I read a news article this evening about a guy who proposes other, more or less productive, ways in which we could have used the trillion dollars we had spent in Iraq. (Though others have since placed the total war cost at about 2 or 3 times that number.) I remember seeing the book at Barnes and Noble one day while browsing with Jonathan Schlabach. At the time, I think we both wanted to laugh and to cry at how wasteful and violent our country has been. Tonight, my reaction was much the same. After reading the article, I went to the book's website to play around with their "trillion dollar shopping spree" application.
At first, I must admit I was having some dreamers' fun. I (hypothetically) bought Dracula's Castle, 5 Toyota Hybrids, a Honolulu estate, a winery in Napa Valley, a Lear Jet, a yacht, a Manhattan townhouse, $1 billion in fine art, 2 South Pacific Islands, and 10 bottles of wicked expensive 200-year-old wine. I also bought the world two cokes, and got a full minute of Super Bowl ad time.
Then, things started getting heavier. I first had the hope of feeding 1,000,000 children from birth to age 18. I housed 10,000 families through Habitat for Humanity, and protected 1,000,000 acres of tropical rain forest. I bought 64 million meals--enough to feed almost 60,000 adults for an entire year. I bought 10,000 goats (partly in honor of my Palestinian comrades). I could also buy 20,000 women's small business kits, adopt 1,000 polar bears, correct the vision of 100,000 third-world cataract sufferers, prevent the next Katrina, and rebuild levees for New Orleans. I also bought 200 miles of monorail for public transit. Finally, I built and equipped 200 hospitals in third-world nations.
Oh, and did I mention that I only got up to 110 billion dollars?
I actually did the math twice to make sure I was right, and was shocked. Can you imagine what that additional $890 billion could do? Children could go to school, young people could go to college, doctors could be trained, medicine could be provided for all, and... well, you get the idea. A world, quite literally a world, of good could have come of using that trillion dollars.
I have yet to consider just what my actual role in this messed-up scheme is, but I know the repercussions are tremendous. I would be interested in hearing others' response to this--perhaps a more constructive response than simply wasting time thinking about what we could do with a trillion dollars (you know, like I did). Even so, I must ask the question: what would you do with a trillion dollars?
15 years ago
1 comment:
wow, that is such an interesting exercise...I just did it too :) it's so crazy how much that amount of money can do...I only got about halfway, but had already done a ton! what an incredible waste to spend all of that on the war... but the pragmatic political side of me says that even if we hadn't, we probably wouldn't have done any of these things. we weren't spending money we actually had, just going more into debt. and the US has never really made helping people in other countries a priority... but if we wanted to invest that kind of money here at home, how about building a healthcare system that's affordable and accessible to all? investing in an education system that gives ALL kids a good education? low-income housing programs for those hit hardest by the mortgage crisis? more welfare and expanded social programs for those who need help? more food and clothes? more funding for non-profits? there's tons we could do... it's something good to think about :)
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