Here is what Stiglitz is saying in his article "War is no spur to economic growth", which I posted on lbo-talk on 24 January:
"By contrast, the direct costs of a military attack on Saddam Hussein's regime will be minuscule in terms of total US government spending. Most analysts put the total costs of the war at less than 0.1% of GDP, the highest at 0.2% of GDP.
Much of that, moreover, includes the usage of munitions that already exist, implying that little or no stimulus will be provided to today's economy."
-Did he estimated occupation costs? I will be greatly disappointed and will -change my "pro-war" position if those estimates are right.
Maybe. As I wrote in my previous post, Islamic fundamentalism may be strengthened in the medium term.
-Islamic fundamentalism will probably be strengthened irrespective on -war against Iraq. It seems largely to be a response to poverty and -failure of Middle East and Asian societies. While those undermining -causes remains, it will keep growing.
"China's impact on the world economy remains limited. In 2001, China's GDP accounted for only 3.7 percent of the world total, lagging far behind the United States' 32.6 percent and Japan's 13.6 percent."
-Yes, but this relative small GDP is the result of the undervaluation of -Chinese currency, if we use PPP values, Chinese GDP is almost equal to -Japanese one. And I think the US GDP as % of global GDP decreased something -as result of dollar devaluation (not using PPP values) -Btw: Indian GDP is the 4th in the world if we use PPP values, isn´t it?
Alexandre Fenelon
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