http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/06/19/deploys-missile-defense-hawaii/

North Korean threats to launch a missile toward Hawaii on July 4 prompts U.S. military to take defensive action.

Swatting flies is one thing, disengaging from stupid wars is another.

ironman, your chart is also very interesting.

This is the type of scaled discussion of expenses that I was craving during the previous discussion in

http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/bailout-costs-vs-big-historical-events/

IMO, this type of analysis, expanded to include the Louisiana Purchase and other big money Govt actions would be worth doing in detail. The Apollo program and the completion of the Panama Canal belong here too. And I wonder if a separate, parallel trend, showing the “routine” expenditures of the Govt would be useful. Perhaps Social Security, Medicare, and Fanny/Freddie should also be tracked separately but in parallel.

— — — — —

Seems like most of the people commenting on this post earlier today are determined to make it a War/Anti-War zone.

see: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=prescott+bush+trading+with+the+enemy+act

and: http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Station+H+McCollum+memo

and, then, wonder whether WWII was, really, necessary, or, if it was, to whose End?

Korea and Vietnam were police actions. Persian Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan were either directly related to our need to protect and/or get oil supplies or the resulting fallout from other countries in the region re: our actions. Looking at that list it seems that the only two wars that were somehow “necessary” were the American Revolution and WWII. Think of all the lives lost, resentment created and capital spent or destroyed. P.S. There should never had been a Civil War as all men (and women) are created equal.

w/this: http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/noble-eagle.htm

seems that the ‘chartist’ was referring to a specific program, different than either of our cogitations..

as well, his POV is Federal Budget– ‘cost of military operations only and do not include costs of…’
as found in Summary–through the Link above..

though, one Reason I was asking the Q: (s) ,that I did, was to allude to the Many other Costs of War, and those who bear the Burden of them..

“Audit the bitches and let us see whats really going on and then we can build a meaningful discussion”

well said- short and to the point-

agreed

Gotta love ol’ Smedley. He earned the right to say it.

Hard to make a confident statement about the Fed’s costs and how they impact us without them letting us see whats under the hood… If you are right, and these arent costs, but potential assets we’re taking ownership for, whats the harm in letting us see the balance sheet?

@ Laughing:

I’m not trying to be pessimistic, but when there is a fundamental lack of transparency on behalf of Fed and Treasury, what are we supposed to be??? Overly optimistic??? That got us real far…

Audit the bitches and let us see whats really going on and then we can build a meaningful discussion.