43 billion dollars is kind-of a hard amount to put your finger on. Until you divide it by America's population and see that it's $143 for every man, woman, and child. Hard to believe there's so much budget allocated to spying. That's almost half of what will be spent on the war in Iraq during this year -- which equates to $324 from every one of us. If the war really does end by 2017 as some hope, it will cost every one of us over $7000. Maybe more.
All this spending makes it easy for me to understand how our dollar is so utterly screwed. Compared with the British Pound it's at the lowest value in over 26 years. For the next decade I'll bet Europe's economy is king. I just can't understand why Asia hasn't taken off as fast. We've been neck and neck, but ever since the half-point drop in the interest rate back in September the Yen started on its way up. Hmm, Yen seems like a good investment right about now.