Magnifisyncopathological

Oh yes, and we'll be tying up billions, perhaps as much as a trillion dollars in resources that could otherwise have been spent on, for example, defending the homeland, what the name "Department of Defense" implies in the first place.

-Radley Balko

$1 trillion is a wack-job, activist-inflating-the-inflated-statistics-from-other-activists number. That's 10% of the US economy. Our total military expenditures on everything are between 3-4% of GDP right now. You're positing more than a doubling of US forces & equipment. 25-30% of that number is closer to the mark, over a period of 10 years, which discounts back to a modest blip on the US economy, partially offset by lowered geopolitical risk on oil contracts, expanded oil supplies, and a surge in consumer confidence.

By LINDA BILMES Published: August 20, 2005

Cambridge, Mass.

THE human cost of the more than 2,000 American military personnel killed and 14,500 wounded so far in Iraq and Afghanistan is all too apparent. But the financial toll is still largely hidden from public view and, like the suffering of those who have lost loved ones, will persist long after the fighting is over.

...$250 billion already spent on military operations and reconstruction...running costs of the current conflicts are $6 billion a month...more than $2 billion a year in additional foreign aid to Jordan, Pakistan, Turkey and others...repairing and replacing military hardware is $20 billion a year...[disability claims for Iraq and Afghanistan vets] are likely to run at $7 billion a year for the next 45 years...[extra interest payments on additional federal debt] will total $200 billion or more...

Linda Bilmes, an assistant secretary at the Department of Commerce from 1999 to 2001, teaches budgeting and public finance at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.

So, Ms. Asymmetrical Information, what's your prognosis now?