Competing With Low Cost Competition

The current war budget show down brought this to mind: when big corporations compete with smaller competitors with lower fixed and lower variable costs... they'll lose (Or at least they need huge subsidies and protections like the old integrated steel mills... and then lose).

So consider this paragraph:

The bill approved by the House would provide $42.8 billion total, with about $30 billion directed to the war effort for the next two months. It requires the president to report by July 13 on how the Iraqi government is performing in building its military and moving toward achieving political unity. Congress would then vote a second time on whether to give the administration the remainder of the money — about $50 billion — to maintain operations in Iraq through Sept. 30 or to restrict that money to deployment.

$30 + 50 equals $80 billion for war operations through September. What are the insurgents spending for their share of the conflict?

Lee H. Hamilton's take on Iraq

My daddy-o forwarded this article to me yesterday from the Woodrow Wilson International It's pretty good overall, but I think he shorts the following

• Finding Bin Ladin/shoring up homeland security
• Finishing in Afganistan
• missinformation/deceit regarding WMD

In conclusion he muses

"Only time and events will tell whether the Iraq war has been worth the costs, and whether our decision to go to war will make us safer from – or more susceptible to –terrorist attack. "

One can make distinctions between military targets and civilian targets, but 1500 dead and 11,300 wounded doesn't seem so different from 9/11 casualties, nor the methodology seem so different from conventional terrorism. In short, terrorists didn't have to strike here, we sent them our kids instead.

Include those points, and I think it's fair to say, that yes, some positive gains were made, but look at the opportunity cost interms of diplomacy, fiscal health, homeland security, energy policy that were lost. No, it wasn't worth these costs.