http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/books_trillion_dollars KNOXVILLE, Tenn. - When the Sunday morning political pundits began talking last year about the tab for the war in Iraq hitting $1 trillion, Rob Simpson sprang from his sofa in indignation. "Why aren't people outraged about this? Why aren't we hearing about it?" Simpson said. And then it came to him: "Nobody knows what a trillion dollars is." The amount â $1,000,000,000,000 â was just too big to comprehend. So Simpson, 51, decided to embark "on an unusual but intriguing research project" to put the dollars and cents of the war into perspective. He hired some assistants and spent 12 months immersed in economic data and crunching numbers. The result: a slim but heavily annotated paperback released, "What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We've Spent on Iraq." Simpson is no geopolitical, macro-economic, inside-the-Beltway expert. He's an armchair analyst and creative director for an advertising agency, a former radio announcer and music critic in Ontario and a one-time voiceover actor. His alternative spending choices reflect his curiosity and wit. He calculates $1 trillion could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with gold â 23.5-karat gold leaf. It could buy every person on the planet an iPod. It could give every high school student in the United States a free college education. It could pay off every American's credit card. It could buy a Buick for every senior citizen still driving in the United States. "As I started exploring, I was really taken aback by some of the things that can be done, both the absurd and the practical," Simpson said. America could the double the 663,000 cops on the beat for 32 years. It could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses, enough for 43 million Americans. Now imagine investing that $1 trillion in the stock market â perhaps a riskier proposition today than when Simpson finished the book â to make it grow and last longer. He used an accepted long-term return on investment of 9 percent annually, with compounding interest. The investment approach could pay for 1.9 million additional teachers for America's classrooms, retrain 4 million workers a year or lay a foundation for paying Social Security benefits in 65 years to every child born in the United States, beginning today. It's too recent to make Simpson's list, but that $1 trillion could also have paid for the Bush administration's financial bailout plan, with $300 billion to spare. It might not be enough, however, to pay for the war in Iraq. Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz has recently upped his estimate of the war's cost to $3 trillion. Simpson created a Web site companion to his book that lets you go virtual shopping with a $1 trillion credit card. Choices range from buying sports franchises to theme parks, from helping disabled veterans to polar bears. Click on Air Force One, the president's $325 million airplane. The program asks: "Quantity?" "At one point we couldn't find anybody who actually stuck with it long enough to spend $1 trillion," Simpson said. "It will wear you out."
Obama Is Right: McCain Was Wrong <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xG1aOORf8Pc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xG1aOORf8Pc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
Can you post something of value, and of your own instead of copy / paste. Are you the leftist version of "Yannis" ?
Seeing what an ass Mccain is when he is supposed to be the foreign policy expert is quite valuable <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/xG1aOORf8Pc&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/xG1aOORf8Pc&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
I always wondered how graduating at the bottom of the class at the navel academy and getting shot down and captured makes you a war expert <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/AEmPZoRVRII&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/AEmPZoRVRII&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
McCain is a war hero because of his service for the nation. McCain is a national security /foreign affairs expert because of his senate career. His judgment was wrong about Iraq, no doubt about that. Still, don't discount all his experience for a single mistake
His experience ?????Just a single mistake ???? Graduating at the bottom of his navel academy class (He only got in and stayed in because his dad and granddad were Admirals) Crashing 2 planes he was flying Crashing into power lines Getting shot down Signed a confession and made numerous propaganda films for the enemy starting only 4 days after capture 20 hours of combat duty Fully supported The Iraq war Totally misjudged how the iraq war would play out His only successful call was the surge,but you don't need to be an expert to say send more troops
That's a sign of political courage. Stood out against the administration that "wanted to stay the course", called for Rumsfeld to be fired and against the Dems who wanted to end the war. The surge ended up working. Most of the people in this forum view political adversaries as "enemies". It's impossible to have a healthy debate over here
Saying that the war would be a mistake before it started was an even bigger sign of political courage. We could have used those trillions of dollars that the war cost to pay for the college educations for every high school student,repair our infrastructure,make sure every american has health care,improve our educational system,pay down the national debt etc etc etc 25,000 of our military men would not be dead or wounded,100,000 Iraqi citizens would not be dead or wounded,there would be no terrorist in Iraq because saddam kept them out Obama knew all this from the beginning.Mr foreign policy expert John Mccain was clueless just like he was in his navel academy days,his pilot training days,and his combat flying days I wouldn't trust Mccain to lead a combat unit much less the entire military
How about this you cock sucking piece of garbage: Biden also graduated near the "bottom" of his class, also voted FOR Iraq and then like Obama OPPOSED the surge which ultimately stabilized Iraq. Did you vote against Kerry because of his Iraq vote? McCain is also LESS hawkish on Pakistan than Obama-a conflict that if mis-played could make Iraq a footnote in history. Since other than paying a shit load of taxes over the years I've never served my country-never done a friggin' thing for America- I don't take shots at ANYONES service, I didn't like Kerry's conduct AFTER he came home but bottom line he served. Even Bush's Guard tenure is 1000x more "service" than I or most of the douchebags on ET have given America. Biden is no less a "chickenhawk" than Cheney. Voted war, used student deferments to ditch the draft and never spent a day so much in ROTC let alone in enemy captivity. Once again go fuck yourself.....