# News What can $611 billion buy? #### fourier jr If the Bush administration succeeds in its latest request for funding for the war in Iraq, the total cost would rise to$611.5 billion, according to the National Priorities Project, a nonprofit research group.

The amount got us wondering: What would $611 billion buy? * Nearly 4,000 Newton North High Schools - Tagged as the most expensive high school in Massachusetts, at$154.6 million, the construction design for the new Newton North High School could be replicated almost 4,000 times using the money spent on the war.
* 40 Big Digs - At almost $15 billion, Boston's Central Artery project has been held up as the nation's most expensive public works project. Now multiply that by 40 and you're getting close to US taxpayers’ commitment to democracy in Iraq – so far. * Almost 18 months' worth of free gas for everyone in the US :surprised * Many, many environment-friendly cars on the road. With$611 billion, you could convert all cars in America to run on ethanol nine times over.
* Nearly 14 million years' worth of tuition, room, and board at Harvard... Tuition and fees at the University of Massachusetts-Boston could be paid for over 53 million years.
* More than a year's worth of Medicare benefits for everyone
* The Red Sox and Daisuke Matsuzaka agreed on a six-year, $52 million contract. The war cost could be enough to have Dice-K mania for more than 70,000-some years at this year's rate. * At the upper range of those estimates, the$611 billion cost of the war could have fed and educated the world's poor for seven years.
http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/251007war_costs/

#### waht

Currently a manned trip to mars is estimated to cost from $100 to$200 billion. So that makes 3 to 6 trips to mars. Almost equivalent to the same amount of Apollo trips to the moon.

#### fourier jr

according to this site:
http://www.drive.subaru.com/Spring07_Feature.htm [Broken]
the interstate highway system cost $145 billion altogether, so the amount spent on Iraq could have covered the construction of 4.21 interstate highway systems.$34,781.23 per hour since Jesus Christ was born

How about the big war, WWII? $3Trillion in today's dollars. Yes trillion. Thats 15,000 high schools. "Well that was sure money well spent!" Last edited: #### fourier jr You're comparing Iraq with Nazi Germany? Doesn't that sort of trivialize what the Nazis did in Europe? #### mheslep Gold Member You're comparing Iraq with Nazi Germany?... No I would not draw a direct comparison. I was drawing attention to the fallacy of tallying all the costs derivative of the decision to go to war, without also attempting to assess the costs of not doing so, or perhaps even implying there would be no cost at all to maintaining the status quo of '02. That, I claim, is the implication of your thesis that X schools could be built but for Iraq. A #### Art As opposed to? US crude oil imports: 5.5M barrels / day (as of July). Now assume no Iraq war. Saddam (or sons) takes a break from gassing populations and closes the gulf after reconstituting (or just pretending to). Oil price goes up, say,$50 a barrel: 5.5M*365*$50=$100B/yr lost. Economists here can est. the multiplier hit to the rest of the economy. Also, US funded no fly in northern Iraq - expenses still incurred.

How about the big war, WWII? $3Trillion in today's dollars. Yes trillion. Thats 15,000 high schools. "Well that was sure money well spent!" I think you shoot yourself in the foot using oil as an example. The tension in the middle east is the main reason why oil has gone up ~$60 bbl since the invasion.

#### russ_watters

Mentor
The war likely has an impact, but it isn't the only reason - or even the biggest:
Many traders and analysts say the effect of any output hike on prices is likely to be limited as the recent rise in crude futures has had more to do with speculation than real demand. OPEC's next policy meeting is Dec. 5 in Abu Dhabi.

Estimates of where crude prices will go vary. Many analysts expect prices to rise to at least $100 a barrel, but a growing chorus is warning that futures are due for a sharp downturn soon. Few analysts believe the underlying fundamentals of supply and demand support such high prices. Many blame speculative investing fueled by the weak dollar. Oil futures offer a hedge against a weak dollar, and oil futures bought and sold in dollars are more attractive to foreign investors when the U.S. currency is falling. http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/energy/2007-11-12-oil-mon_N.htm Remember, oil hasn't been uniformly expensive since the start of the war. The big upturn was after Hurricane Katrina and it has had some ups and downs since. From the graph in the article, oil was in the low$50s in January of this year, $70s in September, then shot up to the$90s in the past two months. And this recent big spike is during a period of the lowest violence in Iraq since the start of the war. So lately it has more to do with the dollar (the banking crisis) than the Middle East.

