For the price of the Iraq War, we could build a fence across the US-Mexico border out of large marshmallows, tall enough to reach the stratosphere.
Many immigration opponents support building a fence across the US-Mexico border. The border is 1969 miles, or 125 million inches long. The stratosphere begins 6 miles, or 380,000 inches, above the earth. Assuming that each marshmallow is one inch long and one inch in diameter, building a border fence that went up to the stratosphere would require 47.5 trillion marshmallows.
A 16 oz bag of Marshmallows costs $2.55 and contains about 64 marshmallows. Buying enough marshmallows for a US-Mexico border fence would cost $1.9 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.
Image used under a Creative Commons License from flattop341.
