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Total global economic disruption from this war is likely to be on the order of $1T by end of the year. I'd grant that this is less than I expected--the world economy absorbed the oil shock surprisingly well--but it's still somewhat significant. It's difficult to get a feel for how valuable the new effective constraints on Iran's illicit activities will be compared to the counterfactual of no war, but I'd want it to be $50B or so annually before calling the war a wash. One can fairly say that there are some tail risks that are likely delayed now (e.g. nuclear war in the Middle East), but I'm not sure we can count that against the counterfactual scenario if we don't also count the tail risks of choosing to go to war (e.g. a broader conflict involving China).
I'd put this $1 trillion number in the same category as "March Madness costs the US economy 75 gazillion dollars" news stories that come out each year. It's overly simplistic.
The logic would seem to imply that any increase in oil price is a loss to the economy. In that case, we should build a monument to the frackers. Before the fracking boom kicked off in 2014, oil was at $100 barrel, which is $139 in today's money. Let's do a rough estimate and say that, thanks to fracking, actual realized oil prices have been about $75/barrel since 2014, inflation adjusted.
At roughly 100 million barrels a day, that's 36.5 billion barrels a year, or 438 billion barrels over the period. With cost savings of $64/barrel that's $28 trillion saved by frackers. Get wrecked, Elon.
Of course, this logic doesn't make sense. For one, the money spent on oil is not simply incinerated. It is heavily taxed, distributed as dividends, and reinvested. And furthermore, higher oil prices can lead to increased fuel efficiency and innovations such as electric vehicles.
Finally, lower oil prices are a disaster for the the environment.
Outside of Iran, the true cost of the Iran War, dealing with all externalities, is a tiny fraction of this $1 trillion headline number. Of course, if we factor in the cost to Iran itself, the cost will be multiple trillion over a several year period.
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Well, $1T sure does sound expensive. What fraction of a COVID-19 is that?
If you expect me to defend our COVID response, you're barking up the wrong tree. I'd take a dozen Iran Wars over that.
This is kind of wondering-out-loud. If the populations of the countries most affected suffered more simply because of mass hysteria, then I'm underrating how much wars, which are a far more justified than "scared of the uncommon cold" is, should ideally cost.
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