[nukkad] Iraq War is being US economic crisis - so says a book - I read it on the Grapevine

["Indian Rediff" <>]

 Iraq war behind US economic crisis: Book

New Delhi, May 4 (PTI) Are wars good for economy? The idea which
gained prominence during the World War II has proved to be wrong in
the case of US war in Iraq, says a new book. Today, no serious
economist holds the view that war is good for the economy. Since the
Iraq war began, oil prices have gone from about $25 a barrel at the
outset to more than $90 and are rising still higher. In America, the
war has hurt the economy in other ways, the question being not whether
the economy has been weakened by the war. The question is only by how
much, say Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel laureate and Linda Bilmes in their
book 'The Three Trillion Dollar War'. Stiglitz was Chief Economist at
the World Bank until January 2000. Bilmes is a lecturer in Public
Policy at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. The
authors say many people around the world, not just in the Middle East
believe the US government went to war because it wanted to get its
hands on Iraqi oil. 'We aren't going to discuss their arguments here.
It is enough to say that if America went to war in the hope of
securing cheap oil, we failed miserably. We did, however, succeed in
making the oil companies richer. Exxon-Mobile and other oil companies
have been among the few real beneficiaries of the war, as their
profits and share prices have soared,' they say. Meanwhile, the
economy as a whole has paid a high price, the book says. Oil prices
started to soar just as the war began and the longer it has dragged
on, the higher prices have gone. "This certainly suggests that the war
has something to do with the rising prices," the book says. (About the
book: 'The Three Trillion Dollar War' by Joseph Stiglitz and Linda
Bilmes, Penguin, Pages 300, Price Rs.595/- )

Sai


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Religion is something left over from the infancy of our intelligence, it will 
fade away as we adopt reason and science as our guidelines.  -Bertrand Russell
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