What is it good for...?

Imagine for a moment that your name is, oh, let’s say, Jesus Christ. And imagine also that you were indeed born around 2008 years ago. Let us also compensate somewhat for historical inaccuracies and debate regarding your true birth date by slapping on another 20 years. Let us also imagine that, instead of gifts of frankincense and myrrh, the Magi from the East were of a high enough Level, and sufficiently skilled in Enchantment or Necromancy to cast Immortality upon you at birth. The gift of gold is still given in our invented scenario, though this time you receive not a once-off lump-sum, but gold futures and options that will net you, on average, $1,000,000 per day for the rest of your immortal life. So throughout the centuries as you watch as your name, and that of your pappy, is evoked as justification for persecution, war, and genocide again and again. You reach the 21st century, and while the filthy, arrogant hubris and hypocrisy of those in your various churches leads to the continuation of hideous crimes against children, you continue to collect your one million smackers each and every day. And behold! It is 2008. And lo, it was written: You’re one rich son of a god.

But just how rich are you?

2008 years, plus the 20 year margin of error, times 365 days a year (leap years be-damned), times $1,000,000 = …

$740,220,000,000 or,

740.22 billion dollars

So… you ask: What is the point of this blasphemous hypothetical?

Well, economist Joseph Stiglitz recently calculated that the cost of the Iraq war stands currently at $3 trillion dollars for the U.S. alone – and SIX trillion if you add the cost to Britain and the rest of the skirmish’s participants. And a trillion dollars (let alone six) is such a massive amount of money to imagine that some perspective may be required.

So, if you happened to be born in the year dot, and happened to be bestowed with a million bucks a day, every day, come today you would not be able to pay off one EIGHTH of the bill for the war in Iraq. You’d need to have been born sometime around 16,000 BC to be able to pay the cheque and leave the War Room without washing dishes for eternity.

Oh, and if the bill isn’t paid by 2017, the interest on the money the US has borrowed SO FAR to fund the war will ITSELF equal a cool trillion…

The anger from here could spread to many on obvious place: to the effect of the US economy on the rest of the world, and subsequently how such massive spending is grossly irresponsible; to the sheer waste when you consider the millions of people that such money could help find dignity and self-sufficiency (the homeless, the mentally ill, the survivors of genocide such as the one occurring in Dafur, and, oh, maybe the 4.2 million Iraqi civilians so far displaced by the US’s war…); to the inclusion in this calculation of care for soldiers physically injured during the conflict, but the exclusion of the cost to individuals, families, and society wrought by the trench-like mental and emotional scars that will be borne by too many returning soldiers; and to other such universal outrages, like the fact that at least a few thou' of the six trillion could be thrown Ol’ Mr Crisotunity’s way... Just enough to keep the wolves from the door... I’ve almost been reduced to frying up the mice and lizards my cats have been catching, for god’s sake.

But no, we shan't go there. I’ll simply direct you to this article, which should make clear the dizzying amount of dollars being flushed down the blood-soaked toilet.