I think 3 trillion is probably more than 95% or more of people will see in their whole lives' let alone American children.
Stating the obvious. But jeez, Harry. That opening is unlike you.
Hutton's claim is absolutely, undeniably true. I don't understand your objection.
And truly, only a madman would spend that kind of money on British-made automobiles.
The 3 trillion figure is poppycock. It assumes that all the soldiers who died would have made fortunes selling crayfish and possum had they lived. You wouldn't fool a baboon with such an argument.
But how many curly-wurly bars could he have bought the people of Iraq with that money? We need to know!
"But how many curly-wurly bars could he have bought the people of Iraq with that money? We need to know!"
Oh for f*cks sake do the maths! 3 trillion divided by 20 pence. How hard can it be? I blame New Labour.
It a cruel and callous thing to think of the cost this heinous war in terms of dollars.
I mean, if you think of it in pounds or euros it doesn’t look nearly half as bad.
fact of the matter is the war in iraq has cost us taxpayers a fucking and shameless fortune. down with bush, down with blair/the gorgon, and the whole fucking campaign was a cock-up from the outset.
What are you complaining about, Hutton, you fucking tax exile, living the life of Reilly in Columbia? I'd like to crush your testicles like almonds.
If price inflation hits the international warfare markets this hard it will soon be too expensive to invade neighbouring countries, let alone circumnavigating the world to lay into Iraqis.
My name is Norman Angell, and I thoroughly recommend my timely book "The Great Illusion".
Look, an expensive disaster it may have been, but it got us out of the house of weekend didn't it? Am I right?
Shoes? Shoes??? Who the fuck are you - Imelda Marcos? Why waste money on shoes for African kids when you can spend it on killing ragheads? Give an African child a shoe and he'll just eat it. Turning an entire country into a shooting gallery, on the other hand, is a noble and visionary endeavour, and we salute W for it.
No child would want to go to bed with a shoe anyway. I used to sleep cuddling a boxing glove, 'cos my dad was a nutjob who thought teddy bears would make me soft. Harry on the other hand used to sleep wearing boxing gloves, 'cos he was a compulsive wanker. Plus ca change...
$3 trillion? Is that all? I'll take two of those, please. And do you have them in global armageddon size?
If you laid out three trillion dollars in five pence pieces at the current rate of exchange, they would wrap around the world at 2.746 times.
They could also be piled up to reach the moon.
But it's unlikely that anybody would ever do that. For example, I'm too busy at the moment.
And anyway, most banking is done electronically now.
I've got an Aston Martin, and I think it would lose some of its cachet if they were being used for car bombings by Iraqi lunatics. Couldn't get a great deal of high explosives in them either, the storage space is very limited.
Did I mention I had an Aston Martin?
My decision not to concentrate in Primary School Maths has cost me millions. Or so I believe.
It's not much of a surprise to find two people who were vehemently agin the Iraq war 'calculating' its cost upwards towards the stratosphere. Slight touch of cognitive bias and, hey presto, the war is responsible for the increase in the oil price from $40 to $100. Nothing to do with China, India or massively increased demand tnen.
So it WAS about oil, then?
This is getting disturbingly serious. I demand Hutton posts something with the word cunt in it immediately. Either that something insulting about the disabled. That always gets a laugh.
Ball Bag, the point isthat if they had bought everyone a posh car instead of invading the gaff and killing a bunch of people, there wouldn’t be any car bombs, just as there are no car bombs in your yacht club. Or they could have bought everyone in Iraq a Toyota, and spent the other $2.5 trillion on fine wines.
Do you see?
I can't believe that this Stiglitz character isn't toeing the Party line on this particular war.
But he's an economist, to whom a just war is that which turns a profit. Well, Joe, don't be impatient. Give it time.
$3 trillion, eh? Does anyone need to read the book now? This is the biggest spoiler since I found out Dumbledore got killed in the 5th Harry Potter book.
Biggus Dickus said
"...Or they could have bought everyone in Iraq a Toyota, and spent the other $2.5 trillion on fine wines."
