A talent show on television asked the American people to vote for the winner tonight.
In the CNN story about the event was this quote:
More than 63 million votes were cast, "more than any president in the
history of our country has received," Seacrest said.
I wonder if anyone cares anymore that this is something we should be ashamed of?
Wednesday, May 24, 2006
Monday, May 08, 2006
Dinner and a Movie?
According to a report in the Guardian, the war in Iraq may end up costing us 1 TRILLION dollars. For those of you not familiar with the number, that's a 1 with 12 zeroes after it. That's a lot of money, by anyone's standards. And what are we going to get for it? More to the point, what are the Iraqi people going to get for it?
Couple things of note here. One, that report in the Guardian was initially published in January of 2006, and didn't really get any mainstream media attraction in the US until a few months later.
Two, its authors are Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist at Columbia University and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert.
And now with all the saber rattling going on between the U. S. and Iran, we may be getting ready to spend another trillion.
So this time I say we try a different approach. Why?
Well...let's look at what we could have done with a trillion in Iraq.
Instead of dropping bombs on March 20, 2003, we should have dropped leaflets offering them a choice. Either fight the invasion or from that moment on, everyone, yes, every man, woman, child, whether Shiia, Sunni or Kurd would be on the U. S. payroll. A fantasy? I don't think so.
Let's do the math.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Iraq's per capita GDP in 2005 was $3,400.00. That's about $283.00 a month.
As of July 2006, according to the same CIA Factbook, Iraq's population was 26,283,383.
If you divide one trillion by 26,283,383 you get $38,046.85.
So on March 20th, we should have made them an offer. And since we're generous Americans, we would have made it a nice one.
We should have told them that effective immediately we were tripling everyone's salary to $634.11 a month. And...we're going to keep paying them every month for the next 5 years, until they're back on their feet.
All they had to do was to lose the Saddam guy and his thugs, be cool, live their lives and maybe give the whole democracy thing a shot.
So what happens then?
Well, you KNOW Saddam and his guys didn't have that kind of cash. And clan or no clan, remember, "money talks and...." So, Saddam is history.
Now, everyone is happy. Wouldn't you be if someone just tripled your monthly income?
Now they also have the one thing that everyone in the world wants -- disposable income. And what do people do with disposable income?
They go to dinner and a movie.
Right. And how do they get to the movie theater? Well, they are going to need a car. They may want to buy a Dodge or a Chevy or even a Saturn. Then their going to need insurance. So now you got insurance companies setting up. And with insurance companies comes golf tournaments. If they can build golf courses in Palm Springs, they can build them in Iraq.
Another thing to do with disposable income is to take a trip. Heck they could even hop on Delta, United or American and visit the U.S. and spend some of that money here.
All of these disposable income related things also create jobs. Golf courses hire groundskeepers, theaters hire ushers, restaurants hire cooks and waiters, car dealers hire salesmen and mechanics, the government hires people to maintain the highways and the airports hire folks to run the airline counters.
So now, when it comes to Iran's turn, they will have a choice: The Mullahs or a dinner and a movie.
It's just a thought.
Couple things of note here. One, that report in the Guardian was initially published in January of 2006, and didn't really get any mainstream media attraction in the US until a few months later.
Two, its authors are Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel prize winning economist at Columbia University and Linda Bilmes, a Harvard budget expert.
And now with all the saber rattling going on between the U. S. and Iran, we may be getting ready to spend another trillion.
So this time I say we try a different approach. Why?
Well...let's look at what we could have done with a trillion in Iraq.
Instead of dropping bombs on March 20, 2003, we should have dropped leaflets offering them a choice. Either fight the invasion or from that moment on, everyone, yes, every man, woman, child, whether Shiia, Sunni or Kurd would be on the U. S. payroll. A fantasy? I don't think so.
Let's do the math.
According to the CIA World Factbook, Iraq's per capita GDP in 2005 was $3,400.00. That's about $283.00 a month.
As of July 2006, according to the same CIA Factbook, Iraq's population was 26,283,383.
If you divide one trillion by 26,283,383 you get $38,046.85.
So on March 20th, we should have made them an offer. And since we're generous Americans, we would have made it a nice one.
We should have told them that effective immediately we were tripling everyone's salary to $634.11 a month. And...we're going to keep paying them every month for the next 5 years, until they're back on their feet.
All they had to do was to lose the Saddam guy and his thugs, be cool, live their lives and maybe give the whole democracy thing a shot.
So what happens then?
Well, you KNOW Saddam and his guys didn't have that kind of cash. And clan or no clan, remember, "money talks and...." So, Saddam is history.
Now, everyone is happy. Wouldn't you be if someone just tripled your monthly income?
Now they also have the one thing that everyone in the world wants -- disposable income. And what do people do with disposable income?
They go to dinner and a movie.
Right. And how do they get to the movie theater? Well, they are going to need a car. They may want to buy a Dodge or a Chevy or even a Saturn. Then their going to need insurance. So now you got insurance companies setting up. And with insurance companies comes golf tournaments. If they can build golf courses in Palm Springs, they can build them in Iraq.
Another thing to do with disposable income is to take a trip. Heck they could even hop on Delta, United or American and visit the U.S. and spend some of that money here.
All of these disposable income related things also create jobs. Golf courses hire groundskeepers, theaters hire ushers, restaurants hire cooks and waiters, car dealers hire salesmen and mechanics, the government hires people to maintain the highways and the airports hire folks to run the airline counters.
So now, when it comes to Iran's turn, they will have a choice: The Mullahs or a dinner and a movie.
It's just a thought.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
