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Statistic Of The Day From Reuters

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by Liz Gunnison, Jeffrey Cane, Mark Stein, Laura Rich and Megan Barnett
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Sep 20 2007 12:00am EDT

Statistic of the Day, From Reuters

What fun one can have with a very big number and a pocket calculator.

Using a recent estimate from the bipartisan the Congressional Research Service that the war in Iraq cost U.S. taxpayers an average of about $10 billion a month last year, Reuters broke down the cost into shorter increments, with eye-popping results.

According to the British news agency, that works out to $333 million a day, $14 million an hour, $231,000 a minute, or $3,850 per second.

"Even for the world's richest country," Reuters writer Bernd Debusmann wryly notes, "this is serious money."

Debusmann then contrasts those numbers with former Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz's pre-invasion postulation that the war's post-invasion phase would be self-financing.

"There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money," he said on March 27, 2003. "We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon."

by Mark Stein

Laura Rich is a co-founder of Recessionwire, which provides news, advice, perspective and humor about the recession and the recovery.

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