My Blogs
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A Trillion Dollar SolutionJuly 16, 2005I am going to step into the quagmire of politics for a moment and say something that might be considered controversial..... We have spent nearly $300 billion on the Iraq War so far. My guess (and I am not an economist or budget expert) is that by the time we are done with Iraq we would have spent well over $1 Trillion dollars.Now we can argue all day as to why we went to Iraq in the first place: Was it to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East? Did we truly think Sadam was a threat and had weapons of mass destruction? Was it all about securing a source of oil? It was probably a combination of all of the above.... But here is my point......It is my opinion that we would have been better served to spend a TRILLION dollars on developing new, clean, and cheap energy sources as well as alternatives to the combustion engine rather than going to War with Iraq. To begin with, we would create a new commodity the rest of the world would want to buy from us. The Middle East economies that are dependent on oil consumption would collapse and there would be no more funding for terrorism. I see two purposes being served here. First, the NeoCons can feel good because such technology would only make us even more globally superior; there is a TON of money to be made in exporting such technologies around the world. Second, the Liberals could feel good because we would be doing something that would benefit the environment and promote a healthier way of living throughout our society and the entire world. It's a win-win situation. We spent Billions and built an Atomic Bomb.We spent Billions and put a man on the moon. We spent Billions on Iraq.We can do anything. We are a smart and industrious people. I guarantee if we spend Billions we can come up with a cheap, clean renewable energy source. Our country is full of talented and intelligent people. All we need to do is change the way we think. Change the Paradigm. |