A Billion Here, a Trillion There
American defense policy specialist William Hartung has looked at war spending, and has an interesting comparison or two:
If we consider the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan together -- which we might as well do, since we and our children and grandchildren will be paying for them together into the distant future -- a conservative single-week estimate comes to $3.5 billion. Remember, that's per week!
By contrast, the whole international community spends less than $400 million per year on the International Atomic Energy Agency, the primary institution for monitoring and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons; that's less than one day's worth of war costs. The U.S. government spends just $1 billion per year securing and destroying loose nuclear weapons and bomb-making materials, or less than two days' worth of war costs; and Washington spends a total of just $7 billion per year on combating global warming, or a whopping two weeks' worth of war costs.
Post title adapted from this classic.
Recently read the war's going to cost circa $2-3 trillion and in the linked article there's an estimate of double that. Obviously a whole packet of financial obligations are awaiting us American taxpayers, but that much?
Rather upsetting--I think I need to take an aspirin.
Posted by: Paul | March 06, 2008 at 09:42 AM