They don't do alcohol over there. It's against their religion. Heroine, on the other hand, is an acceptable vice.
Ball Bag, the point isthat if they had bought everyone a posh car instead of invading the gaff and killing a bunch of people, there wouldn’t be any car bombs...
Wait, there were no car bombs in the Middle East before the Americans invaded Iraq? Shoot, the British government should try that in Northern Ireland, then. I'll bet they could buy off a bunch of IRA types with Aston Martins.
Man, my history teachers got everything wrong. Here I thought bin Laden grew up driving posh cars.
Wait, you mean he did grow up driving posh cars? ...and he had a college degree, to boot? ...so wealth and education don't preclude a life of advocating mass murder?
Wow. Why does no one teach this in the unversities?
Curious Bystander is right. If you listen to Reuters, the AP, AFP, EFE, the BBC, Xinhua, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, CNN and the Guardian, you might get the impression that the number of car bombings in Iraq has gone up quite a lot since 2003.
But don’t believe everything that Reuters, the AP, AFP, EFE, the BBC, Xinhua, the New York Times, the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post, Al Jazeera, CNN and the Guardian tell you. If anything, the number of car bombings has gone down slightly since we started painting their schools for them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Lis...ss_car_bombings
what are you lot going on about cars and wars and bombs for? there are important issues to be discussed here: shoes *contended sigh*
You know if we'd just offered the Iraqis three trillion dollars for their country from the start, they probably would have let us have it.
I cried because I had no shoes,
Until I met a man who had no feet.
He was driving a Corniche Drophead fitted with hand controls.
He was lighting a Temple Hall maduro with a flaming share of Halliburton common.
Some blokes have all the luck, poor sod.
"Or they could have bought everyone in Iraq a Toyota, and spent the other $2.5 trillion on fine wines."
Leave the fine wines alone, you twat. Spend that kind of money on them, there'll be none left for the likes of us. I'll be reduced to fermenting my grandkid's Ribena.
As the holder of an upper second class history degree from a decent-ish British university, my education means that I have inevitably only one question to ask:
Is 3 trillion a lot of money? I'm terrible at sums.
Conversely rather than spend it on african shoes he could have got 60 million blow jobs at 50 bucks a pop. This would also provide much needed paid employment for the womenfolk of Iraq.
"Conversely rather than spend it on african shoes he could have got 60 million blow jobs at 50 bucks a pop. This would also provide much needed paid employment for the womenfolk of Iraq."
And also killed him -- an undeniable benefit.
Surely 3 trillion should read 3 million million million and not 3 million million. It's this kind of shoddy accounting that only encourages the neo-cons (and Hutton) to get so over-inflated with self importance.
Anyway, imagine the advances to civilisation that a 3 million million million war would bring. Fuck the shoes - there'd be new army boots for the next 100 generations of shiney faced recruits marching gloriously into the future.
Yes, a lot of American children go to bed without shoes. But that's their choice. The little fuckers like it that way. That is what happens when the cult of individualism goes too far. In many regards, Mr. S. Hussein was on the right track.
In response to a previous commentator, Billy McBottom, "I'd like to crush your testicles like almonds." Sir, do you mean with the teeth?
I never wear my shoes in bed, neither of my kids do. I suspect Jack would wear his wellies to bed if given the choice. What annoys me most is he won't wear his slippers and they have Noddy on them - supposidly his favourite. Maybe I'll send them to Africa (the slippers - not the kids).
Is an American trillion the same as a British trillion?
I also hate to lower the tone but isn't it typical of the Stieglitz's kind to get off on the bottom line.
Is an American trillion the same as a British trillion?
I don't think it ever has been, but since Mr. Bush walked into the White House an American trillion has no longer been the same even as a Euro trillion.
At this rate, our currency will be worth less than the ruble and the yuan, and American manufacturing will rise again like a zombie.
A trillion dollars american is worth about 27 Euros.
The exchange rate isn't what it used to be.
When I go shopping for groceries, I have to bring a wheelbarrow to carry all the bank notes needed to pay for the groceries.
