War Costing $720 Million Each Day, Group Says

[spanone]

great googly moogly $500,000 A MINUTE
~snip~

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 -- The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/21/AR2007092102074_pf.html

[MikeNearMcChord]

1. Oh but don't raise taxes on the Billionaires

How on earth can they survive not being on the Forbes 400?

[spanone]

2. the amazing thing is that it is NOT part of the bu$h* budget

it's paid for by appropriation bills that do not appear as part of the idiots budget.

[Vilis Veritas]

3. And where does this money come from?

No where, it is funny money with less and less value. It is an illusion. Our dollar is tanking.

Long Live the North American Union.

No Fear.

[Journeyman]

4. In casual discussions, I use these numbers as a monetary standard. . .

in which one hour equals $30 million, a day is $720 million, a week is $5 billion, and a month $20 billion. Then I insert the terms as possible.

"Yes, I think the town should build a new library -- after all, it'll only cost $3 Iraq Hours."

"A new highway through that part of the county would be great and would only cost $1-1/2 Iraq Weeks to build."

"It's true, health care for all children in this state would be expensive, but we're only talking about $4 Iraq Months each year."

It brings the cost of the IraqAttaq in to sharper focus, and helps people conceptualize in easily understood terms the tremendous, needless drain this occupation exerts on all our lives. It's also a somewhat innocuous way to bring the Catastroph@#k into normal conversation (especially these days, when so many former supporters are loathe to even consider this disaster's true impact on their world).