Buy cars for all US women, so they can drive to Canada if McCain or Palin ban abortion

For the price of the Iraq War, we could buy a new car for every woman whom John McCain and Sarah Palin want to deny the right to an abortion, so that she could drive to Canada if she needed one.

In an ABC News interview, McCain announced his support for a Constitutional amendment banning all abortion except in cases of rape, incest, and when the mother's life is threatened.   This would deny the 152 million women in America the right to have an abortion under most circumstances.  (He also said that such an amendment would be unlikely to pass, and expressed support for overturning Roe v. Wade instead.) Sarah Palin, meanwhile, opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest.  Since about 40 million US women have already reached menopause, there are 112 million women to whom the right to have an abortion applies or will apply.  

According to AutoPacific, the vehicle with the highest proportion of female buyers is the VW New Beetle, which has a base price of $17,475.  Buying New Beetles for 112 million women would cost $1.96 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 peterpolaroid.  See my new website, The Palin Truth Squad.

Buy every lolrus a dozen of the most valuable buckets

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've bought each lolrus a dozen of the most valuable buckets in existence.  

The lolrus, actually an southern elephant seal named Minazo who lived a Japanese aquarium, achieved immense internet fame due to a famous captioned image of him having his bucket taken away by an aquarium attendant.  A popular series of captioned photos concerning the putatively unhappy lolrus and his quest to regain his bucket soon followed.  There are about 600,000 southern elephant seals in the world.  

A George 111 mahogany and brass peat bucket was bought by John Magnier for 169,000 Euro and is believed to be the most valuable bucket in the world. Buying 12 such buckets for each southern elephant seal would cost $1.73 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Give everyone in Green Bay the Lehman CEO's 2007 bonus

For the price of the Iraq War, we could give everyone in Green Bay a bonus of the size that Lehman Brothers CEO Richard Fuld earned in 2007.

In 2007, Lehman Brothers Chairman and CEO Richard Fuld earned a bonus of $22 million. Because of bad investments in mortgage-backed securities, Lehman Brothers' stock price has fallen from over $80 in early 2007 to 18 cents per share as it filed for bankruptcy yesterday. Previously, Mr. Fuld had earned $354 million over a 5-year period. There are 100,781 residents of Green Bay, so giving them a bonus equal to what Fuld earned in 2007 would take $2.22 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Make every Darfur refugee a millionaire

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've made every refugee in Darfur a millionaire.

There are 2.5 million refugees in Darfur. Making every man, woman, and child among them a millionaire would cost us $2.5 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Image taken from Letter from Larnaca. 

Keep America deodorized for a thousand years

For the price of the Iraq War, we could have provided all Americans with deodorant for a millennium.

Americans spend $1.8 billion per year on deodorants and antiperspirants. Even allowing for 10% greater expenditures to deodorize any additional Americans, the entire population could be deodorized for a thousand years for $2 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Build Large Hadron Colliders all the way up the West Coast

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've build adjacent Large Hadron Colliders all the way up the West Coast.  

The California coast is 840 miles, the Oregon coast is 296 miles, and the Washington coast is 157 miles, making the West Coast of the United States 1293 miles long.  The Large Hadron Collider has a circumference of 17 miles, and dividing by pi gives a diameter of 5.4 miles.  This means that it would take 240 adjacent Large Hadron Colliders to cover the coastline.  At 6.4 billion Euros or about 9 billion dollars each, 240 Large Hadron Colliders would cost $2.16 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Buy enough Pabst Blue Ribbon to cover Mars' biggest moon knee-deep

For the price of the Iraq war, we could've bought enough Pabst Blue Ribbon to cover Phobos, Mars' biggest moon, knee-deep in a sea of beer.  

Phobos is the largest moon of the planet Mars.  It has a surface area of 6100 square kilometers.  If we estimate the height of a knee at 50 cm -- roughly the height to the top of my knee -- it would take 3.05 billion cubic meters of beer to cover Phobos knee-deep on average (craters would be deeper, while elevated portions of the moon might stick out as islands).  This would require 50.4 billion kegs of beer.  Pabst Blue Ribbon can be bought for $51 per keg.  At this price, we could cover Phobos knee-deep in beer for $2.57 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 lodri.

Put a tank staffed by Petraeus duplicates on every square mile of Afghanistan

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've hunted down Osama Bin Laden by placing a fully equipped M1 Abrams battle tank on every square mile of Afghanistan and staffing them entirely with duplicates of General Petraeus.

The heavily armored 67-ton M1 Abrams battle tank, which carries four crew members, is the principal combat tank of the American armed forces. A fully equipped M1 Abrams costs $4.30 million. General David Petraeus, who oversaw all US forces in Iraq, earns $180,000 per year. The area of Afghanistan is 251,772 square miles Putting an M1 Abrams on each square mile of Afghanistan and staffing them entirely with Petraeus duplicates drawing a salary equal to his would cost $1.26 trillion, which is less than half of Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Buy everything on the UK stock market

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've bought out the entire United Kingdom stock market at a 10% premium.  

The S&P Global Indices provide the best estimate of the total value of all the publicly traded companies in a nation.  The 'Total Market Capitalization' of companies includes not only the value of all the shares of stock, but also any interest in the companies that may be controlled off the stock exchange by the government or other stakeholders.  Currently the total market cap of the UK stock market is $2.72 trillion.  Paying a 10% premium to completely buy out the UK stock market and own all of every publicly traded company in the UK would cost $2.99 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Give everyone in North America earmarks like Wasilla received under Mayor Palin

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've given everyone in North America the same per capita amount in federal earmarks that Wasilla, Sarah Palin's hometown, received between 2000 and 2003.

Earmarked funds have been widely criticized as a way to get excess spending past the controls in the appropriations process. Between 2000 and 2003, a period mostly including the last two years of Palin's reign as mayor, the city of Wasilla received $26.9 million in federal earmarks, including $15 million for a rail project connecting Wasilla to Senator Ted Stevens' hometown of Girdwood. (The above image includes Palin's boasts about previous federal funding for Wasilla in her own handwriting.) In 2000, the population of Wasilla was 5469, so the city received $4919 per capita in earmarks. Earmarking this amount of federal funds for each of the 524 million people in North America would cost $2.58 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Image from Mike Lillis of the Washington Independent.

Pay for Katrina and the next 30 hurricanes like it

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've paid off all the damage from Hurricane Katrina and the next thirty equally devastating hurricanes.  

Hurricane Katrina, the costliest hurricane in American history, did $89.2 billion worth of damage in 2008 dollars.  Paying off all the damage for Katrina, as well as thirty future hurricanes of the same size, would've cost $2.77 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.

Buy a platinum vibrator studded with diamonds for each woman in Europe and the Americas

For the price of the Iraq War, we could've bought a platinum vibrator studded with diamonds for each woman in Europe and the Americas.  

731 million people live in Europe, 524 million live in North America, and 382 million people live in South America.  Assuming that half of these people are women, there are 819 million women on these three continents combined.  

JimmyJane sells the Little Platinum Eternity vibrator, plated in platinum and encircled by 28 conflict-free VS1 diamonds, for $3,250.  Buying 819 million of these vibrators would cost $2.66 trillion, which is less than Joseph Stiglitz and Linda Bilmes' estimate of $3 trillion for the cost of the Iraq War.