Talking about the economy, not the communal American brain (but that applies as well):
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23286149-2703,00.html...
The spending on Iraq was a hidden cause of the current credit crunch because the US central bank responded to the massive financial drain of the war by flooding the American economy with cheap credit.
"The regulators were looking the other way and money was being lent to anybody this side of a life-support system," he said.
That led to a housing bubble and a consumption boom, and the fallout was plunging the US economy into recession and saddling the next US president with the biggest budget deficit in history, he said.
Professor Stiglitz, an academic at the Columbia Business School and a former economic adviser to president Bill Clinton, said a further $US500 billion was going to be spent on the fighting in the next two years and that could have been used more effectively to improve the security and quality of life of Americans and the rest of the world.
The money being spent on the war each week would be enough to wipe out illiteracy around the world, he said.
Just a few days' funding would be enough to provide health insurance for US children who were not covered, he said.
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