A $3 Trillion Shopping Spree

Posted Jun 12, 2008 in culture, news, politics

We all love to splurge a little once in a while. Save up some money and do something nice with it, really go a little beyond our normal spending – maybe it’s a vacation, maybe it’s a nice gift for a friend, or maybe it’s buying universal healthcare for 300 million Americans.

Huh?

Oh yeah, universal health care was one of the things I bought on my $3 Trillion Shopping Spree. I did it at the website 3trillion.org, which asks the question: “The occupation of Iraq will cost $3 trillion…can YOU spend that money better?” It’s an interesting exercise, and a great way to put the costs of the U.S. presence in Iraq into perspective.

Here is the full list of purchases I put in my cart:

• Universal healthcare for all Americans
  Price: $920,100,000,000.00
• Apple, Inc.
  Price: $24,000,000,000.00
• Microsoft Corp.
  Price: $262,260,000,000.00
• Google
  Price: $2,499,750,000.00
• Become President of the U.S.
  Price: $1,000,000,000.00
• No Kill Animal Shelters World Wide
  Price: $7,000,000,000.00
• Sustainable Agriculture Education, Worldwide
  Price: $200,000,000.00
• End our Dependence on Foreign Oil
  Price: $500,000,000,000.00
• 1000 Teachers’ Salaries
  Price: $39,274,000.00
• Build a National High-Speed Rail System
  Price: $300,000,000,000.00
• The Office: Season 1
  Price: $11.00

Gosh, and I still have a $1 Trillion left over, but I got a little depressed and had to stop. Spending $3 Trillion is hard! Unless you’re a certain global superpower.

What would you buy?

Have something to say about that? Read and add comments below.

Related Posts

If you thought that was interesting, you might also enjoy these related posts:

• June 21, 2008 -- Scott McClellan’s What Happened
• September 2, 2007 -- No End In Sight to the Assault on Reason
• April 9, 2012 -- Take the money and run for office
• December 15, 2011 -- U.S. out of Iraq? Not yet.
• July 24, 2011 -- A pretext for violence

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