How Much is $1.3 Trillion?
By: Jeff Hackman November 8, 2011
By late 2011, we will reach the $1.3 Trillion mark in spending on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. We’re adding about $2.5 billion more to that total each week. These wars are now the second most expensive in US history (only World War II cost more).
How much money is $1,300,000,000,000? How much is even one billion?
How long does it take for a billion seconds to pass? There are 86,400 seconds in a day. There are 31,536,000 (31.5 million) seconds in a year. It takes about 31.7 years for one billion seconds to pass. (Contrast this with only about 11 days for one million seconds to pass.)
OK, we’re 1/1,300th of the way there.
If you are able to live 100 years, you will experience a little over 3 billion seconds. There are 3,153,600,000 (3.15 billion) seconds in a century. There have been about 63 billion seconds since Jesus’ birth (2000 years). There have been about 126.14 billion seconds since Abraham’s birth (4000 years).
Are we at $1.3 trillion yet?
Some creationists believe the earth is about 6000 years old. If that is true, then about 189.2 billion seconds have passed since Creation. In other words, even if you spent a dollar every second since the first day of Creation, you’d be less than one-sixth of the way toward spending $1.3 trillion!
Let’s try this: if you spent $10.30 a second, every second of every day, since the day of Abraham’s birth, then you would have spent $1.3 trillion by now. What can you buy for $10.30? About three gallons of gas. Think about spending that money, every second of every minute, every minute of every hour, every hour of every day, every day of the year, for 4000 years. Get it?
Of course, more important than the financial cost is the human cost. Over 6,300 Americans have died; about 45,000 have been wounded. The Iraqi and Afghan human cost is less precise: perhaps as many as one million dead; countless thousands homeless, wounded, etc. And what of the long term costs? For how many generations will Iraqis and Afghans associate America with the destruction of their families? One report estimated that each Afghan civilian we kill creates six potential terrorists.
At what point is the price too high? It is already way too high for Afghans and Iraqis. The price for America in treasure, in lives lost, in lives devastated, in hostility created, is also too high!
Pray for peace, act for justice!
Check this web address for an update: http://costofwar.com
