnings. Even if you could verify by the numbers on the bills that your particular dollars were spent only for food, you would know that your loan was being used in effect to keep the car—because the family would otherwise have to give up the car and use its own earnings for the food.” (Will Dollars Save the World?, 27-28)
The U.S. taxpayers continue to subsidize socialism worldwide.
Unknown @ 12:04 PM
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