Eden od ključnih razlogov, zaradi katerih se je ameriško gospodarstvo znašlo v recesiji, je vojna v Iraku, pravi nobelovec za ekonomijo Joseph Stiglitz. Zaradi te vojne se je podražila nafta. Ko je Bush napadel Irak, je cena za sod nafte znašala med 23 in 25 dolarjev za sod in analitiki so ocenjevali, da se zaradi povpraševanja na hitrorastočih trgih, zlasti na Kitajskem in v Indiji, ne bo spremenila, ker bodo proizvajalci z Bližnjega vzhoda lahko zadostili povpraševanju. Po začetku vojne v Iraku proizvajalke na Bližnjem vzhodu težko povečajo proizvodnjo in cena za sod nafte je presegla 100 dolarjev, je Stiglitz povedal ob predstavitvi knjige Vojna za tri bilijone dolarjev: Pravi stroški vojne v Iraku na inštitutu Chatham House v Londonu.

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V knjigi so avtorji uporabili konservativno oceno vpliva iraške vojne in upoštevali, da se je sod nafte zaradi te vojne podražil za 5 do 10 dolarjev, razumna cena pa bi bila 35 dolarjev oziroma celo več, saj je edini večji dogodek po letu 2002 oziroma 2003.

To be conservative and to make sure we did not get criticised, we attributed in our $3 trillion number only $5-10 of the difference to the Iraq war. A reasonable number would be at least $35 and probably much more because it is the only big event that you can say happened between 2002-03 and now. Of course there was Hurricane Katrina, that was a little blip. There have beena few other things but the major event is the Iraq war. But as I say, in doing our $3 trillion calculus we only looked at $5-10 of that increase in oil.

Nadalje po besedah uglednega ekonomista izdatki za vojno v Iraku ne spodbujajo gospodarstva kratkoročno in ne zagotavljajo podlage za dolgoročno gospodarsko rast. “Če porabljamo denar za nekoga iz Nepala, ki dela v Iraku, to ne spodbuja ameriškega gospodarstva na enak način, kot če dogradimo cesto ali zaposlimo učitelja v ZDA. Zagotovo to dolgoročno ne povečuje produktivnosti v ZDA,” razlaga Stiglitz. In to vojno za razliko od drugih vlada v celoti financira z zadolževanjem. Ko gredo države v vojno, običajno govorijo o delitvi izgube. Ko so ZDA začele vojno v Iraku, je vlada znižala davke za bogatejše državljane. “Čudno ravnanje za razmere, ko smo že imeli visok primanjkljaj. Zaradi tega se je primanjkljaj še povečal. Samo zaradi vojne se je javni dolg povečal za 1 bilijon dolarjev, do leta 2017 se bo povečal še enkrat za dodatni 1 bilijon dolarjev. To je ogromno denarja,” razlaga Joseph Stiglitz. Zaradi omenjenih treh razlogov je gospodarstvo ZDA padlo v depresijo in zaradi njih bo oslabljeno tudi v prihodnosti.

But as we wrote the book we faced a puzzle: why didn’t the American economy seem weaker than it was? A lot of people in 2006-07 said the American economy looked pretty good – what are you complaining about?

Ker je ameriška centralna banka preplavljala trg s svežim denarjem, je posojilo lahko dobil vsak državljan, ki ga niso ohranjali pri življenju samo še aparati. Citibank, ena največjih ameriških bank, ki je zdaj v težavah, je posojilojemalce vabila z napismo: “Kvalificirate se že ob rojstvu”. Vsakdo, ki je bil živ, je že izpolnjeval pogoje. Očitno so nekateri izpolnjevali le pogoj za to, da so si lahko izposodili denar, za vračilo pa ne. Ker se je povečalo povpraševanje, se je povečala ponudba stanovanj in potrošnja. Obrestne mere so se v zadnjih dveh letih približali 0 odstotkom. “Očitno smo živeli od sposojenega denarja v sposojenem času,” ugotavlja Joseph Stiglitz.

The main vehicle through which this was done was mortgage equity withdrawal. The worst of those were called sub-prime mortgages. In one year $950 billion were taken out of the mortgage market. People took money out of their house and most of that went into consumption. Just to put this in perspective, we are talking about a stimulus package of $125 billion to $150 billion but what was the real stimulus for the last three years have been these mortgage equity withdrawals on an order of magnitude of $950 billion. You can see it is going to be a hard push for that $150 billion to offset that $950 billion.

