Countries cannot have unlimited amounts of all goods. They are limited by the resources and the technologies available to them. The need to choose among limited opportunities is dramatized during wartime. In debating whether the United States should go to war in Iraq, people wanted to know how much the war would cost. Would the war effort divert$50 billion or$100 billion, or even more from the civilian economy to occupying and rebuilding Iraq? And, as numbers begin to climb, people naturally asked, why are we policing Baghdad rather than New York or repairing the electrical system in the Middle East rather than in the U.S. Midwest? The more output that goes for military tasks the less there is available for civilian consumption and investment.
Note: This is published for the internal use (of St. Philomena's College students) only and hence requires verification.
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