As reported by Duncan Mansfield, a Knoxvillian named Rob Simpson was indignant when he heard that the cost of war in Iraq had hit $1 trillion. So he spent a year of his life putting that cost in perspective in a book called What We Could Have Done With the Money: 50 Ways To Spend the Trillion Dollars We’ve Spent on Iraq.
From the Mansfield piece: “He calculates $1 trillion could pave the entire U.S. interstate highway system with gold – 23.5-karat gold leaf. It could buy every person on the planet an iPod. It could give every high school student in America 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 America.”
The author’s web site also has had a nifty “shopping spree” tool where you can could buy things like Lear Jets, the New York Yankees, Picasso paintings, etc, in a vain attempt to reach $1T.
