A day of the war in Iraq......

[nancylebov]

The Quakers have been doing a very serious campaign about what could be bought with the $720 million/day the war in Iraq is costing. the US--lunches for school children, college scholarships, refitting homes for renewable energy.

I am not quite such a serious person, so here are some other things which might be bought with the money.

28,000,000 decent restaurant meals at $25 each. Ten days of this is enough to take the whole country out to dinner.

3,600,000 of expensive sushi dinners at $200 each. Fortunately, not everyone likes sushi. One day is probably enough to cover everyone who'd appreciate a $200 sushi dinner, possibly several times.

Or 360,000 of wretched excess $2000 dinners with really good wine. Is there enough wine of sufficient quality to make this one work?

2,400 average houses at $300,000. The actual average is $264,000, but why not allow a little something for closing costs and moving and those unexpected repairs?

40,000,000 new hardcovers from Amazon, assuming that you also get a paperback or two for the free shipping.

Guessing at the numbers: 144,000 little business start-ups for $5000 each, 7,200 medium-small business start-ups at $100,000 each, or 360 large start-ups at $2,000,000 each.

7,200,000 hours of massage or a number of other professional services at $100/hour.

2,440,677.97 year-long subscriptions to the Oxford English Dictionary. That last person will have to throw in about $10 of their own.

720 X-prizes. This is the one that made me go "Gleep!". What research would *you* like to kick-start?

I think the $720,000,000 is just current operating costs. I get the impression it doesn't cover care for wounded Americans or wear and tear on equipment unless the equipment is replaced.

Comments

[tamnonlinear.livejournal.com]

I get the impression it doesn't cover care for wounded Americans or wear and tear on equipment unless the equipment is replaced.

That's because we're not doing those things.

[pedropadrao.livejournal.com]

720 X-prizes. This is the one that made me go "Gleep!". What research would *you* like to kick-start?

In other terms, 22 days of this war is NASA's entire annual budget. Where would you like to fly today?

[tashadandelion.livejournal.com]

Regarding the wine question... the French winemakers are sweating profusely because they're being out-priced and out-marketed (in their own country) by cheap Italian wine. The Francophile in me feels that we should put the money toward bailing out all those poor, suffering, boutique winemakers, with the caveat that we (that would be the fairy godmother "we") get free wine for life. I feel my plan is sound and win-win.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Snork.

I'm sure enough regulation will make it possible to maintain quality.

[del-c.livejournal.com]

A bar graph of the war in Iraq versus energy R&D (http://www.solarpowerrocks.com/solar-trends/a-sick-graph-2/) budgets. Warning: very tall.

[johnpalmer.livejournal.com]

You're right; that's just current operating costs. It's not *entirely* skipping wear and tear - there's maintenance being done in the field - but it's more like tuning up the engines, not rebuilding them.

One of the things that's been skipped is, we used to have massive warehouses of supplies that I've heard are almost stripped bare. If we had to mobilize somewhere quickly, for a real emergency, we might not be able to. True? Not true? I don't know for sure, but I've seen references to it multiple times.

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

My guess is that we could mobilize faster than you might think in wartime--people can be very good at that, and we don't know how much can be gained by applying ingenuity to current tech, but it still won't be as fast as pulling things out of warehouses.