Using Golf Balls to illustrate the cost of the War in Iraq.
Shane June 1st, 2007
If you ask me, I have unique ideas. If you ask my family, I’m a little weird.
But I like to put things into different perspectives, I think it can really open people’s eyes sometimes.
So here was my idea. What if you let one golf ball equal $1. How much space would it take up if you had enough golf balls to equal the cost of the Iraq war?
I figured, lets put the golf balls into tractor trailer trucks, its something everyone can visualize in their head. For the sake of keeping this article at least somewhat interesting, I’m not going to put all the math into it.
You could put 175,488 golf balls into a tractor trailer. So imagine $175,000 as a tractor trailer. Thats a lot of money. People win that much on Deal or No Deal and consider it life changing, the crowd cheers them on, etc etc.
The cost of the war in Iraq is just over $430 billion dollars. (costofwar.com)
It would take 75 tractor trailers end to end to span a mile of road.
It would take 2,450,309 trailers to hold 430 billion golf balls. That… is amazing.
This means, back to back, that the trailers could line up from New York to Los Angeles 13 TIMES over! Think of a 13 lane highway from coast to coast, filled with tractor trailers, full of $1 golf balls.
If you were in NY and sat and watched them go by, perfectly end to end going 60 mph - it would take just over 22 days, sitting there 24/7, to watch them all.
You have to really visualize this.
For just over 3 weeks, 24 hours a day, you could sit and watch trucks go by at highway speed, each one with enough money to change your life in it. ($175K) Thats 4500 trucks an hour going by. 4500 an HOUR for 3 WEEKS!
Thats the cost of the war in Iraq.
Except of course, this doesn’t count the human cost. That isn’t really measureable, in my book. In reality, this entire article’s example is nothing compared to the lives lost in, and those permanently maimed by, this war.
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That example really puts the cost of this in perspective and it’s no where near over.
As dumb as this sounds — the damn golf balls would have been a *better* way to spend the money!
Great visualization, thank you.
If America had spread $430 billion around the middle east she would have friends instead of enemies.
450 Billion? And the rest man!
Come on, the true cost of the USA is more likely 2 TRILLION dollars. Or more.
450 Billion is a dream, only.
I was just using the number at costofwar.com…