Well, I got close, but no cigar. It’s painfully hard to spend three trillion dollars. Even with the Hope Diamond and the Hannah Montana Anti-static Pink Hair Brush in my cart, I was only able to spend around 80% of what the Iraq war will cost us (with veteran care costs included) by 2017. Not much info on the site on where the cost estimates for items below come from; I’m presuming they come from Stiglitz’ book:
“Just counting the zeroes on the $3 trillion price tag of the Iraq War is enough to induce hyperventilation. But what does $3 trillion really mean? It’s difficult even to comprehend a number that big. Well, try filling your shopping cart with what the cost of the Iraq War could buy: healthcare for every American? A new home for every subprime borrower now facing foreclosure? An Ivy League university? You haven’t even gotten started.â€
-Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz
co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War
Here were the contents of my shopping cart, before I grew tired of making world dreams come true and stopped shopping:
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Switch to Solar
1 purchased for $420,000,000,000.00 each
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Universal Health Care
1 purchased for $3,067.00 each
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finish repairing the damage done by Katrina
1 purchased for $200,000,000,000.00 each
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End hunger and poverty related diseases
2 purchased for $195,000,000,000.00 each
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Full Funding of Amtrak Passenger Service & Expansion
1 purchased for $2,500,000,000.00 each
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Achieve Universal Literacy
1 purchased for $5,000,000,000.00 each
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Broadband To Every U.S. Home
1 purchased for $100,000,000,000.00 each
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100 New Libraries
1 purchased for $5,000,000,000.00 each
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New Clothing, Shoes, Coats, and School Supplies for Ten Million Children
1 purchased for $10,000,000,000.00 each
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The Hope Diamond
1 purchased for $250,000,000.00 each
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Hannah Montana Anti-static Pink Hair Brush
1 purchased for $10.99 each
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Plant 1,000,000 trees
1 purchased for $10,000,000.00 each
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End our Dependence on Foreign Oil
1 purchased for $500,000,000,000.00 each
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Kyoto Protocol Worldwide Compliance
1 purchased for $400,000,000,000.00 each
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Help Rebuild Iraq
1 purchased for $20,900,000,000.00 each
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Universal Preschool
1 purchased for $35,000,000,000.00 each
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revamp the u.s. education system
1 purchased for $100,000,000.00 each
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Build a National High Speed Rail System
1 purchased for $300,000,000,000.00 each
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Fight AIDS in Developing Nations
1 purchased for $15,000,000,000.00 each
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