1. The cost of the war to the world is not that much different than the cost to the US, and could even be lower. Many things that are costs to the US, such as reconstruction in Iraq or higher oil prices, are benefits to someone else, like Iraqis or oil producing countries. The notable exception, of course, is that placing a value on the lives of Iraqis who’ve died as a result of the war would add a lot to the cost to the world.

2. Quiggin seems to have a really different analysis of the impact of higher oil prices than Nordhaus. If I’m understanding the two of them right, Nordhaus seems to come up with an impact many times larger (maybe $500 billion instead of $100 billion from the same $5/barrel) due to some sort of indirect effect.

Exactly why you shouldn’t waste $1 trillion attacking part of it that isn’t a danger to you.

“And it is better for dictators to know that we are stronger”

So much the worse, since now we’re weaker.

Indeed these are the End Times.

So I give you points for that. Because Bush screwed up royally, we had 9/11, hence the troops in Afghanistan. Without Bush, no 9/11, no troops in Afghanistan.

When you are right, you’re right.

WASHINGTON – The U.S. count of major world terrorist attacks more than tripled in 2004, a rise that may revive debate about whether the Bush administration is winning the war on terrorism, congressional aides said Tuesday.

The number of “significant” international terrorist attacks rose to about 650 last year from about 175 in 2003, according to congressional aides briefed Monday on the numbers by U.S. State Department and intelligence officials.

Indeed:

Minutes before the speech, an internal television monitor showed the president pumping his fist.

“Feels good,” he said.

What is your scenario under which the Iraq war doesn’t happen? One possibility would have been that Saddam granted full access to inspectors, they continued their work, and they certified the lack of WMDs. Why, then, would sanctions NOT have been lifted? After all, sanctions were not to have been permanent, they were only to have lasted until Saddam’s disarmament was completed.

But another possible scenario is that he would have used the opportunity to really get rid of the terrorists who attacked us—you know, Al Qaeda

My counterfactual history with Gore instead of Bush (and I put aside my misgivings and voted for Gore, BTW) includes treating 9/11 as a crime rather than an act of war. Under Gore, I don’t believe we’d have ‘used enough troops to get Bin Laden at Tora Bora’ because we wouldn’t have been anywhere near Tora Bora—nor would Bin Laden have been holed up there. He’d still be somewhere in Afghanistan with his organization intact, hosted by a still-in-power Taliban government. Do you remember how many on the left opposed the invasion of Afghanistan either on ‘moral’ grounds or because it was going to be a disaster (like the Russians and British?). I remember that opposition very clearly.

strengthened our police intelligence with Europe and North Africa so that Madrid, Casablanca, and London could have been prevented

Do you have evidence that sharing police intelligence with Eurpone and North Africa has been neglected?

, and in general not presided over four years of rising terrorist attacks. Somehow, I think that might have brought the price of oil down.

Rising terrorist attacks? We have had serious terror attack since the invasion of Iraq, but we also had many serious attacks before it. Setting aside 9/11, the Bali bombing, for example, was the year before the invasion of Iraq (and was purportedly in response to Australia’s support of East Timor). Do you think that the invasion of Afghanistan was insufficient to motivate continued Al Queda attacks on the West?

And the Madrid, Casablanca and London bombings interfered with oil production and raised the long-term price of oil exactly how?

One presumes not, otherwise the current administration would certainly have fought it instead.

The total budget for the next 10 years is 30 trillion or so, easy .

So at 1 trillion, we’re talking about 3.33% of taxes.

If someone had said to me in 2000, when Bush was running for President the first time, you can have Sadaam Hussein removed from power, a major military presence in the oil fields of the Middle East and drive the liberal establishment completely nuts, all for the incredibly low price of 9.99% of taxes… SOLD

However, since then, I saw Michael Moore’s movie. He really changed my mind about things. Wrong dictator. What’s the going rate to take over a Kingdom?