I'm not sure if these prices are inflation adjusted, but you can see quite clearly here that most of the war had little impact on oil prices:
http://www.ioga.com/Special/crudeoil_Hist.htm

Oil was:
$21 in Sept of 2001,$26 in Sept of 2002,
$25 in Sept of 2003,$41 in Sept of 2004,
$59 in Sept of 2005,$56 in Sept of 2006,
$71 in Sept of 2007 This site mostly credits surging asian demand for the price increases. You can see on their timelines that there is no direct corellation with ME events (such as a big spike at the start of the war): http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm Last edited: #### wildman Really, the question to ask is could that$611 billion have been spent more effectively to fight terrorism? I say yes. The real fuel behind all the terrorism is the money generated by oil. If the US could get off the oil habit, it would really take the wind out of the terrorist's sails. So what could be done with $611 billion to reduce oil consumption? How about subways in the largest US cities? Lets say at$100 million a mile, one could have built with half the money 3000 miles of subway or 30 cities with 100 miles per city. That would have taken in most of the major cities in the US without a subway already. Lets see that leaves $311 billion.... hmmm, how about bullet trains between cities? Lets see at$10 million a mile, $150 billion would buy 15,000 miles of track. That would be enough to include most of the logical routes (NY -- Washington DC, San Fran -- LA, etc). So we still have$150 billion -- lets invest into weather proofing houses that use fuel oil for heating -- lets say $10,000 a house, that could winterize 10,000,000 homes with$61 billion left. We could throw that money into fusion research to hurry it up a little.

There, that would have reduced terrorism a lot more than that war in Iraq....

Gold Member

Sure, good idea, I'd like to see energy efficient steps to reduce energy dependence. It's your post so burden's on you: how much energy import savings would be achieved from those mass trans suggestions? Is that $10M/track mile all above ground? How fast would you build? Boston Big Dig took, what, 20 yrs? Would you short circuit local property owner objections? Could we plow your house for track? And please no, 'well we don't know but at least its in right direction' babble, which to my mind was the kind of irresponsible poor planning that was done (not done) leading to Iraq. Devil's in the details, no? I am going to leave it as it is. You are right there are a lot of problems with any approach. D #### devil-fire Sure, good idea, I'd like to see energy efficient steps to reduce energy dependence. It's your post so burden's on you: how much energy import savings would be achieved from those mass trans suggestions? Is that$10M/track mile all above ground? How fast would you build? Boston Big Dig took, what, 20 yrs? Would you short circuit local property owner objections? Could we plow your house for track? And please no, 'well we don't know but at least its in right direction' babble, which to my mind was the kind of irresponsible poor planning that was done (not done) leading to Iraq.
people are usually payed a lot of money to figure out all the details on spending 600 billion dollars efficiently. when you imply "don't suggest an alternative unless you have something fool-proof", it trivializes the first stages of brain storming.

of course even if we came up with a great plan here, it isn't like the next 600 billion dollars is going to go to us for spending, so the amount of responsibility on the posters here is close to zero.

#### mheslep

Gold Member
people are usually payed a lot of money to figure out all the details on spending 600 billion dollars efficiently. when you imply "don't suggest an alternative unless you have something fool-proof", it trivializes the first stages of brain storming.

of course even if we came up with a great plan here, it isn't like the next 600 billion dollars is going to go to us for spending, so the amount of responsibility on the posters here is close to zero.
I wouldn't say don't suggest ideas for improving the over all lot of the US. Also, I give credit to Wildman's suggestion to at least attempt to address the consequences of spending 0$on Iraq (threats to energy). He's on point, in contrast to the OP. I do object when some nice, but undeveloped idea is smugly and immediately elevated as a trivial one for one alternative to some horrible, dead serious problem. Finally, and this a bit demongogic but still accurate I think, its my impression that the war was launched along the lines of thinking you would allow: A: Saddam's an evil village-gassing bastard, he's crossed a dozen UN lines, he should go. B: Yep. A: US Mil. + allies can take him out in a few days. Initial invasion maybe$20-40B
B: Yep.
A: Alright then ..
B: Wait a minute. What about after? What about Sunni-Shia strife? What about Iranian influence? How many guys do we need to do counter insurgency? Whats the after going to cost? How about just helping them to whack that guy themselves?
A: Hey, you just want "something fool-proof!!. That just "trivializes the first stages of brain storming."

That is, it was fine to sit around a parlor room and war-game about getting rid of some tyrant. For the real thing somebody needed to be damn sure about the whole thing or just shut up about how long or how much it would cost.

#### fourier jr

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#### laurelelizabeth

http://www.boston.com/news/nation/gallery/251007war_costs/

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#### WheelsRCool

More money will not fix the school system. It was designed specifically to produce dumbed-down workers for industry, not people of solid intellect and character. There is a very good book about this whole thing called: "The Underground Guide to American Education: An Intimate Investigation Into the Prison of Modern Schooling" by John Taylor Gatto, former New York City and New York State Teacher of the Year.

Another reason more money won't fix the school system is because STOOOOOPID students are a literal goldmine for the schools, they're worth like 4X as much as the normal students. The amount of "Special Education" students has increased dramatically in recent years, because by labeling students as stupid, putting them into the "Special Ed" programs (which basically mean you will graduate high school without having to learn anything), thus producing massive numbers of incredibly stupid students graduating from high school, allows the education officials to say, "See! Look how big a problem this is! We need more money for Special Education!"

Whenever you see any sign that says, "Donate to your local schools to improve the conditions for your students..." what that really means is "Give money to the Teacher's Union."

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