What would you do with $456,000,000,000?

[ticapnews]

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/050207_TheCostofWar/

Convert every car in America to Ethanol? Send every kid to college? The Boston Globe offers up a few ideas...

[La_Fourmi_Rouge]

1. I'd spend it on chocolate! n/t

[MissMillie]

2. thank you for this

my sig line has a pretty good link too.

[BlooInBloo]

29. I heart diffusion cartograms.

[gollygee]

3. I hope a lot of people read that

it really puts it into perspective. And that's just money - it doesn't even take into account the loss of life - American and otherwise.

[Speck Tater]

4. Get a new set of shoelaces.

Finally get to say "fill 'er up" instead of "give me 20 bucks worth".
Get my cracked windshield fixed.
That's about all I need for myself. Guess I'd give the rest away.

[leftofthedial]

5. I'd go have barbeque for lunch

then I'd buy Halliburton and fire all the executives

[maine_raptor]

6. First, I'd divide it up into two piles.

Pile A for the party.

Pile B to repair my body AFTER the party.

[Greyhound]

7. Buy a country to serve as refuge for the undesirables? n/t

[The Stranger]

8. Use Americans' own money to provide them with healthcare, maybe?

[LSK]

9. Universal HealthCare and paying down our debt

[tjwash]

10. Buy a chain of retail superstores and pay everyone minimum wage with no benefits.

Oh, wait...that's been done.

[Blackhatjack]

11. Spend a large chunk of it on alternative energy to end overseas oil dependence...

Spend another large chunk on healthcare for all Americans, and create a plan to end poverty in 10 years.

Provide 'free government provided mandatory campaign financing' for all candidates for President, the Senate and the House.

Invest in medical research and environmental research --including Global Warming.

That would be a start.

[JVS]

12. 45,600,000,000 cases of cheap beer!

[Javaman]

13. If it came from moron* I would count it first. nt

[gravity]

14. Invade and occupy a foreign country

Duh

[johnaries]

37. Invade? Hell, I'd BUY a foreign country! nt

[L. Coyote]

15. Run for President, then come payola big time for the criminals who ...n/t

[thatgemguy]

16. Liquor and Whores n/t

:party: :toast: :smoke: :beer:

:puke: :hangover:

[n2doc]

17. I WOULDN"T borrow it from China, that's for sure....

Every cent was borrowed. We have mortgaged our future to make a few crony contractors rich. And folks wonder who is buying all of those 1+ mil condos going up in every major city....

[Octafish]

18. Fix the country.

Save the world.

Of course, that includes the cost of jailing the BFEE.

[GreenPartyVoter]

19. Buy us a new planet. Or remodel the old one.

:P

[DFW]

20. I'm sorry, but the number is deceptive

We would have still spent money on the pre-invasion patrolling
of the no-fly zone and surveillance of Saddam, so the real amount
saved would have been only $453 billion or $454 billion. In other
words, pocket change..........

[A wise Man]

21. I'd laugh a lot

HA HA HA HA, OOOH BOY, HA HA HA, HAHA-A-A-A-A-A, THANK YOU LORD, HAHA HA-A-A-A

[flvegan]

22. Large donation to Kucinich.

I got your elect-ability right "here". I'd put the rest in trust so that as president, he can use it for universal healthcare, etc.

[ticapnews]

27. For that much, you can probably buy the entire Congress :)

[Warpy]

23. Health care for the uninsured

and I could probably do that on the income that sum would generate.

I've been without health insurance for 20 years now. I am uninsurable.

I'm sick of seeing it all go down the military rathole.

[GaYellowDawg]

24. Let's see...

1. I would buy EVERY major news network in the US and immediately do the following:

a) I would fire Hannity, Colmes, Beck, O'Reilly, Scarborough, Chris Matthews, Brit Hume, and Nancy Grace in person.
b) I would issue a "no Anna Nicole stories" edict.
c) I would limit news about entertainers and TV to 5 minutes per hour.
d) I would replace those shows and stories with real science news, international news, and actual investigative news programs.

2. I would buy every radio station that carries Boortz, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc., and replace them with educational programming.

3. I would buy every major newspaper in the US and get rid of every conservative columnist.

4. I would hire whoever it took to get dirt on all the neocons and their pet "journalists," and broadcast it all in the media I owned, and destroy them.

5. I would buy every cable company in the US and immediately drop televangelists and "entertainment news." Televangelists would be replaced by programs about evolution, while "entertainment news" would be replaced by programs about other countries.

[The Inquisitive]

25. mars, bitches

nt

[baldguy]

30. And what about the remaining $400,000,000,000?

[The Inquisitive]

31. Mars base

[Warren DeMontague]

32. Welcome to DU.

Yeah, not a bad idea at all.

[maine_raptor]

34. And there would be change left over, too

The NASA 90-day "wonder" report put out in the early 90 said a pork ladened Mars Mission would cost $450 B, so ya got $6 Billion left over.

Dr. Robert Zubin's Mars Direct plan comes in a $55 Billion, so even allowing for inflation, cost overruns, and some jobs for kids of Congress-critters, there'd be money there too.

