That was Rob Simpson’s question after reports last year of the price tag for the Iraq War hitting $1,000,000,000,000. And how much is a trillion dollars, anyway? How can you even comprehend that number?
Simpson, 51, decided to figure it out in “an unusual but intriguing research project” and put the dollars and cents of the war into perspective. He and his staff spent a year crunching the numbers, and his new book, “What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways to Spend the Trillion Dollars We’ve Spent on Iraq,” lists just that.
We could buy everyone on Earth an iPod. We could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with 23.5-karat gold leaf. College educations for all, paid-off credit cards, or 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 in an AP article.
We could buy 16.6 million Habitat for Humanity houses or pay for double the amount of beat cops or hire 1.9 million additional teachers or even fix Social Security.
Don’t look for incisive political commentary or financial analysis here. “What We Could Have Done With the Money” is a quick, light read with lots of bizarre possibilities. Whether you agree with the implied criticism of the war or not, it’s still fun to visit his website and use his fake shopping cart to try and spend a trillion dollars. I loaded up the New York Yankees, nabbed a Lear jet, bought Dracula’s castle, snapped up every NFL franchise, paid for 10 Hollywood movies, and even bought the world a Coke and barely put a dent in the total.
128 pages, paperback, from Hyperion.