(no subject)

[pmb]

Y'know, we could have just given every Iraqi citizen $37 336.58 and we'd still be ahead by 3,000 american lives and 500,000 iraqi lives. A trillion is a very large number. I bet that, for a flat rate of 37k per capita, we could have gotten the entire Iraqi army to overthrow Saddam all on their own.

Or, as an alternate view, you and I and everyone we know in this country has paid or will pay 4,000 dollars each for this useless war.

Comments

[patrissimo.livejournal.com]

stockpiling dollars - that would be currency flight. But the result would just be a smidgeon of domestic dollar deflation, which is not a bad thing.

It would be logistically difficult to give each Iraqi $37K. But I find it tough to believe it's as difficult as a war. Couldn't we just use the Army as a giant FedEx, and let them use their $37K to order cool shit from American catalogues? Surely that's logistically solvable.

I don't really feel like getting into the trade deficit, but the economists I read in my little echo chamber think it's a bogus concern.

[freyley.livejournal.com]

I think if we gave each Iraqi 37K we'd have to figure out which ones had already gotten it...and keep them from killing each other just after they'd gotten the money...and lots of other logistical difficulties.

Plus, there'd be at least a hundred hour debate in the Senate about what currency to give it to them in...and all sorts of other stuff. =)

As for the trade deficit, this is why I hemmed and hawed about macroeconomic theory, because I'm really not sure that anyone understands macroeconomic theory, or that the correlations they've made hold up beyond the limited examples they found them in. *shrug*