The latest numbers on Iraq will give even a hardened economic analyst like Alan Greenspan a panic attack.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes. The estimates made by the group, which opposes the conflict, include not only the immediate costs of war but also ongoing factors such as long-term health care for veterans, interest on debt and replacement of military hardware.

This is known as full-cost accounting which is what the IRS does when it says it costs 40 cents a mile to operate a typical car. This is what it is costing to run this war all piled on an already bloated national deficit that is becoming untenable. Like a sub-prime mortgage gone bust, we can't even afford the interest on the national debt. This war, which the leading Republican candidates fully support as a permanent war, coupled with Bush's fiscal insanity, has rendered our country the debtor nation of all time. We're in hock up to and including the White House.

This war, which is decimating the military, leaving tens of thousands of our youth crippled for life has already cost almost a trillion dollars. $720 million a day. What could we be doing?

The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity

That's just a start. It's a question of priorities and what safety really means. Ask yourself: would we be safer if we had not invaded and occupied Iraq for the past 4.5 years? If we had supported the UN instead of going it alone and invaded would we be spending our treasure and youth today? Perhaps O.J., Britney, and the other celeb trash would be alone in the headlines and we could be building a better country.

Wow. Alan Greenspan's memoir is being previewed and George W. does not come out well. Remember, Greenspan is a life long Republican and a revered voice in financial circles. He was optimistic when his friends were elected.

When Bush and Cheney won the 2000 election, Greenspan writes, "I thought we had a golden opportunity to advance the ideals of effective, fiscally conservative government and free markets. . . . I was soon to see my old friends veer off to unexpected directions."

Here's what he's saying now about the Bush administration:

"Little value was placed on rigorous economic policy debate or the weighing of long-term consequences." The large, anticipated federal budget surpluses that were the basis for Bush's initial $1.35 trillion tax cut "were gone six to nine months after George W. Bush took office." So Bush's goals "were no longer entirely appropriate. He continued to pursue his presidential campaign promises nonetheless."

Smack down and he's only getting warmed up. Tell us how you really feel Alan.

By the end of last year, Greenspan writes with some bitterness, Washington was "harboring a dysfunctional government. ... Governance has become dangerously dysfunctional."

This from Alan Greenspan, never considered a radical. He worked with whoever was in office. He apparently appreciated Bill Clinton's ability to digest facts and face economic reality but pretty much says President Bush is the worst president ever. Now, I'm no Greenspan fan myself but we have found something to agree on here. The national debt has escalated faster than Republicans can send more brigades to the endless war. History will not be kind to this reckless cowboy and Greenspan is probably just the start. Worst President Ever, not the heroic cardboard cutout the Pretender sports.

It's been clear since his first term that President Bush has a soft spot for Mexico. It became a serious issue during the debate on the "shamnesty" bill and his elitist attitude when he hit the blogosphere/talk radio brick wall that derailed it.

Now he's reached his nadir with his plan to allow Mexican trucks to cross the border and deliver anywhere in the United States beginning Saturday:

Teamsters leaders said they planned to seek an emergency injunction Wednesday from the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in San Francisco.

..."What a slap in the face to American workers, opening the highways to dangerous trucks on Labor Day weekend, one of the busiest driving weekends of the year," said Teamsters President Jim Hoffa.

..."Before providing unconditional access throughout the country to tens of thousands of big rigs we know little to nothing about, we must insure they meet safety and environmental standards," Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope said.

I actually agree with the Teamsters and the Sierra Club (an uncomfortable feeling to be sure). As one who lived in San Diego County for nearly ten years, you should see some of the vehicles that cross the border.

Another issue is that this truly is taking jobs from American workers and giving them to Mexicans. The status quo works just fine; the Mexicans haul the goods to the border, American drivers take over from there. It's worked for nearly a 25-years so why change? I'm not a big union supporter even though I am forced to work with them, but Hoffa has a point.

The latest housing numbers are coming out and it's not a pretty picture. This is more than a market correction, more than a few people with ARM's blowing up or a few stock funds with bad investments. This is looking like more than a ripple in the economy. This is not about who to blame but it does give one pause:

The federal government is expected to report Thursday that the U.S. median home price fell for the first time since it began keeping statistics since the 1950s.

That's one shoe.

it could be hard for people to disregard the onslaught of negative housing-related news. A separate report Tuesday showed U.S. consumer confidence taking its sharpest plunge in nearly two years in August in part because of ongoing housing woes.

That's another

And representatives of home builders said that problems in the housing market had become so severe that they urged government intervention, including cuts in short-term interest rates.

And now it's raining shoes. Next up? Watch what happens with credit card rates, foreclosures are up 90% and it is already affecting the economic reports, the stock market and more. The Wall St. Journal blamed poor people for buying instead of renting and radio pundits claim the market will handle the problem and say it's an individual responsibility. Sure, for people who currently have a stable mortgage and rate, they're probably ok. The housing market, the value represented in people's homes is a major issue. There are market corrections all the time. This is a more serious issue. It's crunching credit, it will feed job loss and it's already affecting buying on the stock market. It could be a speed bump, it could lead to the R or the D word (and I don't mean political parties). What's your take? And before you reply, please take the time to read the articles. Blogging is opinion but it doesn't have to be uninformed , knee-jerk skim.

Arizona will implement the one of the the toughest immigration laws in the country come October. That law would pull the business license of a business owner who employs illegals, ten days for the first offense and permanently for the second.

With that law on the horizon, illegals are packing up, selling their property and heading elsewhere. My guess is not back to Mexico but probably to Texas, California or New Mexico:

The state's strong economy has been a magnet for illegal immigrants for years. But a growing number are pulling up stakes out of fear they will be jobless come Jan. 1, when the law takes effect. The departures are drawing cheers from immigration hard-liners and alarm from business owners already seeing a drop in sales.

It's impossible to count how many undocumented immigrants have fled because of the new law. But based on interviews with undocumented immigrants, immigrant advocates, community leaders and real-estate agents, at least several hundred have left since Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill on July 2. There are an estimated 500,000 illegal immigrants in Arizona.

It will be interesting to see how this effects the Arizona economy, unemployment rate and overall job market. I imagine the economy will take a short-term hit as employers are forced to pay legal immigrants and citizens more but the market tends to settle those things out. The true numbers to watch will be the ones that how much the state saves in health care costs and other costs associated. I would imagine schools will be less populated but the savings associated with that will tougher to calculate.

The success or failure of this bill is going to have a strong ripple effect as to where the nation as a whole goes. It's interesting to note that this is happening in John McCain's state, so evidently he was going against the wishes of his constituents by supporting the shamnesty bill.

Captain Ed has more.

Ultimately, the upcoming election may be an election in which the have-nots (almost all Americans, really) strike a blow for democracy by overthrowing the very few haves. Let's face it, under the Republican-led administration and Congress combo, the have more and more have made out extremely well. Remember how much of the tax breaks President Bush and his Congress passed went to the wealthy?

That wasn't enough. They want more. How much? Unbelievably much. They rarely miss a trick (or the opportunity to pass laws favoring themselves) and they get a great return on investment.

Who are these intrepid envelope-stuffers? Let's find out, courtesy of Billionaires for Bush. This Onion-style Web site does with humor what stats themselves don't. Almost all of America is getting taken to the cleaners for the benefit of the very wealthy class. It's one thing to be the land of opportunity and another to be the rigged game of patronage and inheritance. America was founded as a representative democracy and not an economic oligarchy. If this country is to act like a responsible adult and even thrive again, it is going to need a level playing field and a real sense of fair play.

Should the wealthy get a tax break that can only be balanced by keeping the middle class down and the less than middle class poorer than ever? Is there a hit out on the middle class? Is having much of the country (and its voters/workers) owned by an aristocracy what we want? Economic inequality just doesn't sound the same as 95% of America are getting ripped off. The 2006 election may have put the repeal of the estate tax on hold but for how long? Even now the Gucci loafers are whining and dining Congress while on the summer break. Your thoughts?