Assume that we’re about halfway through our occupation of Iraq. Assume casualties continue at roughly the rates we’ve seen.

For back-of-the-envelope purposes, let’s say we’ve had 2,000 KIA and 14,000 wounded. Let’s further assume the average injury amounts to a 50% disabiliy. So, double those numbers : Bush’s little adventure is likely to reach 4,000 KIA and 28,000 wounded (amounting to the equivalent of roughly 14,000 permanently diasabled).
Let’s pull a convenient, plausible number for lifetime earnings out of the air: say $50,000 a year for, say, the next 40 years. (For now, don’t worry about inflation, let it stay in 2005 dollars….)

That’s $2m potential lifetime earnings per casualty, times 16,000 equivalent casualties: so, over the next 40 years, on-the-order of more than $30 BILLION in lost contributions to the economy.

I’m too dispirited by that quick guesstimate to even think about what this disaster is going to cost our VA system for the next 70 years or so.

Oh, yeah: and thousands of childrenwill be growing up orphaned, for Bush’s lies.

With that kind of cash to spend, we could have offered simply to pay Iraq to submit to an international state-building project. This could have been our offer to the Iraqis: We’ll spend half a trillion dollars right now if you allow foreign contractors and NGOs to come in and rebuild your country’s infrastructure, overhaul its court and criminal justice system, fully fund its schools and health care system, and establish free media and civil society institutions. If you hold free and fair elections at the end of a five-year period, as verified by international monitors, you get the other half trillion to endow the budget of the brand, spanking new Iraqi government.

With a few tens of millions of desperate and impoverished Iraqis suddenly screaming “show me the money!” even an autocrat like Saddam might have been forced to take the deal. And if he hadn’t taken the deal, he would have had to face a mad scramble by other Baathists close to the seat of power to put a bullet in him, take control of the government and announce: “a new day for Iraq has dawned – a new era of openness and international cooperation…and prosperity.” Even Saddam would not have been powerful enough to stand in the way of a one trillion dollar tide. There are too many people who would be eager for a chance to get a piece of a trillion dollars worth of action.

Of course, there would have been no tanks and cluster bombs, no shock and awe, and no mountains of dead people. So where’s the fun in that? And paying Iraq to change would have been so dishonorable. As we all know, no amount of death and destruction is too high a price to pay to preserve our national honor, and to prevent a single evildoer from thumbing his nose at us for a decade and getting away with it.

Why spend a trillion dollars building things when you could spend it smashing things instead?

Dept. of Now-They-Tell-Us: A new cost-benefit analysis by the AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies on “The Economic Costs of the War in Iraq” concludes that the Iraq War is likely to end up costing over twice what it’s worth:

We estimate that the expected total net present value of the direct costs [of the Iraq War] through 2015 could be $604 billion to the U.S., $95 billion to coalition partners, and $306 billion to Iraq, suggesting a global total expected net present value of about $1 trillion. The net present value of total avoided costs, meanwhile, could be about $429 billion.

The BBC cites a report that shows the Iraq war is now costing more in fiscal terms than the Vietnam war.

The most profitable investment that public agencies can make is in health service delivery and investment. The Lasker foundation has a great series of reports on the benefits from health R & D, especially Exceptional Returns: The Economic Value of America’s Investment in Medical Research, authored by Kevin Murphy.

An Australian version of this report, Exceptional Returns: The Value of Investing in Health R&D in Australia, was put out by Access Economics. The press release $1 INJECTION INTO HEALTH R&D RETURNS $5 ECONOMIC BENEFIT prospects great gains from health investment:

Every dollar spent on health research and development (R&D) returns $5 in national economic benefit, a major new report by Access Economics for the Australian Society of Medical Research reveals.
And Australians’ current life expectancy has increased by eight years compared to the 1960s, because of massive advances in medical research, health promotion and overall healthcare.

When it comes right down to it, the best way to help people is to heal them, rather than wound them.