Three trillion dollars is a lot of cash. You know that, but it's more than you think: For the last three hours I've tried to spend $3 trillion and I barely cracked a trillion. Can you do better?
My playground was 3Trillion.org, an antiwar Web site set up by Robert Greenwald's Brave New Films.
In his new book, the economist Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the Iraq war will cost, in total, $3 trillion. The Greenwald site aims to illustrate the opportunity cost of the war -- other things we might have done with the money.
The site is populated with items from Amazon and other shopping sites -- ordinary items, things like the "Full House" box set and Oprah books -- but users can also add their own big-ticket things.
These are fascinating -- many are well-meaning, though more than a few betray the same kind of money-will-make-it-happen wrongheaded idealism that got us into Iraq in the first place (for instance, even spending $500 billion will not "replace all media with guaranteed truth only" -- that's just crazy talk.)
Here's my shopping list -- my total was $1,262,141,869,322.10. Yours?
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F/A-22 Raptor
1 purchased for $100,000,000.00 each
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Virgin Mary Sandwich
1 purchased for $28,000.00 each
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Parmigiano Reggiano Aged 18 months - 2lb wedge
1 purchased for $24.00 each
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Make a Hollywood Movie
1 purchased for $106,600,000.00 each
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Full House - The Complete Series Collection
1 purchased for $99.00 each
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Lost - The Complete First Season
1 purchased for $37.00 each
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The West Wing - The Complete Series Collection
1 purchased for $179.00 each
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Grand Theft Auto IV
1 purchased for $56.00 each
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Dinner for 4 at The French Laundry
1 purchased for $800.00 each
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Broadband To Every U.S. Home
1 purchased for $100,000,000,000.00 each
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MacBook Airs for everyone in the U.S.
1 purchased for $546,649,000,000.00 each
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"True Enough: Learning to Live in a Post-Fact Society"
1 purchased for $17.13 each
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Send Your Mom a Letter from Abraham Lincoln
1 purchased for $3,400,000.00 each
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The Hope Diamond
1 purchased for $250,000,000.00 each
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Hanes Classics Men's 6 pack cushion crew Sock, White, 6-12
1 purchased for $7.99 each
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BLUE ICE Glitter Barbell Tongue Ring
1 purchased for $1.00 each
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Colonix - Internal Cleansing Program (Liver, Kidney, Colon, And Parasite Cleanse) - FREE UPGRADE TO EXPEDITED SHIPPING
1 purchased for $86.00 each
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Buy the Beatles' Back Catalog
2 purchased for $1,488,820,000.00 each
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A Vacation
1 purchased for $20,000.00 each
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New York Yankees
1 purchased for $1,027,000,000.00 each
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Go On Vacation to Space!
1 purchased for $20,000,000.00 each
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Achieve the Millennium Development Goals
1 purchased for $60,000,000,000.00 each
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Mooning Garden Gnome
1 purchased for $14.98 each
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Food, Shelter & Vet Care for Unwanted Pets
1 purchased for $15,000,000,000.00 each
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Secret Island Fortress
1 purchased for $15,000,000.00 each
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Harvard University
1 purchased for $35,000,000,000.00 each
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Housing for America's homeless
1 purchased for $74,000,000,000.00 each
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Achieve Universal Literacy
1 purchased for $5,000,000,000.00 each
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End Third-World Debt
1 purchased for $422,000,000,000.00 each
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