$500,000:
By on Sep 22nd, 2007 at 12:07 pm
$500,000:
Amount the war in Iraq costs per minute, according to a new analysis by Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz and Harvard’s Linda Bilmes, put out by the American Friends Service Committee. The study finds that this $720 million a day could buy homes for 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children.
View Most Popular
Advertisement
What We're About
What We're Fighting For
What We're Fighting Against
Featured
Subscribe to the Progress Report
Topic CloudView topics sorted by popularity
Boehner
Bush
Cheney
Civil Rights
Congress
Corporate Ethics
DADT
Economy
Energy
Environment
Ethics
Fox News
Gingrich
Global Warming
Graham
Guantanamo
Hannity
Health Care
International Relations
Iran
Iraq
Justice
LGBT
Limbaugh
Liz Cheney
McCain
Media
Military
O'Reilly
Obama
Palin
Pelosi
Race
Radical Right
Religion
Rove
Sanford
Sotomayor
Steele
Supreme Court
Terrorism
ThinkProgress
Tiller
Torture
Women's Rights
Visit Our Affiliated Sites
Reports
In-depth studies on select topics
Got a hot tip?
Have a hot news tip? We'd love to hear from you. Use the form below to send us the latest.
ArchivesBlog Roll
Priorities of the Bush Administration.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:12 pmSure it could. Or they could build less homes & feed less kids & have the much more to spend on the war. The fact that the money goes to the war AND they don't feed/house poor people is really a double whammy. When these kids grow up they'll inherit the debt of this generation since the war is being funded with debt. What a legacy!
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:15 pmThat should teach those children to be self-reliant and not to wait for government handouts or rely on entitlement programs.
Better give all that money to Blackwater; they need it to buy the bullets to kill more innocent Iraqi bystanders!
/sarcasm off
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:17 pmI hope the Democrats are paying attention. They need to publicize this and they need to publicize the fact that 40% of that money is going to contractors, not to our military. They now have the "perfect storm" for ending the occupation of Iraq. All they need to do is to tell Bush they will give him what he wants for the troops, but not one more dollar for contractors. The Republics won't be able to say they don't support the troops and Bush will not be able to continue occupying Iraq without his private army. It's a win-win for the Democrats. I only hope they recognize this golden opportunity waiting for them. I have written to Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi suggesting this strategy. Why don't you?
http://speaker.gov/contact/
http://reid.senate.gov/contact/
Mr. Reid does not have a page where anyone can submit a comment. His insists you are a resident of Nevada. But that's easy to get around. Go to his contact page and get the zip code for one of his offices. Then make up a street address and enter the city and zip you get from his contact page. Then your comment will go through.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:18 pmGee, and Donald Rumsfeld once predicted the entire cost of the Iraq war would be a mere $50 billion. The question now is whether the Iraq war will become the most expensive war in U.S. history, more expensive even than World War II.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:24 pmExcellent tip, bilbobaggins.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:28 pm$500,000 per minute wasted on death and destruction. Imagine how much good this money could do to those who need it in this country? It boggles the mind. Bush's priorities in this "blood for oil war" are totally screwed up and it's going to bite this country on the a$$ even more disastrously than it already has.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:30 pmbut 3.5% raise for the troops would just be way too much, and signal to the enemy that we want them to win
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:43 pmHummm..let's see.....$500,000 a minute...the Bushies are asking for $195 BILLION more (today's LA Times) and the decider has said he's going to veto the Child's Health care Insurance bill....
Let's put this all together and we come up with?????
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:48 pmbut 3.5% raise for the troops would just be way too much, and signal to the enemy that we want them to win
Comment by tombake
He can't give our troops that raise because he needs the money to pay Blackwater mercenaries $100,000 a year and more. How the Rightards don't find that disgusting is beyond me. How they can say that Bush supports our troops is beyond me. How the Rightards think is beyond my ability to comprehend.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:52 pmLet’s put this all together and we come up with?????
Comment by Winski
Greed and a total lack of a conscience and a soul. The definition of the current Fundamentalist Christian Conservatives.
September 22nd, 2007 at 12:53 pmJust to add a little mind-boggling perspective to that number, in the hour since this thread was started, $30,000,000 has disappeared into the black(water) hole.
The 3.5% military pay raise that is threatened with veto would cost the government approximately $16,000 per hour. (based on the added cost of the bigger raise, $2.2 billion through 2013)
Math gives me hives *itch*
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:05 pmThat's a lot of money for bridge ornaments.