The preferred currency in many parts of the US is now the Euro.
I've asked my employer to start paying me in euros, and they asked me if I was a fucking idiot.
How did you respond? I like to think you said, "Perhaps. But I insist on being paid in Euros nonetheless. Do we have a deal?"
I'm right, aren't I...
How can we calculate the cost of something that hasn't finished yet;
Or did the buggers surrender while I was incommunicado in Soho this afternoon? Jolly nippy maths if so Stigliz. And what sort of name is that? Sounds Jewish to me. Mind, they are good with figures. Wouldn't trust one as far as I could throw him mind.
Ooooooooooo, 'ark at you, George Galloway! Didn't know you were a RESPECT member...well you should learn some respect - some respect for THE AMERICAN GUN! It's what's made this country great.
Instead we find you mincing around in a big lesbian pink jumpsuit which is made from ethically-sourced fibres whilst spouting off your lefty red liberalistic claptrap and eating organic mung bean stew from a recycled bowl with a gay black!
The war had to be fought and you know it - Iraq's poppy fields had to be closed down to make way for their oil fields. We had to find some way get the people out of the mosques and into the oil wells - and the Americans wanted in. Otherwise Obama Bin Laden wasn't going to hear the common sense cry of people like me and most of your readers: fly those bomb-planes into your OWN skyscrapers, Obama!
Joseph Stiglitz?
YIDlitz, more like, or perhaps, NIGlitz!
Dubya can't count that high. His wife must be helping him spend it.
I'd rather go to bed with a Swedish prostitute than a pair of shoes. To hell with your fiscal policy, you limey bastard.
"I'd like to crush your testicles like almonds."
Almond-like testicles, I think you mean.
All Amurrican politicians can count that high and higher. Just wait and see what they do to the taxes! If you people had real houses instead of those pre-fab caves, yo' chillen wouldn't have to wear their shoes to bed. And if he had bought eveyone a Toyota, what would that do to the price of Toyotas?
What is great here in Amurrica is when you run into the people who snidely voted for Bush in 2004 when you begged them not to. Now they have no way to defend the war, yet the formerly pro-Bush cuntdits...I mean dumb twits...I mean pundits on TV seem to have some means of still blathering on about nothing and keeping a job.
Forgive me, I'm tiiiiired.
Problem - not much point buying them shoes if you don't buy them socks as well.
There's the budget blown.
How much does a war cost these days anyway? That's 3 trillion at 2003 prices, surely?
24/7 rolling news my hairy arse. Not a post in days! And I'm not a professional either, I'm a bum, and I'll thank you to remember it.
3 Trillion? Cheap at twice the price.
I'd vote for Bush in a flash, and not snidely either.
I see no reason to accept the burden of shame just to accommodate the prejudices of a minority.
There's more to the moral high ground than assertion, propaganda and presumption you know.
Mary: How about the folks who snidely didn't vote for that incoherent fop, Kerry? No choice, there! Whatever Bushkin's faults, many at that, are, at least we dodged that bullet!
Its not as if the 3 trillion went up in a puff of smoke. Its safely in the pockets of clever chaps that make devices that go up in a puff of smoke.
Better them than pedestrian minds turning out a very large even number of shoes.
The actions of a madman? No the actions of someone in the thrall of big business seeking to open up the middle east to the multinationals. Bloggers should read "The Shock Doctrine" by Naomi Klein published in 2007 by Penguin. ISBN 978-1-84614-028-0.
Ah, yes, opening up the Middle East.
Like the Russians, Germans, and French weren't there already.
And of course, 30 million poor fellaheen have much more spending power than, say, the Indian Middle Class, right?
People have asked how I would crush Hutton's testicles. The answer is as follows: I would force him to straddle a balance beam and get a big hairy gorilla to bounce him up and down. It's what he deserves for being a cunt and a gloater.
Mr. McBottom, it is fiscally irresponsible to spring for a big hairy gorilla in today's tight primate market, when Hutton's students will bounce the beam for the niggardly sum of 5p per day. I therefore will not cast my vote for you come November, you spendthrift.
Incidentally, I now realize that we have not been discussing a three-trillium war. Please thank your incisive commenters, Hutton, for putting me straight on this point.
Au contraire, npetrikov. I can assure you that if a gorilla ever wanted to crush Harry's balls he would do it gratis. Someone should moderate these threads to delete ill-informed comments about gorillas.
I stand corrected. But only because it hurts to sit.
Aron: We British do not make 'automobiles'. We make cars. The fact that they do not work, or that the entire industry is now reduced to 3 blokes messing about with fibreglass and mondeo parts in a shed is neither here nor there.
Trillion schmillion. You can't put a price on the spirit of FREEDOM that beats its shimmering gossamer wings in every human heart. Most human hearts. A fair few, anyhow.
Think of all the hungry people you could feed with that money. Problem is, three hours later, they'd be hungry again.
Bomb 'em, and you've cured their hunger forever. Perfect.
Don't almonds sliver rather than crush?
Take 1 pair of testicles, immerse fully in a thermos of liquid nitrogen until ice-bound and tap sharply with a hammer (a ball hammer will do nicely). Ta-dah, slivered testicles.
Hughjimbissel--Sniff. Don't hate me, sir. I regretted that Kerry was the nominee, but we would have been better off with him than Bush and his Legion any day.
If you don't agree, we can arm wrestle over it. Name a time and place!
Perhaps the best use of the USD 3tr has just surfaced.
The governor of the U.S. State of New York has been nicked for consorting with high-priced fanny across state lines.
By high-priced, I mean upwards of $5,500 (£2730.65) per hour for "7-diamond quality" service.
If 1-diamond equates to a standard humping (as in "slam, bam, thank you, m'am") then 7-diamond must be something involving orifices as yet undisclosed to or undiscovered by yours truly.
But, anyway, I'm just suggesting that the USD 3tr could be used to buy the human race some 545,454,545 hours (and a few odd extra minutes) of sheer --- something or other --- fun for the naughty bits.
Why hasn't this been thought of before?
I think the "7 Diamond Service" allows you to 'off' the whore with a pearl-handled .45 as you 'reach completion.' At least, that is how it was sold to me and jolly good it was too. This Spitzer has soared in my estimation. Give him the White House.
Was it Stiglitz or Spitzer caught with a tart? Three trillion seems an awful lot for a gentleman's evening.
Mary: In my part of the world, the only fear about Bush was that he wouldn't be Conservative enough. It has proven to be too true but still better than the tool of Northeastern Scum Elites. Knob Creek, Ky on the seconf day of the Machine Gun Shoot.
I don't know about tarts, but Krugman seems to have been whoring his paper on interstellar trading around the place. What was most disappointing for me was that "interstellar trading" turned out not to be a euphemism for cottaging in unisex loos.
But I was rather hoping Hutton would have stopped his fiscal whining and spent his time upbraiding the Krugmeister on such extravagant formulaneering instead. After all, this is where our three trillion has *really* gone: from the military dreaming about Star Wars to the economists spending too much time playing Elite.
A cost of $3 trillion - that's a lot of oil.
3 trillion on shoes eh?
OLPC would then stand for One Loafer Per Child.
I like it. They'd probably like it too, in Iraq, where many children only have one leg after having been bombed-the-snot-out-of by at least one faction of the Whore On Terror.
Sir;
It is verry verry hard to say Three Trillion Thalers.... Hence the very wise limit to spending that vas present in our time.
A.
Hello:
I am just calculating.... Three Trillion in Yankee Greenbacks is let Me see....
Three Euros.... Yep. I agree with Harry. This is a lot of money to spend in a Country I do not know where it is.
Goddamnit, no one responded to my irrelevant racist comments above...all I wanted was to shock you into giving me some attention. I HATE you, you bastards! I'm gonna start my own weblog, yeah! AND I'm not gonna let anyone else comment on it, or even access it apart from ME! Hehe, that'll show YOU! Now who's commenting on my weblog? Hehe, NO-ONE apart from ME! Well, I did warn you...
Oh, fuck off then.
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