This Sunday, on 11/9/2011 the world will mark the 10th anniversary of the 9/11/2001. Those attacks on the World Trade Tower in New York took the lives of 3000 innocent Americans.
At the same time, those attacks also caused huge financial losses to the U.S. economy. These losses are rarely spoken about, due to the enormous human tragedy, but its important here to mention a few- the insurance loss alone stood at a staggering $40 billion, making it one of the largest insured events ever. Not to mention the impact the attacks had on the stock markets which could not function for a week, causing losses to investors and corporations alike. In addition, there were loss of jobs, shutting down of many small and medium enterprises and tourism which got affected not only in New York, where the occupancy rates fell to 40% (New York’s tourism sector employs 2,80,000 people and generates $25 billion revenue a year) but around the world. Many airlines went out of business due to the fear of traveling.
The U.S. economy is said to have recovered very quickly after the 9/11 attacks, after all what is the extent of economic damage can such attacks have on a $ 14 trillion economy. The effects were very ‘short term’ and therefore the attack is 'considered' more of a human tragedy than an economic one.
Last ten years have been very ‘peaceful’ in US. There have been virtually no terrorist attacks on the US soil by any such terrorist groups. Infact, it has been the other way round. Immediately after 9/11, US declared war on terror and attacked Iraq. Since then close to 3,00,000 people have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan, that is 100 times more than the lives lost in 9/11 attacks.
So how have the Al-Qaida and likes of such terrorist outfits won against the US without carrying a single attack in the last 10 years and achieved their motto of making America ‘BLEED’ and ‘BANKRUPT’. This is how-
· The wars will cost Americans between $3.2 and $4 trillion, including medical care and disability for current and future war veterans.
· If the wars continue, they are on track to require at least another $450 billion in Pentagon spending by 2020.
· More than 31,000 people in uniform and military contractors have died
· Pentagon bills account for half of the budgetary costs incurred and are a fraction of the full economic cost of the wars
· Because the war has been financed almost entirely by borrowing, $185 billion in interest has already been paid on war spending, and another $1 trillion could accrue in interest alone through 2020.
· Federal obligations to care for past and future veterans of these wars will likely total between $600-$950 billion
· Increased spending of $100 billion on home land security.
Its not that America hasn’t fought wars in the past. Infact, America to quite an extent has been a war economy. It has fought many wars for Oil and profited from some of them, but unfortunately they misjudged and mistimed Iraq and Afghanistan wars. The costs of these two wars have far out weighed the benefits from them.
To top it all, corporate America’s greed caused another economic debacle in 2007- the sub-prime crisis. The cost of sub-prime loans is still been felt in US and the rest of the world. Those bad loans have caused another $5-6 trillion dollars loss to the US economy.
The US has pushed its economy into a deep dark recession because of the war on terror and the financial crisis; and it might take many more years to come out of it. Its only sad to imagine that all this money could have gone into America’s nation building which would have in turn created millions of jobs and given people a sense of security.
So let you not be fooled if Obama says “US has come out stronger”. The fact is that the US is much more fragile than ever.But, in this perfect world, there is hardly any perfection, and plenty of imbalances. Like it usually happens that a handful of people profit from such acts and profit they did and the commoner in America continues to Bleed and go Bankrupt…..