Ta igra je po Stiglitzevih besedah zdaj končana, bistveno pri njej je, da so v centralni banki počeli, za kar so mislili, da morajo početi. Bili so kratkovidni. “Rekli so: gospodarstvo je šibko, moramo ga spodbuditi, in ob omejenih možnostih, ki so na voljo, so uporabili liberalno monetarno politiko in ohlapno zakonodajo. Delovalo je - nekaj časa,” razlaga nobelov nagrajenec. Ameriško gospodarstvo je zdaj v težavah in verjetno se bo z njimi soočilo tudi svetovno gospodarstvo zato, ker so skušali prikriti stroške vojne v Iraku. Zdaj je te račune treba plačati.

So the problems the American economy and eventually the world economy is going to face are because they were trying to hide the cost of the Iraq war. Now those bills are coming due.

Ko se je Busheva vlada podala v Irak, je glavni svetovalec za gospodarstvo Larry Lindsey povedal, da bo ta vojna stala od 100 do 200 milijard dolarjev in zaradi te trenutne kvazi odkritosti ostal brez službe. Obrambni minister Donald Rumsfeld mu je odgovoril, da je to pretiravanje, vlada je izračunala, da bo stala le med 50 in 60 milijard dolarjev. Avtorji knjige Vojna za tri bilijone dolarjev: Pravi stroški vojne v Iraku ocenjujejo, da bo stala več kot 3 bilijone dolarjev, a to je zelo konservativna ocena, kar pomeni, da bo račun še višji. O britanskih stroških vojne v Iraku je enako zavajajoče podatke objavila tudi britanska vlada pod vodstvom Tonyja Blaira. Njen podatek je milijarda funtov, avtorji knjige pa navajajo stroške 20 milijard funtov.

The recommendations – some of them are obvious. You need full accrualbased accounting. We said we went to war for democracy but democracy is more than just periodic voting. It involves citizens being able to participate in the decisions that affect their lives. Meaningful participation means they have to know what big things like war cost. The Bush Administration tried to hide that cost from the American people. So in a sense they were undermining democracy at home as they allegedly were fighting for democracy abroad.
But you need to have comprehensive accounting because – my Nobel Prize was in the economics of information – information affects decisions. If you have information only about the short-run costs, you try to get those short-run costs down. That is what we did. We could have purchased equipment that would have saved lives in the short run but it would have cost us more in the short run. We will be paying more in the long run but that did not show up in the accounting. So it is important to have comprehensive, accrual-based accounting. Every business beyond a corner grocery store uses accrual accounting; we should be using accrual accounting.

Joseph Stiglitz izpostavlja, da je vojna za ZDA postala preveč enostavna. “Enega od dveh dolarjev od porabe na svetovni ravni porabijo za obrambo. Ni jasno, pred kom se branimo s tako visokimi izdatki. Ni bilo dvoma, da bomo premagali njihovo vojsko, še zmeraj pa ni jasno, ali lahko dobimo mir. Z odpravo načrta, ob dejstvu, da vojno plačujemo s sposojenim denarjem - so Američani prepričani, da je ta vojna zastonj, a vojne, ki bi bila zastonj, ni,” navaja Stiglitz.

At the very least America needs to impose a little bit of self-restraint by saying if we go to war we will at least pay for it. We will at least make the judgment that the war is worth our sacrificing the dollar cost of fighting that war.
On the issue of an exit, there is a lot of debate about what will happen when we leave. Some people say that when we leave there will be chaos. Some people believe that when we leave things will get better. Most Iraqis in the survey say they will get better. But without answering that – that is not the real issue when it comes to the decision about departure. Almost everyone except Senator McCain believes that we will eventually have to leave. He says we may have to be there for a hundred years. But if you take the view that you are going to leave then the issue is one of what economists call inter-temporal decision-making: do we leave now or do we leave later? If you ask it that way then the question is: what do you buy by delay and what do you pay by delay? Spending another two years will cost another half-trillion dollars. You have to make the case that spending another two years will make things that much better or that much less worse to be worth a half-trillion dollars. Unfortunately, none of the discussion about exit has been framed in these terms.

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