The price of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan

[green tea]

...is soon exceeding $1,000,000,000,000 , I found out here http://www.costofwar.com/.
What would you say, how reliable is that site about the "TOTALcost of WARs"? From whom does that money come? From the taxpayers, or from debts (future taxpayers)? Has the USA still the economical power to pay this? And how is that number called?

[Tiberius Tosi]

Oops wow I can't read numbers! (Winter vacation is too long apparently, I thought that said 1 Quadrillion rofl)

1 Trillion is really not all that much, the national debt is nearing 12 trillion. The annual US GDP is 14 trillion, just to put things into perspective.

The money is mostly paid by taxpayer money and federal bonds and securites, but also foreign debt.

[Exarch]

Oops wow I can't read numbers!

9 zeroes makes it a billion,
1, 000, 000, 000=a billion

...is soon exceeding $1,000,000,000,000 , I found out here http://www.costofwar.com/.
What would you say, how reliable is that site about the "TOTALcost of WARs"? From whom does that money come? From the taxpayers, or from debts (future taxpayers)? Has the USA still the economical power to pay this? And how is that number called?

time to sell off some gold
the US has most of the gold reserves in the world
why not sell it off to make $$?

[Tiberius Tosi]

9 zeroes makes it a billion,
1, 000, 000, 000=a billion

Lol yeah I noticed right before you posted...hehe been outta school too long .

time to sell off some gold
the US has most of the gold reserves in the world
why not sell it off to make $$?

The Fed legally cannot sell its gold notes (strange, it actually lacks physical gold) to anyone but the twelve Fed banks from what I have heard. This number is only around 11 billion anyways.

The actual confirmed gold reserves only numbers around 250 billion or so as well. Selling all of that anyways would depreciate the value greatly and the actual money received for the gold would be much lower than if figured at its current high value.

[Rapax]

1 Trillion is really not all that much, the national debt is nearing 12 trillion. The annual US GDP is 14 trillion, just to put things into perspective.

Lol, you put things in perspective by citing the nation with the highest GDP and its insane amount of debt? Well done. Not sure how that turns 1 Trillion into "not all that much" though.

[Tiberius Tosi]

Lol, you put things in perspective by citing the nation with the highest GDP and its insane amount of debt? Well done. Not sure how that turns 1 Trillion into "not all that much" though.

Well when you factor in the fact that the Iraq war has been going on for almost 7 years now, and has cost 1 trillion in that time while the GDP has been 98 trillion during the same period you are looking at the war only costing 1/98 of our money over the last 7 years...hardly the hugely substantial price that people claim while bring ruin to our economy.

[Mangalore]

Well when you factor in the fact that the Iraq war has been going on for almost 7 years now, and has cost 1 trillion in that time while the GDP has been 98 trillion during the same period you are looking at the war only costing 1/98 of our money over the last 7 years...hardly the hugely substantial price that people claim while bring ruin to our economy.

The GDP is a theoretical figure of economic strength. It is by no means any actual money or wealth available to a government or state.

Weren't there already studies by economists that put the actual costs of both wars into the multitrillion dollar area? Nevermind the thousands of dead people, of course...

[blackwatersix]

I thought it's a trillion, counted 12 zeroes in OP.. or is that just me?? I'm confuzzled.

[Tiberius Tosi]

I thought it's a trillion, counted 12 zeroes in OP.. or is that just me?? I'm confuzzled.

Lol it seems both Exarch and I can't read, I thought it said 1 Quadrillion at first, and he thought it said 1 Billion.

Too...many...numbers

[Exarch]

Lol it seems both Exarch and I can't read, I thought it said 1 Quadrillion at first, and he thought it said 1 Billion.

Too...many...numbers

lulz
noted
i too have been outta school tooo long

@topic
yeh, that number's pretty high
i woulda thought that with the price of gold being what it is now, the USG could alleviate the deficit by selling off some gold

[blackwatersix]

Yeah, I was so confused, I thought something must be wrong with my eyes until I counted the zeroes with my face to the monitor.

[Gromovnik]

It's a small price to pay for bringing Christ to those heathens.

[s.rwitt]

Hold on a second...are you trying to tell me that wars cost money!?

[Corvis]

Clearly we're doing this "invading sovereign nations for their oil" thing wrong if we racked up such a price tag. Oh well, at least the Brits and Chinese got some out of it!

[TheTrainee]

Well.. if we factor in the opportunity cost on top of that...
it all comes out to be: A LOT.

[Enemy of the State]

Such a waste, it's sad.

[Nick_Since_1985]

I would of bought something else with it...

[GreyFox]

Well, Iraq is costing the US over a billion dollars a week. Adds up after a while y'know.

[lordoftheT]

You know I'd say a war is not going all that badly when one of the most common complaints is the fact that it costs money.
Just saying.

[Exarch]

still, on top of the deficit which is already over 100% of USA's GDP, this dont look too good.
u cant keep printing $$$ forever-that's just as bad