Thursday, January 24, 2008

Iraq War Cost

  *  I've been thinking recently of the one trillion dollars already spent on the unjust invasion and occupation of Iraq.
  *  That quantity ($1,000,000,000,000) divided by 300,000,000 US citizens yields $3,333.33 per citizen that could be used toward a solar panel for each of us, to slow the exploitation of nonrenewable fuels and the emissions of climate-warming carbon-dioxide along with several pollutants. I wonder how many wind turbines could be incentivized by one trillion dollars.
  *  One trillion dollars divided by 3,000,000,000 people living in countries having insufficient fresh water, fuel, tillable land, etc, yields $333.33 per miserable person to purchase family-planning services and supplies and help get populations more in balance with natural support systems.
  *  One trillion dollars multiplied by 5% per year yields 50 billion dollars added to our federal budget as interest on the added debt, as we were not taxed to pay for this elective war. Since we do not earn money in foreign trade (we lose 1/2 trillion dollars per year in foreign trade and borrow that amount from foreign-trade winners), that 50 billion added to the budget in fact goes to foreign countries, exacerbating the trade deficit with nothing to show for it.