Considering 3 Trillion Dollars
In their new book, “The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict” Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes argue that the Iraq conflict is now the second most expensive war in US history, after World War Two.To illustrate how much 3 trillion dollars is, Tom Tomorrow in his “This Modern World” comic strip (which appears in CityBeat), used the metaphor of a row of dollar bills taped together reaching the moon and back over 600 times. It’s interesting to think of what else could have been done with that 3 trillion dollars. For example, The NY Post reported last week that disgraced former NY governor Elliot Spitzer paid as much as 80,000 dollars to sex workers over the last decade. By my calculation, using current US census figures, the government could have instead used the 3 trillion dollars to provide every adult male in the United States with high-end “call girl” services for five years.
That would boost the economy too. It would put a lot of those working ladies in nice rides, with nice homes. It is definatly a more sensible way to spend the mony