∞
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:17 pmThe Republican Party - One day closer to extinction.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:31 pmI am so sick of the bush war's, administratio and raping of us and the world...What can we do to make it stop?.. What along with all we have been doing will it take to get our nation off their butt's and active...We have 70% and are no better off than when we had 35%....I think maybe we had better bite the bulett, throw the babie's out with the bath water..Dump all the Dem's with the exception of one or two and start over..Even if we loose to the raper's one more time and allow them to continue their control and distruction maybe that's what need's to happen to wake the drone's up..The public is still shopping, not voting..Why would they want to vote, look what we have, little better than the reich...People keep telling me," I don't vote because it doesn't do any good..Big business and polatician's sucking the life out of our country will continue and I can't make a diffrence.Ignore it, it will just keep going or go away"..Damn, it sure make's me tired and very sad for all the live's lost...Blessings..
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:35 pm$500,000 per minute for iraq + vetoing a bill to provide
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:36 pmchildren with healthcare = conservatism in a nutshell
Damn, it sure make’s me tired and very sad for all the live’s lost…Blessings..
Comment by Sharon — September 22, 2007 @ 1:35 pm
Some ex-general (don't remember the name, but he as a very tough son-of-a-gun) made a comment a couple of yrs ago that it would take the US at least 2 generations to recover from this nightmare...
Jes' pointin' it out. :-(
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:37 pmconservatism in a nutshell
Comment by cha cha cha — September 22, 2007 @ 1:36 pm
Recommend (0) | Report Abuse
... marching in lockstep to Irrelevance....
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:38 pmWe are not free, if indeed we ever truly were. Not while this shit is going down.
September 22nd, 2007 at 1:40 pmBetrayUs said we need more time in Iraq (next report is March 2008), and of course, more money (just keep sending it by the boatload). Now we know that US troops in Iraq are outnumbered by Blackwater's hired thugs. Our trillons of dollars are used to pay mercenaries who operate outside the law in Iraq.
Anyone ever hear of "extraterritoriality?" This means that military forces occupying a country are not subject to the laws of the land they occupy. There was a time when the US held this practice in contempt.
Not any more. Bush and his Blackwater thugs are the new America.
September 22nd, 2007 at 2:51 pmYes we are spending billions of dollars on the illegal invasion and profit stealing but we have lost something more valuable that we will never get back.
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:00 pmThe money stole by the Bush Administration will be paid back by the taxpayers but the lost of our soldiers lives is something that's gone forever. This Administration has made the price of this war something that is priceless yet our elected officials don't think so. Today two more soldiers were reported killed in Iraq no amount of money will bring them back.
I wonder how much of that half-million dollars a minute is going to these guys: "The World's Billionaires."
http://www.forbes.com/2007/03/07/billionaires-worlds-richest_07billionaires_cz_lk_af_0308billie_land.html
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:07 pmMeanwhile, for the cost of about 6 minutes worth of War, a small Brittish company was able to develop a revolutionary energy creating device.
http://tpzoo.wordpress.com/2007/09/16/miracle-12-inch-tube-the-answer/#comments
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:13 pmWhat the Bush administration has created in Iraq is a sort of paradise of perverted capitalism, where revenues are forcibly extracted from the customer by the state, and obscene profits are handed out not by the market but by an unaccountable government bureaucÂracy.
The Bush administration's lack of interest in recovering stolen funds is one of the great scandals of the war. The White House has failed to litigate a single case against a contractor under the False Claims Act and has not sued anybody for breach of contract
In nearly five years of some of the worst graft and looting in American history, the administration has recovered less than $6 million.
from "the Great Iraq Swindle" in Rolling Stone Magazine
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:20 pmBadger, I wonder if the $6 million was from contracts inadvertently awarded to companies run by Democrats?
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:23 pmI wonder if the $6 million was from contracts inadvertently awarded to companies run by Democrats?
Or Al Qaeda.;)
Seriously, the Private Contractors are Bush's Achilles Heel. I don't know why Congressional oversite and hearings hasn't blasted this record all over the daily news. Even War supporters can't be happy with graft and looting of the war effort. And private contractors like Blackwater aren't winning any friends among the Iraqi people.
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:37 pmAnd private contractors like Blackwater aren’t winning any friends among the Iraqi people.
Comment by Badger — September 22, 2007 @ 3:37 pm
Seems to me the Bush Admin is using the military as a front for the Blackwater goon squads. Charming. We were sold "the surge" as necessary to stabilizing the country, and all along they've had this private army over there that accounts to no one but them, and they STILL can't control things over there. Or maybe the Blackwaters are behind alot of the violence, trying to terrorize the country into doing what their told and signing the oil contracts.
The more we learn, the uglier it gets. The karma the Bush Admin is building up is staggeringly nasty. I shudder for the future of the country.
September 22nd, 2007 at 3:49 pm>Seriously, the Private Contractors are Bush’s Achilles Heel.
I agree... sucks people you like and I arent calling the shots in congress.
