Uncle Sam's rich uncles overseas

By David R. Francis

It's an odd situation. Foreigners have in effect been financing 43 percent of the cost of the Iraq war, a war many of them oppose. Now they will help to finance the federal government's cost of Katrina, a disaster their press tells them was badly managed initially.

But can these foreign investors be trusted to keep helping to maintain the United States economy?

In fiscal 2006, starting next month, Katrina may add as much as $200 billion to the federal deficit. The total deficit could reach $500 billion, Washington experts reckon. Katrina could cost a trillion or so in the years ahead.