A way Of Looking At The Economic Cost of War

Nicole Belle at Crooks & Liars

I'm pretty good at math, but I cannot conceive a number that high. What a horrible, tragic waste, first and foremost in lives–both Iraqi and American–but also in potential of what we could have done with that money. To wit…

NYTimes:

The way to come to grips with $1.2 trillion is to forget about the number itself and think instead about what you could buy with the money. When you do that, a trillion stops sounding anything like millions or billions.

For starters, $1.2 trillion would pay for an unprecedented public health campaign - a doubling of cancer research funding, treatment for every American whose diabetes or heart disease is now going unmanaged and a global immunization campaign to save millions of children's lives.

Combined, the cost of running those programs for a decade wouldn't use up even half our money pot. So we could then turn to poverty and education, starting with universal preschool for every 3- and 4-year-old child across the country. The city of New Orleans could also receive a huge increase in reconstruction funds.

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