That's Why He's Special.

Ed Morrissey:

The problem with today’s economy comes from two sources: the credit collapse from the burst of the housing bubble, and the rapidly-increasing price of fuel.

Hmmm.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - The Iraq war has contributed to the U.S. economic slowdown and is impeding an economic recovery, Nobel-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says. ...

The nearly 5-year-old war, once billed as virtually paying for itself through increased Iraqi oil exports, has cost the U.S. Treasury $845 billion directly.

"It used to be thought that wars are good for the economy. No economist really believes that anymore," Stiglitz said in an interview.

Stiglitz and Bilmes argue the true costs are at least $3 trillion under what they call an ultraconservative estimate, and could surpass the cost of World War Two, which they put at $5 trillion after adjusting for inflation.

The direct costs exclude interest on the debt raised to fund the war, health care costs for veterans coming home, and replacing the destroyed hardware and degraded operational capacity caused by the war. ...

Asked if the war has contributed to the U.S. slowdown, Stiglitz said, "Very much so."

"To offset that depressing effect, the Fed has flooded the economy with liquidity and the regulators looked the other way when very imprudent lending was going up," Stiglitz said. "We were living on borrowed money and borrowed time and eventually a day of reckoning had to come, and it has now come."

The war has also altered how the United States has reacted to its current economic troubles, he said.

"When America's financial institutions had a problem, they had to turn to the sovereign wealth funds in the Middle East for recapitalization, for the bailout," he said.

"The reason was obvious. The war had led to high oil prices. The war had meant that America had to borrow more money. There weren't sources of liquid funds in the United States. The sources of the liquid funds were in the Middle East," he said.