Friday, April 24, 2020

A Bit of Perspective



As Washington's spending on the Covid-19 pandemic creeps toward $3 trillion, it can be really hard to make sense of that much money.

What to use for comparison? Oh, I know. How about American spending on the War on Terror since 9/11/2001?  Roughly 20 years of high-tech mayhem and devastation.

It is estimated that, since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the global war on terror will cost the United States government just over 5.4 trillion U.S. dollars. This figure includes estimates of all budgetary spending related to the war on terror between FY 2001 and FY 2020. 
This figure of 5.4 trillion does not include the ongoing medical and disability expenditure for veterans beyond FY 2020, which is estimated to cost an additional one trillion U.S. dollars by FY 2059.
Let's hope America gets more bang for its buck out of the pandemic spending spree than it has achieved over 20-years of permawar in the Middle East.
 
Then again, Congress can't let that much money pass through its hands without larding a few pantries along the way. It wouldn't be American.

4 comments:

Trailblazer said...

The fight to control Covid19 has, since day one, been castrated by those that would find profit in it.


TB

The Disaffected Lib said...

Agreed, TB. That's why Trump was pimping that malarial drug.

Hugh said...

So China is the source of the global Covid-19 pandemic disaster. China is making $$millions selling medical PPE used to treat the virus.

A lot of that equipment has been found to be defective or contaminated:

https://globalnews.ca/news/6864209/china-to-replace-faulty-masks-swabs-canada-coronavirus-protective-equipment/

WTF?

Hugh said...

Canada is adding a huge amount of debt to deal with the Chinese virus pandemic. All that needs to happen is for the GDP to grow faster than the debt, and for the interest rate to stay low forever:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/editorials/article-how-is-ottawa-going-to-pay-off-its-covid-19-debt-with-any-luck-it/

Delusional, but this is apparently how they think.