What We Could Have Done With The Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion We’ve Spent In Ira

[givemebackmycountry]

(I picked this up from our friends at FireDog Lake)

go take thee and visit:

http://firedoglake.com/2008/07/19/fdl-book-salon-welcomes-rob-simpson-what-we-could-have-done-with-the-money-50-ways-to-spend-the-trillion-weve-spent-in-iraq/

Rob Simpson What We Could Have Done With The Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion We’ve Spent In Iraq

Rob Simpson, author of What We Could Have Done With The Money, has asked what the US could have had for that trillion dollars if it hadn't spent it on war. Some of his answers are sad (pay every Iraqi 3X their average income to stay peaceful), some are tragic (rebuild and protect New Orleans for only 213 billion), others are comic. But they all put into perspective that was lost wasn't just lives, it was opportunity. Money used to kill people, drive up the price of oil, violate human rights and destroy the US's international reputation could have bought a heck of a lot. And Simpson has been conservative, he puts the cost at a trillion, but when you take into account deferred costs (like looking after Vets who are amputees) economist Joseph Stiglitz put the cost of the Iraq war at 2 trillion.

It's the lives not lived, the paths not followed that make us weep the most. Rob's book invites us to imagine some very different worlds, not just worlds without the war, but worlds with what the Iraq war cost us, such as:

• Pay off every American's credit card debt. And hey, still have a couple hundred billion left for a night on the town.
• Pay off those Bush tax cuts. Nope. But you could pay, er, pay the interest on their cost for about 10 years.
• A solar power build out big enough to generate enough energy for two-thirds of all American homes.
• $10,000 subsidy on hybrid cars, leading to 40% of the US auto fleet being hybrid, reducing gas by 56 billion gallons a year.
• Give every single American a full $600 makeover. Because aren't you all just stressed out dahllling?
• The World Sings As One! Stage 40,000 3 day music festivals each with 125 acts on 9 stages.
• Send 5 years worth of high school students to university, with fully paid tuition.
• Clean up and revitalize 667 rivers.
• Mass Transit! Create 6,667 miles of monorail or subway systems (about New York to Tokyo, or 60 miles in each major city).
• Pave every highway with 23.5-Karat gold leaf!

As Rob writes at the end of his book, the US could have done amazing things with that money. Instead it chose not to, to pour the money into a hole in the desert. And in a democracy that means that everyone failed, not just the politicians. This is a book that drives that point home, in plain figures and cold facts. It is, I think, the perfect gift for the Republican friend who's beginning to have a few doubts, because it's non-partisan, even-handed, and it's just the facts, ma'am.

[TankLV]

1. Umm - we STILL wouldn't have spent it - because it's all on the repuke credit card...

It is OFF the Budget - there are no "funds" for these wars.

All that would have happened is that we wouldn't be running the few TRILLION dollar DEFICIT that we currently are saddled with.

There was never a climate for anything but cutting taxes and ending welfare, etc.

Yes - these things COULD have been spent on, but there would have been NO dem, let alone repuke, support for any such "liberal nonsense"...

[givemebackmycountry]

3. I understand that, but I don't think that's the authors point...

Either way, on or off the "books" the money is gone.
It's been spent.
Someone will have to cover the monkeys nut before arms get broken.
The money COULD have been spent in a different way.
Regardless of whether or not it actually happened.

I did "The Google" search of Dubai circa 1990 and Dubai 2008.
That's how we should be living.

[napi21]

2. WHEN is everybody going to admit all that $$ spent wasn't available

to spend on anything else? It;s all BORROWED!!!!!!

I'm sooo sick of hearing all we could have done with all that money! If we had spent all that money on social progrmas, we would have been just as guilty and stupid as the Pubs have been! It's NOT OUR MONEY!!!!