Caution: Sarcasm Alert !
I looked over our small emergency fund that is about 60% in stock based mutual funds. I wrote a little bit about it here < click here > By the time I was done looking over the results since the Donnie-Iran War I wasn’t thrilled. It lost a bunch of value since the war broke out. So I was thinking…if we lost value (i.e. value) what about all investors in general, how much value have they lost.
So I did my research and found out how much value each major stock exchange loses for each percentage drop in its index. I looked at the DOW, the S&P, and the Nasdaq. Investors have lost a combined total of slightly over $3,000,000,000,000. Yeah, that’s 3trillion dollar loss of value to investors due directly to the war. Nice, about $130billion loss per day on average.
Then I was thinking about Pentagon Pete (PP) asking mom and dad for a raise in his allowance for more killing and destroying. So PP asks for $200billion more dollars for bombs and bullets to destroy more stuff around the middle-east and
kill more people in Iran…hopefully not more young school girls. I decided to run some of those numbers…
As of March 21st, the war has cost the US about $100billion dollars in the lead up to the war and an additional $20billion per week for three weeks of actual warfare. That comes to about $160billion dollars to date. $160billion that the US government didn’t have to spend…and was added to the national debt. Which debt generations of our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying interest on…about $8 – $9billion per year for 30 years…or longer. On Mach 19th Department of War Hegseth requested an additional $200billion in war funding. That too will be added to the national debt and create another $10billion
per year in interest that our children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren will be paying interest on for 30 years…or longer.
To date, the direct cost of the war is about $900billion in principle and interest over the next 30 years…nearly $3,000 per man, woman, child, and infant in the United States.
Let’s talk food…The price of fertilizer that farmers use to grow food to feed us is up 25% since the war was started. Fuel in our area is up 46%…you know, the stuff that tractors need to plant crops. But I’m sure those cost increases won’t show up in the grocery stores…nah.
FedEx and UPS have both announced increases in fuel surcharges since the war. But I’m sure that won’t drive the cost of everything up.
But flying will be much cheaper…right? Ah, no. Major airlines have all announced ticket price increases…anywhere from $50 – $300 per flight. But, don’t worry…in addition to ticket price increases some major airlines such as United are just canceling flights period…like 5% of all flights. May not sound like much but that means about 150 fewer flights a day just for United. What does this mean in real terms? For United alone…$11billion in added expense just for jet fuel this year.
In personal terms…last night a couple came over for dinner. She work about 1-hour away, 4 days a week. Calculating the miles to/from work, vehicle MPG, number of days worked per month, and 46% spike in fuel costs locally…yeah, it comes out to more than $100 per month for gas since the war started. Yeah…she is wondering why they voted America First.
So tell me again…How do all these horrific numbers economic numbers Make America Great Again…or put American First? The US economy takes a hit of trillions and trillions of dollars…yup…Make America Great Again!!
Oh, and these are just the numbers since the BiBi-Donnie War started. Since Jan 2025…yeah, all the economic numbers are worse…and getting worse.
But not to worry…this is just the first 14 months of this new MAGA / AF adventure…we still have 34 more months to go. Should be an interesting ride. Hope you are preparing for it.
Dang it…back in 2024 I started my own cryptocurrency company and my family made billions by now. And then last year and this year I had my golf club company go into the drone manufacturing business and about to sell 100’s of millions of dollars worth of drones to the government. Oh wait…that wasn’t my family…some other family business beat me to it…
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All I can say is: SIGH!!!!
Things seemed to be so promising a year ago. Gave up hoping for the fairly tale to become real.
Nothing like having the rug of high expectations pulled out from under you.
Yeah, some particular people have been having a relatively good time (and that goes from both sides of the “aisle”).
No one in politics seems to want to make anything better for the rest of us. They are only concerned about padding and protecting their own interests.
It seems more and more like all that we an do is to wait to hear the drop of the “other shoe” when things get more interesting
Russ
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Hey Russ,
I wish I knew the right words…but I just don’t.
I too was filled with hope last year after the inauguration…but it went downhill quickly thereafter.
I think for me it is the lies during the campaign.
Congress had to force the Epstein file release, and he still hasn’t abided by the law. And not one of them have been prosecuted.
Then economic warfare with almost the entire world with those costly tariffs…that were proved to be illegal.
Then bombing Iran on false info from Israel last year.
Then bombing, invading, & kidnapping the President of a foreign country…and his wife.
Then this completely worthless, although hugely costly war with Iran…and killing all those young children. That’s a war crime!
But let’s not forget the sheer stupidity with the Greenland debacle.
The terrible economy costing the lower and middle-income folks vast amounts of money that we didn’t have to begin with.
The killings of US citizens by ICE agents was totally uncalled for and criminal.
The destruction of part of the White House…another stupid, ego-driven move.
The ego-maniac renaming of the Kennedy Center.
I mean the list goes on and on and on and on…he just keeps making everything in this country worse by the day. And his ego is beyond comprehension! If he had been doing great stuff I could tolerate it. But, he is a destructive bull in our china shop.
I will give him credit, which he rightly and richly deserves, he secured the southern border. But that is about all he has done right.
The economic destruction he is doing to our country may never be overcome…and generations of our children and grand-children will pay for it.
Hopefully the Dems take the mid-terms and put a stop to him. In-turn, he can prevent them from doing their destructive crap. I guess the Founding Fathers knew what they were doing with this whole “check & balance” thing 😉
I just hope we can endure this without him crashing the economy and/or the country. Or worse yet, getting us into more wars or pushing the red button.
Could we just please get a moral, just, decent, intelligent person in the White House for once!!!??? Just someone that would do the right things for the US…you know, put America First, Make America Great Again…not someone hell-bent on destroying it.
Prayer brother, prayer.
AH
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