Let's get off this planet. "Hey, I wonder what's over THAT hill?"

[Warren DeMontague]

35. I agree.

Zubrin's got some interesting ideas, too. I suspect the right way to go is probably somewhere between the "Battlestar Galactica" $450 Billion plan and Zubrin's bare-bones approach. But either way, I think eventually it will pay for itself. Our species needs to move outward into the universe, and eventually, we will.

[maine_raptor]

39. Actually there is a midway plan.

It's called Mars Semi-Direct.

"Mars Semi Direct

Another plan for the exploration of Mars is called the Semi-Direct plan. Unlike the Mars Direct plan, the first launch delivers an unfueled Mars Ascent Vehicle (MAV) and cargo to the surface of the planet while the fueled ERV is placed in orbit. The MAV starts to make fuel for exploration and experimentation when the crew arrives. The crew arrives on Mars and stays for about 1.5 years before they use the MAV to ascend and rendezvous with the ERV to take them home.

In the Semi-Direct plan, the crew does not have access to the ERV hab during the 1.5 year stay on the surface, and there has to be an important rendezvous with the ERV on the way back home. However, this plan only requires about 1/3 the amount of propellant manufacturing on the surface. The ERV can also be make much bigger, allowing for better accommodations or a larger crew."

http://library.advanced.org/12145/mdir5.htm

Don't have a cost estimate on this one. It was proposed in 1991, and could be done within 7 to 10 years.

[JNelson6563]

26. Wine, men and song

and then I'd probably waste the rest. ;-)

[BlooInBloo]

28. I'd give it to rich old white men.

[calimary]

33. I'd spend as much of it as needed to buy or take over controlling interest in

a major TV network (or two - with a radio network arm a la ABC) plus maybe CNN or something with some serious coast-to-coast AND international reach. And then I'd make it a progressive juggernaut. I would use some of the rest to buy up some of the key talent and sign them on, building anchor teams, talk shows and panel discussions with a LIBERAL slant. I might give someone like Rosie O'Donnell a nice big forum where she'd make a lot of noise and attract a lot of attention, and I'd give people like Joe Conason and Greg Palast a high-profile platform from which to muckrake. Stephanie Miller would helm my morning-drive slot, and it would originate from the West Coast so she and the mooks would be happy to agree to it. I'd make Keith Olbermann my nightly news anchor/managing editor. I'd hire Jon Stewart as a programming consultant. And if I hired away other marquee names in on-air talent and management/production/promotion talent from competing networks, I'd commit them to a more progressive approach, panels with more liberals than CONservatives, more Dems than republi-CONS (to balance out the lopsided playing field of too many shows that were under orders to put twice as many knuckledraggers as liberals on EVERY show). Truly, on MY network, conservatives need not apply. I'd personally manipulate the propaganda wars to push the pendulum back leftward, to influence public opinion and rectify the ongoing march toward the wrong. If you influence public opinion, you then drive the politicians, the agenda, and the electorate - PLUS corporate America.

That, in turn, would provide the tools and the vehicles through which to start changing minds about the other issues we care about that make America great: universal health care; election/campaign finance reform; government accountability (guess how fast we'd be able to whip up attention to such essentials as IMPEACHMENT? Imagine the drumbeat that could be generated!); wise custodianship of our environment, our resources, and our planet; full-tilt-boogie on science, technology, and alternative energy research; serious efforts to address the needs of the poor and homeless; and demonizing the likes of grover norquist and the whole misbegotten notion of turning this nation into a theocracy. I'd do it to grow a new mindset in this country, and shift the paradigm to the left. Yes, that means spin. OUR spin. The better to manage and direct public opinion AND public PERCEPTIONS.

My media empire would probably also need a big-ass think tank where lots of big-name thinkers, writers, researchers, analysts, and academics could build us a solid philosophical infrastructure as a hot-house for growing more progressive thought and advancement, and hot new progressive talent. Again, knuckledraggers need not apply. They've had their turn, AND they've owned or monopolized most of it, so they won't be able to coming whining and pleading poverty and discrimination to me. Time for them to shut up and move over and give the other side a chance.

[unsavedtrash]

36. sounds like a good start for paying back my student loans n/t

[porphyrian]

38. Buy back our government. - n/t

[NuttyFluffers]

40. solar panel anyone's roof who wants it, build a bullet train system betw all big cities

offer collateral-free low, low, low interest small business loans to the most at-risk communities in the USA (native americans, inner-city, red lined districts, rural appalachia, etc).

cheap/free buses and shuttles for mass transit in the top 10 most congested cities.

lobby congress out the yin-yang to get socialized single payer healthcare, fairness doctrine, re-nationalized ownership of airwave bandwidth, repeal the War on Drugs, repeal of recent bankrupcy bullshit laws, legalize marijuana/hemp, and cheap/free higher education.

and with the money left over -- and there'll likely be money left over -- i'll start to wage slave young republicans to build my pyramids.

[Raine]

41. Buy my own country

make myself Queen, build a huge estate with an even bigger wall around it so I don't have to deal with people.