US $25 trillion since WWII

From a Professor Bernard Lown's leter:

Thereby the USA exerts control over scarce vital natural resources making possible for 5 percent of the world’s population to consume annually 25 percent of world’s resources. While the gains have been celebrated as luxury and abundance for part of the US citizenry, less trumpeted or comprehended have been the losses. 

Immediate negative consequences of hyperpower status include total defense expenditures of about $25 trillion since WWII,  woeful  neglect of infrastructure, the largest imprisoned population in the world, a burgeoning homeland  security apparat of two and half million people, (Jane Meyer, New Yorker May 23, 2011), dissolution of the middle class, and denaturing of democratic institutions.

The long range consequences promise to be far more catastrophic. These relate largely to three issues: