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This occupation has cost the US about US$52,000.00 (more than US$2T total) for each Afghan. Their GDP per capita is not even US$500.

mytailorisrich 5y ago
This may be what this has cost the US taxpayer but I suspect that a lot of that sum has ended up back in the US economy because it was actually spent on US contractors, US equipment, US military personnel, etc
- roenxi 5y ago
  Spent ... digging up materials, fabricating them into bombs and shipping them over to Afghanistan. The money was wasted - none of it was spent making people better off. The resources dedicated to the failed war effort could have gone to something else. I'm calling broken window fallacy [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
  - heliodor 5y ago
    > none of it was spent making people better off The money was given to contractors. They became better off. People talk of government wasting money as if the money is being burnt but that money is not being destroyed; it's given to a certain set of people who become better off.
    - ancientworldnow 5y ago
      The potential of what that money could've done to help people was absolutely wasted even if individuals profited and that has marginal economic effects.
  - dougmwne 5y ago
    I hate war, but the broken window fallacy is too simple here. The military industrial complex builds human capital and supports domestic manufacturing. The resources might be turned into fragments of molten metal, but the people who built them have been train in skilled careers with transferable skills and a slice of manufacturing capacity has been saved from outsourcing. As the prospects and expectations of people rise, they become more confident consumers.
    - roenxi 5y ago
      I think it might be more that you haven't understood the broken window fallacy, because you are making a classic didn't-quite-get-the-point broken windows argument. The US could be enjoying $2 trillion of resources spent improving itself, plus flow on benefits from the economic activity that 2 trillion would have caused. Instead, the US has wasted (worse than wasted, really) 2 trillion dollars but has managed to enjoy the flow on benefits. The entire 2 trillion was wasted, because it was spent to get outcomes that are useless. The fact that there are still some flow on effects is better than a pole in the eye with a blunt stick, but still a pretty lousy consolation prize. Also, I unhappily point out that the flow on benefits are also reduced, because instead of useful skills you've got a bunch of logistics experts specialised in how to blow up goat herders instead of ... any skill that might help the US do well in the world. Or people who know exactly how to manufacture killer drones which will not help much as China rolls out 4G mobile networks and plots out a global infrastructure program.
      - dougmwne 5y ago
        Which is all well and fine if you could actually get the political capital to spend on infrastructure improvements. For 20 years that's been very lacking (current firehouse of spending aside) but political appetite for war has been evergreen. I doubt those skills were so useless as well, in fact, I would wager that a fair number of the medical workers and logistics experts helping us through the pandemic got their start in the military. We're talking about many millions of careers started over the past 20 years. I would further argue that the human capital is far more important than the physical capital. If you set the continental USA back to a primordial state and provided the population with tents and food aid, I bet we would break all records for a return to a mature service economy. Again, I agree that we are poorer a window, but if the windows never broke, there's ample evidence that we as a society would have just preferred people to starve rather than pay them to do anything useful like building high speed rail or capturing carbon. Broken window fallacy is a nice toy economics idea, but it doesn't relate to how societies actually choose to spend or not spend capital.

mytailorisrich 5y ago

This may be what this has cost the US taxpayer but I suspect that a lot of that sum has ended up back in the US economy because it was actually spent on US contractors, US equipment, US military personnel, etc

roenxi 5y ago
Spent ... digging up materials, fabricating them into bombs and shipping them over to Afghanistan. The money was wasted - none of it was spent making people better off. The resources dedicated to the failed war effort could have gone to something else. I'm calling broken window fallacy [0]. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parable_of_the_broken_window
- heliodor 5y ago
  > none of it was spent making people better off The money was given to contractors. They became better off. People talk of government wasting money as if the money is being burnt but that money is not being destroyed; it's given to a certain set of people who become better off.
  - ancientworldnow 5y ago
    The potential of what that money could've done to help people was absolutely wasted even if individuals profited and that has marginal economic effects.
- dougmwne 5y ago
  I hate war, but the broken window fallacy is too simple here. The military industrial complex builds human capital and supports domestic manufacturing. The resources might be turned into fragments of molten metal, but the people who built them have been train in skilled careers with transferable skills and a slice of manufacturing capacity has been saved from outsourcing. As the prospects and expectations of people rise, they become more confident consumers.
  - roenxi 5y ago
    I think it might be more that you haven't understood the broken window fallacy, because you are making a classic didn't-quite-get-the-point broken windows argument. The US could be enjoying $2 trillion of resources spent improving itself, plus flow on benefits from the economic activity that 2 trillion would have caused. Instead, the US has wasted (worse than wasted, really) 2 trillion dollars but has managed to enjoy the flow on benefits. The entire 2 trillion was wasted, because it was spent to get outcomes that are useless. The fact that there are still some flow on effects is better than a pole in the eye with a blunt stick, but still a pretty lousy consolation prize. Also, I unhappily point out that the flow on benefits are also reduced, because instead of useful skills you've got a bunch of logistics experts specialised in how to blow up goat herders instead of ... any skill that might help the US do well in the world. Or people who know exactly how to manufacture killer drones which will not help much as China rolls out 4G mobile networks and plots out a global infrastructure program.
    - dougmwne 5y ago
      Which is all well and fine if you could actually get the political capital to spend on infrastructure improvements. For 20 years that's been very lacking (current firehouse of spending aside) but political appetite for war has been evergreen. I doubt those skills were so useless as well, in fact, I would wager that a fair number of the medical workers and logistics experts helping us through the pandemic got their start in the military. We're talking about many millions of careers started over the past 20 years. I would further argue that the human capital is far more important than the physical capital. If you set the continental USA back to a primordial state and provided the population with tents and food aid, I bet we would break all records for a return to a mature service economy. Again, I agree that we are poorer a window, but if the windows never broke, there's ample evidence that we as a society would have just preferred people to starve rather than pay them to do anything useful like building high speed rail or capturing carbon. Broken window fallacy is a nice toy economics idea, but it doesn't relate to how societies actually choose to spend or not spend capital.