Our first speaker at the Symi Symposium I’m attending in Greece is economist Joseph Stiglitz. (Stiglitz is at left, on the left, sitting next to conference chair, and Greek opposition party leader, George Papandreou.) The economists among you certainly know of Stiglitz, and the rest of us may recognize him as the man who cowrote a recent book about Iraq and the US economy title “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict.” I am definitely getting an interview for you guys with Stiglitz.
Here’s an excerpt from a recent colummn Stiglitz wrote in the Guardian about the real cost of the Iraq war:
“President Bush has tried to give the impression that the $3 trillion dollar estimate of the total cost of the war that we provide in our new book may be exaggerated.“We believe that it is, in fact, conservative….
“In adding up the quantifiable costs of the war, it is hard not to come up with a number in excess of $3 trillion. In putting a $3 trillion price tag on the war, we believe we have been excessively conservative – a $4 or $5 trillion tag would be more reasonable. And remember – this is just the cost for America.”
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