At what point should America stop throwing money at Iraq, Afghanistan, the mid-east, the rest of the world, the flawed vision, the failing economy, and just sit back and say "enough"?

... house by the way.

It won't be long now for us if we don't learn to take advice.

That looks like the boxes of money piled in a back room of the American compound in Iraq which mysteriously disappeared with no accounting. Billions, I think; little of which reached intended targets.

I saw this cartoon video in a pub west of Zilina, Czechoslovakia in 1991. I thought it was contemporary to the Great Depression, but it seemed curiously appropos to Eastern Europe at that point in time. Now, with so much talk of "hard times" in the House of Representatives, it may soon be back in vogue in America.

Mickey's Delayed Date is a cartoon created by Walt Disney in 1947. Minnie Mouse is calling Mickey to remind him about their date, which he has totally forgotten about while sleeping on the couch. With the help of Pluto, Mickey gets dressed for the date, but loses the tickets to the show on his way out the door. Pluto takes the tickets to Mickey, after his suit has been ruined by water from a passing car, and then Minnie arrives and tells him he has a cute costume for the "hard times" costume party.

that they could throw a bogus war and march into Iraq and plant their bases and one day, steal their oil.

MLK would've been proud.

... inexact.

No, she's a Weimar maiden, burning money because it's cheaper than firewood.

Coming to a theatre near you.

I was going to say you got it exactly wrong (again), but that would only be true if your post ended at "Afghanistan".

DrNo:

At what point should America stop throwing money at Iraq, Afghanistan, the mid-east, the rest of the world, the flawed vision, the failing economy, and just sit back and say "enough"?

Diminishing Returns probably does fairly apply to the overall policy, especially since WW2 say, of aggressively designating and defending "strategic interests" all over the globe. It's been a decent 60 year run.

But it doesn't to Afghanistan and Iraq .. mainly because there's nothing to diminish. In fact, looking at those two as independent entities (say "profit centres"), it would be almost the opposite: America has made the investment, abandoning now would be giving up on the cusp of (possibly) accelerated returns.

In other words, I really don't have much to add here.

"But it doesn't to Afghanistan and Iraq .. mainly because there's nothing to diminish. In fact, looking at those two as independent entities (say "profit centres"), it would be almost the opposite: America has made the investment, abandoning now would be giving up on the cusp of (possibly) accelerated returns."

The "investments" were made with expectation of profit, political and economic, and the expectation itself is diminished past stop-loss proportion.

The Iraq and Afghanistan adventures may not strictly fall under diminishing returns law, but, as you noted in your response to b-a, it makes a nice top-post.

Iraq is producing about 2 million barrels of oil a day. I think that's not quite where they were pre-war, and there was talk of the capacity being easily double what it was. so let's say they could get to 4 million.

at $110 per barrel that's (2 million * $100 * 30 * 12) $72 billion a year. divided by 20 million (guesstimate) iraqis, that's $3,600 a head. so i wondered, what is the per capita gdp right now. $3,600 a head. (howdy doody synchronicity .. cheating of course, because I used a pop of 20 million cia factbook used a pop of 28 million.)

the point is, if they ever could get their act together over there there is a lot of money to go around and america is in a great position to (pseudo-legally) steal a lot of it. the problem since the war has truly been one of greed and incompetence.

and irony duly noted, but is theft legitimate economics?

Maybe it is. The history of economics is replete with theft and slavery as driving engines.

If theft and slavery can half my price for a gallon of life-blood, so be it, and fuck the wogs and niggers and spics and you and me.