An article in the New York Times shows the shocking truth about what life after Saddam is really like and it certainly doesn’t look pretty. Less than 140 of the 2,300 planned construction projects are currently being worked on and less than 20,000 local workers are employed at these construction sites.
There also seems to be a huge problem with energy. There are blackouts at night, and it is cutting in on people’s sleep. Interviews with people in Harethiya, in Baghdad, have shown that the electricity shortages have “created a nation of insomniacs, sweltering in their apartments through oppressive nights.”
The new government will inherit a new currency, a renewed banking system and, in measures that were pushed hard by a conservative Republican administration, low taxes and tariffs and a law permitting unhindered foreign investment in non-oil sectors of the economy.
There is also much more. Sewage also seems to be a problem and the economy doesn’t look like its going for a good start either. A country that is probably trillions of dollars in debt should not have low taxes, or at least I think so (I haven’t taken any economics or Poli Sci classes yet).