These guys need to be buried in Qui Tam lawsuits....
b..bb...u..t... isnt half a million dollars a second worth it, to give the iraqis a chance to maybe have a jeffersonian democracy 30 years from now?
and remember folks.. this half a million per second spent it half a million dollars EARNED for some of bush's scumbags friends
September 22nd, 2007 at 5:45 pmWhat if the government took this same amount of money, $500,000 per minute and distributed it, one minute's worth each, to the bottom 90% of the country, ranked by wealth, then required the recipients to invest that money?
Each man, woman and child would have $500,000 to invest. At a 5% rate of return, each man, woman and child would be guaranteed a minimum of $2,000 per month, for the rest of his/her life.
Conversely, the government could invest the funds and distribute the return, guaranteeing each man, woman and child a living wage, and eliminating poverty in the U.S. After two years, everyone would be middle class or better, economically, and further investment into the program would only be needed to the extent the birth rate exceeds the death rate.
Yes, we could solve the nation's economic ills, if we wanted to.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:14 pmI wonder what each moment of the Bush-Cheney stolen administration has cost the United States in its precious youth, treasure, prestige, and moral authority?
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:40 pm60 min X24 hrs X 365 days = 525 600 minutes in a year
525600 minutes X $500,000 = $ 262.8 Billion a year spent in Iraq
300 million Americans X 90% = 270 million Americans
262.8 billion/270 million = $973
or put another way...every American (man women and child) shells out about $1000 a year for the Iraq war. Not enough to retire on, but enough to p*ss us off. Especially since it's going on the National Credit Card for our kids to pay off.
September 22nd, 2007 at 6:41 pmor put another way…every American (man women and child) shells out about $1000 a year for the Iraq war. Not enough to retire on, but enough to p*ss us off. Especially since it’s going on the National Credit Card for our kids to pay off.
Comment by Badger — September 22, 2007 @ 6:41 pm
And yet it still pales in comparison to the human cost. What an absolute waste.
September 22nd, 2007 at 11:13 pmIf this isn't the final nail in the coffin of "compassionate conservatism", I don't know what is.
Why do Republicans hate children?
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:44 amGreat comments !
I gave quite a few of you recommendations.
∞
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:14 amI hate to ever feel like a victim, but this Administration has taken us hostage. Nothing we say, do, argue, cajole. No amount of letters to Congressmen, Senators, the WH, to the Editor changes the course of our Nation. We have been kidnapped by a group of incompetent lunatics and the $500,000 per day is a fraction of what it is costing the Country and the World.
September 23rd, 2007 at 10:51 am"I hate to ever feel like a victim, but this Administration has taken us hostage. Nothing we say, do, argue, cajole. No amount of letters to Congressmen, Senators, the WH, to the Editor changes the course of our Nation. We have been kidnapped by a group of incompetent lunatics and the $500,000 per day is a fraction of what it is costing the Country and the World."
A. maybe nobody agree's with you and you agree with new anchors on tv.
B. we support our allies and they rely on us as an allie to help them.
{Choose 1 and move to the UK if u hate it here"Freedom" as you say}
(our homeless dont live as bad as others in south america & africa.
September 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 pmZaCh - wtf are you even talking about?
so you wouldn't mind being homeless here? wouldn't care if your cousins kids were out on the street?
YOU move to the UK, so you can find out how functioning Democracies are supposed to operate - with accountability.
September 23rd, 2007 at 1:26 pmZaCh....I have never been one to say we are better than any other Nation or culture. That said, what has always set America apart is that we have cared about our homeless and poor. That is no longer the case. Despite these idiot, ignorant Born Again twits, we are no longer a Christian Nation because we don't care about those who haven't, by accident, been born with food to eat and a roof over their head.
September 23rd, 2007 at 2:40 pm"News Anchors " ??????? Me ????? I hate them. They have sold their souls for LOTS of cash.
People, people, as Bush always says: money is not important, the real things in life are free.
September 23rd, 2007 at 3:37 pmThe conservative party is not very conservative these days. Besides the security and moral consequences or the Iraq debacle, is the loss of wealth and deficit spending. This gross misuse of our nations fiscal resources is beyond comprehension.
When do we stop calling the Republican party "conservatives"?
http://politics50.com
September 23rd, 2007 at 7:25 pmYou can't put a price on freedom.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:38 amBriseadh na Faire:
This is not a communistic country. We don't redistribute wealth--past social experiments in other countries, i.e., the Soviet Union and all its satellite countries, illustrate perfectly well why this doesn't work.
Will you, and your ilk, quit going through life looking for handouts? Try standing on your own two feet rather than looking to others to support your lifestyle.
September 24th, 2007 at 10:41 amThese estimates are too low.
Try these.
September 26th, 2007 at 2:12 pm