Citizen Rob Simpson set out on a mission: to find out what else the US could have purchased [1] for the $1 trillion dollars the war will probably cost. As with superhumanly large numbers, most recently and famously, the $700 billion bailout [2], it's helpful to put the number in concrete terms. That's what Simpson did [3] with his new book What We Could Have Done With the Money.
The book's corresponding website [4] has a ticker on it, calculating how much money has been spent since you've been looking at the site. I had it up for a bit this morning and presto, $25 million gone. Here's the entertaining (like a haunted house is entertaining) part of the website: you can "shop" with a $1 trillion dollar credit card. Anything from sports teams to Air Force One is up for sale — and if you choose the plane, the site asks you, "quantity"? The cost of the plane is only $325 million. I tried and bought every NFL franchise, Dracula's castle, and a theme park and didn't even come close.
To see what else $1 trillion buys, .
- For $1 trillion, the US could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years.
- 1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms.
- Forget fixing roads, for that amount the US could pave the entire interstate highway system with gold — 23.5-karat gold leaf.
- Every person on the planet could have an iPod.
- Every American's credit card could be paid off.
See something on the list you'd rather have? Test yourself and see if you know where spending on Iraq stacks up [5] against other wars.
Source [6]