I've written on the sub-prime mess before -- I'm neither surprised nor alarmed by it. But I am alarmed by the garbage that's coming out from the media and the Democrats demanding that taxpayers bail out failed borrowers. This whole problem can be traced to the very definition of sub-prime borrowers -- a group of borrowers who fail to meet conventional borrowing criteria. You are naturally going to have a higher default rate with these individuals. The looser the lending criteria, the more defaults are possible (or, as I would say, probable).

Many critics are blaming the lenders for this crisis. Not so. The move to make sub-prime loans available to people was based on the liberal theory that because these people had less than perfect credit, they were being discriminated against:

"The main thing that innovations in the mortgage market have done over the past 30 years is to let in the excluded: the young, the discriminated against, the people without a lot of money in the bank to use for a down payment." It has allowed them access to mortgages whereas lenders would have once just turned them away.

Now Democrats (and self-involved fools like CNBC's Jim Cramer) want the taxpayers to bail out these borrowers by giving them grants to avoid foreclosure. My Senator Jack Reed proposed one such program ($615 million) earlier this year. Hillary Clinton has proposed a $1 billion program. Chuck Schumer has also begged for a government bailout.

"They're closing down the textile mill across the railroad tracks/Foreman says these jobs are going, boys, and they ain't coming back..." ~Bruce Springsteen, "My Hometown"

Who can rescue the U.S. economy?

This past weekend, I visited Halibut Point State Park in Rockport, Mass. You can see all the way to Maine from this Cape Ann gem, and take a self-guided tour of the Babson Farm Quarry once used for generating granite. The quarry closed in 1929, a park brochure informed me, and "The growing preference for steel-framed buildings and for asphalt and concrete road surfaces guaranteed that the industry would never recover." At least, not in New England: "Most granite for the American market is now quarried in Texas," the brochure continues, "with some imported from as far away as India and China."

Among our presidential candidates, who talks about job-related issues? John Edwards has made poverty part of his platform. The New York Times magazine reports that "now, when he brings up his humble beginnings, it's mainly to suggest that he knows what it's like to be one layoff or one X-ray away from destitution."

In a rare Saturday session, the House passed an energy bill that will cost the American consumer billions.

The main thrust of the bill was to repeal tax breaks put in place to help the oil companies compete in an increasingly difficult world market. To think that the oil companies will not pass those costs on to the consumer is absurd. At the same time, increased restrictions on exploiting domestic oil and gas resources are to be put in place further hamstringing our production capabilities and increasing our reliance on foreign oil sources.

Another portion of the bill that will cause increased prices is the requirement that 15% of electricity that is produced must be from renewable sources. I think we should begin by renewing the plans for windmills near Hyannis Port, MA, you know, those ones that Teddy Kennedy and his nephew Robert, Jr. shot down for purely aesthetic reasons, but I digress.

This bill represents a major shift in policy as noted by Rep. Ed Markey (D-MA),"This is a historic turn away from a fossil fuel agenda toward renewable energy. It's been a long time in coming," The reason it's been so long in coming Congressman, is that we as a nation are ill-prepared to make the shift and the costs associated with doing so will be enormous. We haven't built a new refinery in this country in 25-years and the technology available to build new nuclear plants is efficient and safe. Why weren't these issues addressed?

The consensus is that the President will veto the bill when he receives it, but Bush will have to be a tough negotiator to make all the bad policies in this bill go away.

The New York Times can't allow the American people to feel good about anything with President Bush in the White House. Despite the fact that the average 401k is growing at a nice clip, unemployment is at an historic low and the service and IT sectors are roaring, we as a nation are in horrible shape:

Clearly influenced by some of their most successful candidates in last year's Congressional elections, Democrats are talking more and more about the anemic growth in American wages and the negative effects of trade and a globalized economy on American jobs and communities. They deplore what they call a growing gap between the middle class, which is struggling to adjust to a changing job market, and the affluent elites who have prospered in the new economy. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Democrat of New York, calls it "trickle-down economics without the trickle."

It's funny that a woman whose husband introduced most of the policies that have opened up trade barriers is now condemning them. NAFTA, most favored nation status for China, etc. The piece mentions that the party establishment is trying to get away from the policies instituted by the most successful politician the party's had in a generation. Makes sense to me.

