From the Washingto n Post

The True Cost of the Iraq War By Joseph E. Stiglitz and Linda J. Bilmes Writing in these pages in early 2008, we put the total cost to the United States of the Iraq war at $3 trillion. This price tag dwarfed previous estimates, including the Bush administration's 2003 projections of a $50 billion to $60 billion war.

But today, as the United States ends combat in Iraq, it appears that our $3 trillion estimate (which accounted for both government expenses and the war's broader impact on the U.S. economy) was, if anything, too low. For example, the cost of diagnosing, treating and compensating disabled veterans has proved higher than we expected.

Moreover, two years on, it has become clear to us that our estimate did not capture what may have been the conflict's most sobering expenses: those in the category of "might have beens," or what economists call opportunity costs. For instance, many have wondered aloud whether, absent the Iraq invasion, we would still be stuck in Afghanistan. And this is not the only "what if" worth contemplating. We might also ask: If not for the war in Iraq, would oil prices have risen so rapidly? Would the federal debt be so high? Would the economic crisis have been so severe?

The answer to all four of these questions is probably no. The central lesson of economics is that resources -- including both money and attention -- are scarce. What was devoted to one theater, Iraq, was not available elsewhere. More...

He’s a very funny guy …  life of the party.

From Truthout

by Zach Carter of The Media Consortium

Last week, Social Security advocates learned something they had long suspected. Arguments for cutting Social Security aren't really about economics or the deficit. They're all about waging war on social services.

In short, some very prominent policymakers are out to dismantle Social Security on ideological grounds. The most recent example of this view comes from Alan Simpson, a former Republican Senator from Wyoming who now serves as co-Chair of President Barack Obama's Federal Debt Commission. Earlier this summer, Simpson was caught on video spreading absurd lies about Social Security, but his latest outburst explains why he's been so willing to distort the facts. Simpson simply hates Social Security.

As Joshua Holland highlights for AlterNet, Simpson fired off a nasty email to Ashley Carson, who advocates for elderly women, in which he referred to the most successful social program in U.S. history as "a milk cow with 310 million tits."

Social Security is Doing Just Fine

But Simpson has a lot of power on the Debt Commission, which is expected to recommend that Congress reduce the deficit by cutting social programs in a report this year. But as Holland notes, Social Security isn't in trouble:

Social Security is in fine shape. It's got a surplus that will run out in 2037, but even if nothing were to change by then, it could still continue to pay out 75 percent of scheduled benefits seventy-five years from now, long after the surplus disappears, and those benefits would still be higher than what retirees receive today.

What's more, as William Greider notes for The Nation, Social Security has never added one cent to the federal budget deficit. According to the law that created the program, Social Security never can. Targeting Social Security in order to fix the deficit is like invading Iraq to fight Al-Qaeda. The issues are not related. More...

Republican Credit Card Spending....The Florida Tobacco Company No Tax Deal....The Florida International University Job....Rubio's "Lobby Shop" With Hospital Contracts....

Hmmm …

RIYADH: Rotana Holding Chairman Prince Alwaleed headed recently a board of directors meeting attended by News Corporation executives

Anti-American GOP Proxy Fox News  succeeds in fooling some of the people most of the time. The will of the majority is being blocked and subverted by a jaded non-native Australian megalomaniac and a porcine republican political operative. Who are the REAL Terrorists here ?

The Real Terrorists are the propagandists at Fox news.

A top Republican congressional candidate in Florida is taking some heat Wednesday morning after it was revealed that eight years ago he literally ran off the road a mail truck carrying unfavorable fliers about his campaign.

GOP candidate David Rivera was the subject of a critical investigative report by a local CBS outlet for an incident that took place late during his local statehouse campaign in 2002.

As the CBS unit tells it, as the mailing deadline neared, Rivera got in his car in an attempt to track down a Liberty Mailing services truck that was set to deliver campaign fliers being produced by his opponent. Accounts diverge from here. Rivera stresses that he wanted to get his own fliers which happened to be on the same truck. But that doesn't explain why the Florida Republican, according to the station, forced "the truck to the shoulder of the Palmetto Expressway right in the middle of evening traffic at 5:50pm, ten minutes before the truck's deadline to get to the post office which was 6:00pm Eastern."

Rivera says he agreed to rendezvous with the truck on the exit ramp of the Palmetto, where Rivera said he removed his fliers from the truck. More...