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Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? Proping up the the failed banks in 2008 cost as much. If you can just print the money(or add zeros in computer s

Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? Proping up the the failed banks in 2008 cost as much. If you can just print the money(or add zeros in computer systems ) it's not that expensive.

obstinate 10y ago
You're right about Iraq, but I thought TARP actually turned a profit? http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-bailouts-end/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-ba...
- Symmetry 10y ago
  It did but there was no guarantee it would. So you could say the Iraq war cost trillions but TARP put most of a trillion at risk.
- youngtaff 10y ago
  TARP might have made a profit but the impact of very low interest rates has been detrimental for some and huge benefit to others
- djsumdog 10y ago
  It doesn't matter that it turned a profit. That wasn't the point; and in some ways that makes it worse! PNC bought National City for $5 billion. National City (an Ohio only bank) was not allowed to apply for TARP. Then PNC got a $5 billion tax credit. They bought a bank for free. http://www.newsproject.org/node/181/ http://www.newsproject.org/node/181/ All the consolidation meant that banks gained a lot of money, and the US government bought debt $1 for $1. Instead of TARP, the US government could have done something for...the people you know? The attorney general could have pushed prosecuting all the people who committed fraud (forging income documents for home loans was rampant, lying to people about home loans, etc.) from the top to the bottom. Banks should have been forced to sell loans back to consumers for quarters on the dollar (you know, what the homes were actually worth now). We saved some retirement accounts, and everyone above 50 at the time was very thankful for that, but young people lost their homes, tons of money and the banks didn't take a hit at all. They just got stronger and swallowed other banks.
  - prewett 10y ago
    When the statement was that TARP cost $1 trillion, the fact that it actually made a profit very much IS the point. Your entire rant is what's not the point in this discussion.
- marcusgarvey 10y ago
  I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit. Because TARP was actually structured as the purchase/hedging of banks' securities. And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without knowing their Sharpe ratio, which no one knew at the time because all their valuation models were garbage as all the defaults happening in real-time soon made apparent.
  - caminante 10y ago
    I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit[...] And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without knowing their Sharpe ratio, I think you're mis-interpreting the Sharpe Ratio and saying something different. Profit -- ex-ante or post-ante (edit: ex-post, brain fart!) -- is always a profit.[0] Whereas, you're arguing that the profit (on a risk-adjusted basis) wasn't that good. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharperatio.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharperatio.asp
- blakeyrat 10y ago
  TARP turned a profit; it was still a bad use of the money. The US government shouldn't be responsible for propping-up bad business, and if the problem is identified as "this bank is too big to fail", the solution certainly shouldn't be making the bank bigger with low-cost loans.
  - randyrand 10y ago
    yes, but the us =does have a responsibility to do wjat is best to help the economy. your statement is good, but only in hindsight. we didnt have that forethought before the crash. its a useless statement.
sanderjd 10y ago
> Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? Sorry to go meta and off-topic, but I'm curious about this sort of sentence because I seem to be seeing it more and more. It seems like you're making a statement, but then it is finished with a question mark. Are you asking whether the statement is true? I don't think so. My interpretation, which I think is based on similar things in colloquial speech, is that you're implying a question like, "you know that the Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars, right?". Is that how this is meant? Is there a name for this sort of statement-question?
- finid 10y ago
  A question mark like that indicates that he can't swear by the numbers.
- caminante 10y ago
  It's not a new convention. Instead, it's low effort and ambiguous.
- Ericson2314 10y ago
  Desugared: > But Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars, right?
- pjc50 10y ago
  Rhetorical question?
finid 10y ago
Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? That question mark is not really necessary. I recall when an economist said, as the war was ramping up, that the cost will be in the trillions. The wise guys in the Bush administration and the military said he was yapping out of the back of his neck. They put the final cost at a few hundred billion. Turns out the guy was right. His math included the cost of taking care the vets. That part of the cost will keep going up until all the vets are all dead. Meanwhile, we're back in Iraq in some fashion.
- Chathamization 10y ago
  > The wise guys in the Bush administration and the military said he was yapping out of the back of his neck. They put the final cost at a few hundred billion. They actually put the cost at $50-60 billion.[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
  - finid 10y ago
    That was the initial estimate, when the war just started. I recall members of the Bush admin telling requesting Congress to fund the war to the tune of $50 billion, that the cost to America wasn't going to be more than that and that because Iraq has oil, the rest of the cost will come from Iraqi oil revenue. Not too long after that, if I recall correctly, they came back for another $75 billion (?) or so. And that was not the last time.
pcurve 10y ago
Cost of Iraq war boggles my mind. (and makes me barf) You hear that number trillion dollars so often that you become numb to it, but the annual tax revenue for u.s. was somewhere around 2.8 trillion. Just imagine that. 90 million working Americans, from poor to filthy rich, working entire year, some paying quarter or third of their earnings, some companies paying billions in tax. And still amount amount to less than $3 trillion.
- codecamper 10y ago
  Bush said we'd be done in 2 weeks! Remember that? lmao One way to avoid this: stop paying taxes. (if you can earn online, then you can live outside the US & you will get a 100,000 USD deduction. Still must pay SS & Medi, but I don't think those go towards wars.)

Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? Proping up the the failed banks in 2008 cost as much. If you can just print the money(or add zeros in computer systems ) it's not that expensive.

obstinate 10y ago

You're right about Iraq, but I thought TARP actually turned a profit? http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-bailouts-end/ http://money.cnn.com/2014/12/19/news/companies/government-ba...

Symmetry 10y ago
It did but there was no guarantee it would. So you could say the Iraq war cost trillions but TARP put most of a trillion at risk.
youngtaff 10y ago
TARP might have made a profit but the impact of very low interest rates has been detrimental for some and huge benefit to others
djsumdog 10y ago
It doesn't matter that it turned a profit. That wasn't the point; and in some ways that makes it worse! PNC bought National City for $5 billion. National City (an Ohio only bank) was not allowed to apply for TARP. Then PNC got a $5 billion tax credit. They bought a bank for free. http://www.newsproject.org/node/181/ http://www.newsproject.org/node/181/ All the consolidation meant that banks gained a lot of money, and the US government bought debt $1 for $1. Instead of TARP, the US government could have done something for...the people you know? The attorney general could have pushed prosecuting all the people who committed fraud (forging income documents for home loans was rampant, lying to people about home loans, etc.) from the top to the bottom. Banks should have been forced to sell loans back to consumers for quarters on the dollar (you know, what the homes were actually worth now). We saved some retirement accounts, and everyone above 50 at the time was very thankful for that, but young people lost their homes, tons of money and the banks didn't take a hit at all. They just got stronger and swallowed other banks.
- prewett 10y ago
  When the statement was that TARP cost $1 trillion, the fact that it actually made a profit very much IS the point. Your entire rant is what's not the point in this discussion.
marcusgarvey 10y ago
I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit. Because TARP was actually structured as the purchase/hedging of banks' securities. And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without knowing their Sharpe ratio, which no one knew at the time because all their valuation models were garbage as all the defaults happening in real-time soon made apparent.
- caminante 10y ago
  I don't think it can truly be said that TARP turned profit[...] And it is impossible to know profitability of securities without knowing their Sharpe ratio, I think you're mis-interpreting the Sharpe Ratio and saying something different. Profit -- ex-ante or post-ante (edit: ex-post, brain fart!) -- is always a profit.[0] Whereas, you're arguing that the profit (on a risk-adjusted basis) wasn't that good. [0] http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharperatio.asp http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/sharperatio.asp
blakeyrat 10y ago
TARP turned a profit; it was still a bad use of the money. The US government shouldn't be responsible for propping-up bad business, and if the problem is identified as "this bank is too big to fail", the solution certainly shouldn't be making the bank bigger with low-cost loans.
- randyrand 10y ago
  yes, but the us =does have a responsibility to do wjat is best to help the economy. your statement is good, but only in hindsight. we didnt have that forethought before the crash. its a useless statement.

sanderjd 10y ago

> Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? Sorry to go meta and off-topic, but I'm curious about this sort of sentence because I seem to be seeing it more and more. It seems like you're making a statement, but then it is finished with a question mark. Are you asking whether the statement is true? I don't think so. My interpretation, which I think is based on similar things in colloquial speech, is that you're implying a question like, "you know that the Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars, right?". Is that how this is meant? Is there a name for this sort of statement-question?

finid 10y ago
A question mark like that indicates that he can't swear by the numbers.
caminante 10y ago
It's not a new convention. Instead, it's low effort and ambiguous.
Ericson2314 10y ago
Desugared: > But Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars, right?
pjc50 10y ago
Rhetorical question?

finid 10y ago

Iraq war cost around 1 to 2 trillion dollars ? That question mark is not really necessary. I recall when an economist said, as the war was ramping up, that the cost will be in the trillions. The wise guys in the Bush administration and the military said he was yapping out of the back of his neck. They put the final cost at a few hundred billion. Turns out the guy was right. His math included the cost of taking care the vets. That part of the cost will keep going up until all the vets are all dead. Meanwhile, we're back in Iraq in some fashion.

Chathamization 10y ago
> The wise guys in the Bush administration and the military said he was yapping out of the back of his neck. They put the final cost at a few hundred billion. They actually put the cost at $50-60 billion.[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/19/washington/19cost.html
- finid 10y ago
  That was the initial estimate, when the war just started. I recall members of the Bush admin telling requesting Congress to fund the war to the tune of $50 billion, that the cost to America wasn't going to be more than that and that because Iraq has oil, the rest of the cost will come from Iraqi oil revenue. Not too long after that, if I recall correctly, they came back for another $75 billion (?) or so. And that was not the last time.

pcurve 10y ago

Cost of Iraq war boggles my mind. (and makes me barf) You hear that number trillion dollars so often that you become numb to it, but the annual tax revenue for u.s. was somewhere around 2.8 trillion. Just imagine that. 90 million working Americans, from poor to filthy rich, working entire year, some paying quarter or third of their earnings, some companies paying billions in tax. And still amount amount to less than $3 trillion.

codecamper 10y ago
Bush said we'd be done in 2 weeks! Remember that? lmao One way to avoid this: stop paying taxes. (if you can earn online, then you can live outside the US & you will get a 100,000 USD deduction. Still must pay SS & Medi, but I don't think those go towards wars.)