Voters are concerned about the economy. Oh and the war in Iraq. Both are connected at the hip.

With G.W. Bush’s lisping and slurring, I imagine him sitting on his favorite barstool, nursing from a glass, and talking to the bartender how someday he’d outdo his father. John McCain sits next to him, toasting and soaking up all W’s wisdom. The bartender only half listens to W’s drivel while turning an ear to the football score on the TV.

With similar interest, many Americans listened to his final State of the Union speech.

To change his view on Iraq, W would have to acknowledge it as a mistake. An error like this has so far cost the US well over 4,000 soldiers W’s Admin counts war casualties by distorted criteria as well as several hundred thousand innocent civilian lives.

Economic woes now arise on the horizon: inflation, high interest rates, increased unemployment and a displacement of investment capital from productive industries–such as housing, manufacturing–to military contractors.

When Dubya started talking about an economic stimulus package, I hoped he might shed light on how everything in economics is connected.

In other words, if something consequential happens in one part of the US economy, it affects other parts. Spending trillions of dollars to produce something constructive would most likely have a positive impact on the US economy. But then, W probably skipped a lot of his economic classes while picking up his MBA at some elite school papa Bush got him into.

The war in Iraq produces nothing useful for anyone. This impacts the US and the global economy in enormously negative ways.

As the President burns trillions of dollars to destroy a country, the cost of capital increases, so too interest rates. For a long time, pundits and economists seldom talked about this. But truth always raises its ugly head when people want most to remain ignorant.

As in many issues, mainstream media hardly discusses the economic effects of destroying Iraq and many of its citizens. President Bush did not mention it in his speech. Maybe he just forgot.

Increased oil prices benefit the Arab monarchies, while reducing the US GDP (gross domestic product), like throwing a monkey-wrench into the economy. Some estimates indicate that for every $5 increase in oil price, US GDP drops more than .3 percent. That’s a lot, enough to increase unemployment.

Everyone talks about how the slide in the subprime mortgage market puts a hole in our pockets.

The subprime mortgage market represents a few billion bucks. Sure, that alone will knock the wind out of the already fragile middle class.

The war in Iraq increases the cost of capital:
which ups interest rates
which screwed up the already fragile and unbridled mortgage market
which tossed middle class families out in streets.

Hip bone connected to the

The war in Iraq punches the air out of the economy. It’s yanking away the roofs over the heads of middle class families squandering more than a trillion dollars that could have been used constructively, such as in education or even in an improved Homeland Security.

When Bush promoted his economic stimulus package many people probably, like me, envisioned a little balloon floating up at a small festive party for the survival of the middle class
and then the balloon’s air fizzled out in a squeaky whistle.

Here’s a new proposal for a stimulus package:

We earmark the sons of privilege, such as, say, Bush Jr., who squander opportunities to become productive citizens despite their huge advantages of opulent wealth from birth. If they grow up to cause negative impacts to the country, then we levy tax on all their assets and divvy them out to children born into poverty.

This same new tax rule would apply to the daughters of privilege too, such as, say, Paris Hilton, born into the kind of wealth most people cannot even imagine. How can people, born into so much wealth and with so much time and resources, lead their lives into utter waste?

Hey, if we’re going to follow Milton Friedman like some semi-god of unfettered capitalism, why not apply it fairly across social classes?

Photo by technowannabe via Flickr

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