Have you taken a look at your 401k lately? The stock market had an incredible day yesterday and is approaching 14,000

The Dow shot up 283.86, or 2.09 percent, to 13,861.73; its previous record close, which also came June 4, was 13,676.32. Thursday's jump was the biggest one-day percentage gain for the blue chip index since October 2003 and the biggest one-day point gain since October 2002. The Dow also reached a new trading high of 13,869.94 and had its 50th record close since October.

Daily Pundit has been keeping track.

Maybe this is what it looked like on October 18, 1929, I don't know. But when a market blasts through a previous high with this kind of gusto, it's hard to ignore the possibility that the equities are on an amphetamine rush, and that it might go on for some time. Maybe it's time to demand urine samples from investors. Even Bear Stearns was up almost 3% on the day, which suggests that if someone is worried about the other shoe, it's probably somewhere in orbit around Neptune.

Once again, the conservative view that lower taxes and decreased spending increases revenue is proving factual yet again:

The new figure is considerably smaller than original estimates. In February, the White House predicted that this year's deficit would be $244 billion because of stronger-than-expected revenue collections. The deficit hit a peak of $413 billion in 2004 and was $248 billion last year.

At least President Bush got half of the equation correct -- he forgot the reduced spending portion that usually goes along with it. Conservative are rightly upset with the outsized spending bills the Congress submitted and the president signed.

It's been proven time and again, when John F. Kennedy came to office, he sought reduced taxes for everyone -- including the rich -- almost immediately (although the actual cuts were not implemented until after he died.) And that action led the country into an economic boom. Jimmy Carter raised taxes when he took office and the nation plunged into a recession that featured high unemployment, stratospheric inflation and enormous interest rates. Once Reagan was inaugurated, he pushed through massive tax cuts and the nation prospered throughout his two-terms.

As we waste our fighting forces and our resources in the Middle East, China sits back and becomes stronger militarily and economically. Early in his presidency, George W. Bush stifled debate by labeling those who opposed him with the term "anti patriotic." He avoided a logical debate by placing fear in the hearts of politicians who are more interested in keeping there jobs than doing what is best for America.

So as we spend billions of dollars in Iraq and have lost thousands of soldiers, what has been going on elsewhere.

Our trade deficit with China has risen from $68 billion dollars in 2000 to $232 billion in 2006. The overall deficit has reached record proportions and the dollar has plunged in value versus the euro.

In simple terms the drop in the dollar has caused the cost of foreign products to increase for Americans. The cost of travelling abroad has also increased for American but has become cheaper for foreigners visiting the United States. You would think this would result in an increase in tourism for the U.S. Wrong. Tourism has plunged. Since 2000, tourism to the United States has plunged 17% while it has increased in the rest of the world.

Congressional Quarterly is reporting that the Senate Finance Committee has just approved a package of tax incentives for the alternative energy industry -- and unspecified penalties for the gas and oil industry:

The Senate Finance Committee today approved, 14-6, a $29 billion package of tax incentives, rewarding alternative energy sources and penalizing the oil and gas industry.

....Democrats defended the emphasis on renewable energy and their push to get the revenue from the oil and gas industry.

Let's use a little logic here: if you financially penalize the gas and oil industries, just where do you think prices will go? Ever heard of the theory of pass-through costs? The consumer always pays for boneheaded decisions like this.

It's almost as if the Democrats want gas prices to rise...

The Democrats are doing one heck of a job with the deficit. According to the Associated Press, the federal deficit for this budget year is running a whopping 34.6% down from the same eight month period last year.

That improvement came even though the deficit in May increased to $67.7 billion, up 57.8 percent from May 2006. However, analysts attributed this big increase to the fact that the Internal Revenue Service was more efficient in processing tax returns this year, meaning more revenue was collected in April with fewer tax collections left to be counted in May.

Oh, wait, that wasn't the Democrats' budget. That's the Republican budget and tax plan from last year. The Democrats haven't gotten around to passing anything yet that would have an effect on the economy.

For the record, revenue is up 8% for the year and spending is up only 2.5%. Hence the drop in the deficit. Last year we also had huge hurricane relief expenditures, which the Democrats in Louisiana have yet to do anything with.