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 enlarge | Authors: Joseph E. Stiglitz, Linda J. Bilmes
Publisher: W. W. Norton
Category: Book
List Price: $22.95
Buy Used: $6.98
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Avg. Customer Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 91748
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 192
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.7 x 1.3
ISBN: 0393067017
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.704431
EAN: 9780393067019
ASIN: 0393067017
Publication Date: March 3, 2008
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| Customer Reviews:
HAL doesn't share/holders April 20, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
Very provoking. Though I just want to correct page 15 where Stiflitz/Blimes says sole source contracting makes "Excess profits for defense contractors and oil companies. . . . Halliburton's stock price has increased 229 percent since the war began." THIS IS NOT TRUE. HAL has gone back and forth from 35 to 45 since the war began. THESE CONTRACTORS NEVER SHARE THEIR ILLICIT GAINS WITH THEIR SHAREHOLDERS. THAT GOES FOR OIL COMPANIES TOO. They keep all their ill-gotten gains for themselves. They are selfish greedy crooks! The book is otherwise spot on.
More than the Administration wants you to know April 19, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
We all know that entry into the Iraq war was based on false notions about non-existent weapons of mass destruction. What is less likely, is whether we remember what we were told it would cost: Less than $50 billion - will take only area weeks - six months at the outside. A secretary of the treasury even lost his job because he said it might cost $200 billion. Oh if it were only true!
This text documents the true cost. Aside from the direct expenses of $700 billion, and more than 4000 American live, wemust account for the tens of thousands wounded- their care and lost productivity.
This text is filled with statistics. The argument is persuasive - even overwhelming in its detail. The text does not stray far fromeconomics to make tie argument, nor does it need to. The facts speak clearly and loudly.
 The Three Trillion Dollar Failure April 18, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
The good news is we can afford the Iraq War. Unfortunately, that's the only good news in this book. We were hoodwinked on the cost, the reasons for going to war and who was going to pay for it.
The authors estimates of costs are meticulous, well supported and extremely unsettling. They point out no serious economist still thinks wars are good for the economy and the facts point to this war being even less so because it's being fought on a credit card. The authors even get into the taxpayer fleecing condoned by the administrations active support of no bid contracts extended to a favored few.
A sobering read.
 Three Trillion Dollar April 15, 2008
0 out of 9 found this review helpful
The book is informative, but is very repeatitous. It is not grabbing like a thriller novel but does put in perspective the true cost of the war
A mixed set of strengths and weaknesses in this passionate attack on the Iraq War April 12, 2008
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
Joseph Stiglitz is a Nobel Prize winning economist who teaches at Columbia and served on President Bill Clinton's Council of Economic Advisors from 1993-1997 and at the World Bank from 1997-2000. Linda Bilmes lectures at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government who specializes in budgeting and applied budgeting. Both hate the Bush Administration and the War in Iraq. At least the voice of the book is quite passionate in its railing against it as a disaster and declares other more harsh accusations.
I think this book does three things well. First, it exposes the way government misuses budgeting for political purposes. That is, it always and in every case for every program that it wants to start misrepresents its true costs. The authors limit these accusations to this war, but if you are willing to go look at what was said in every other war and welfare program, similar disingenuousness was on display.
Second, it shows how poorly our country treats its veterans. A national shame that others have spoken of since the Revolutionary War down to present times. And a global tradition of all armies since the first army ever created by man. I hope we heed the calls for caring for the widows and orphans and those who were wounded and maimed in our service. Even if we think we don't have the money to bear these costs, this is an obligation that would justify cuts in other government spending to meet.
Third, I think that exposing the collateral costs of war (not just this war) in terms of opportunity costs, international relations, and the future state of the world is worth considering. Just dashing into a conflict simply because you believe you might be able to beat the enemy militarily quickly isn't really enough is it. You still have to live and work in the world after the war. Of course, not going to war has the same considerations. If you don't show strength in the face of aggression, you invite more of it and what then? When you don't act in the face of genocide (say, Rwanda and Sudan) because they are not strategic countries that also says something about the sincerity of your moral positions as more or less posturing.
However, there are also some things I think the book gets wrong. While I am all for giving the PROJECTED all-in cost of this war, the publicity makes this number seem like a fact and isn't clear until you read the book about how much of the cost is projected out-year costs in caring for veterans and interest on the debt of money borrowed for the war. In fact, the borrowing is for running the government, and putting the interest completely on the one program you don't like is cheating. For example, let's say someone was for the war and against the prescription drug program and they treated the borrowing as if it were for that social program and that the war was funded out of current receipts in order to inflate the projected cost of the program and how unaffordable it was. You would throw a flag on that play, right? Well, it's the same here. Nor are they clear in how much of the cost they bundle in would still be spent on national defense even if we were at peace (including all the out year costs they count in their war model). Plus we were already in Iraq trying to maintain the sanctions and fighting all the associated political battles. How much was that costing us? The authors also don't really cover all the costs associated with 9/11 because Iraq wasn't directly involved in that attack. However, it seems as if we are keeping the terrorists at least somewhat occupied because they haven't managed a major attack here since then. If they did, most of the supposed trillions that could be used for other things would be gone. This should have been addressed in their calculations.
Second, they severely understate the comparison costs of previous wars to make this one sound terribly costly. For example they note on page 6 that there were more than 16 million men under arms in World War II, but say that it cost only $5 trillion in 2007 dollars. This is foolishly low, I believe. Did they really use the same methodology for every facet of that war (including what unleashing the nuclear bomb and the Cold War, the cost of stationing armies in Europe for sixty years, the Veteran's Administration, the cost of NATO, and so forth) as they do for the Iraq War? Or did they just take government figures and adjust them for inflation (which seems more likely).
Third, while they rightly admit that we can afford $3 trillion dollars with our present economy (and rightly complain about the opportunity costs of spending so much money on war), they don't provide a similar context for previous wars. The cost of World War II was much greater as part of the GDP and national treasure, as was the Civil War and so forth. Economics is all about context and to not provide such meaningful comparisons in context is politics more than economics. Again, it is cheating.
Their suggested reforms to the budgetary process for war are interesting, but have only a small chance to be implemented in anything like their presentation in the book. But they make interesting reading, even when you disagree with them (such as reforms 6, 8 and 9, which are really political arguments about this war and could either be irrelevant or deadly in future wars).
If you hate Bush and the war, you will love this book. If you support Bush and the war, you will get angry at this book. However, if you want to take a balanced look at what the authors actually provide, I think you will learn quite a bit about the political views of the authors, a bit about the war and its costs, and get examples of why political arguments make for bad science, even social science.
Reviewed by Craig Matteson, Ann Arbor, MI
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