America could have bailed itself out using its $3 Trillion spent on Iraq/Afghanistan

There is... no free lunch. The operating costs of the war in Iraq are now $12.5 billion a month; which rises to $16 billion if you include Afghanistan. Sixteen billion dollars is the annual budget of the UN and four times that of the WHO. It is more than three times what the US gives annually to Africa. It is two years' funding for the campaign to eradicate illiteracy worldwide. - Telegraph

NVDL: Now is probably a great time for Americans to be asking if they can actually afford to be occupying ANY other country. My guess is they care less about what they can afford and what they can militarily achieve. Which I prognosticate is the next phase of this crisis.

clipped from www.telegraph.co.uk Startling facts are everywhere. Private security contractors earn up to $1,222 a day; Army sergeants between $150 and $190 a day; Iraqi translators less than $10 a day. There are seven soldiers wounded per fatality in this conflict - compare 2.6 injuries per death in Vietnam. One study mentioned in a footnote suggests that "the insurgency has recruited more than we have killed". Donald Rumsfeld dismissed this as "baloney" and estimated $50 to $60 billion. Andrew Natsios of the Agency for International Development promised the construction of a democratic Iraq would at most cost the US taxpayer $1.7 billion. Paul Wolfowitz thought the whole shebang would pay for itself.