Being a mathematician/statistician, and a quasi-socialist and utopian dreamer here are some enlightening numbers.
Some Stats:
Estimated cost of Iraq and Afghanistan wars up to 2008: $691 Billion [1]
TSA Budget 2008: $6.3 Billion[2]
US National Defense Budget 2008: $481 Billion[3]
Cost of maintaining the US National Debt per year: $420 Billion[4]
Cost of maintaining the US National Debt since 2000: $2.8 Trillion
Cost of Nationalizing US banking System in 2008: about $1-2 Trillion
Feeding 3 organic and healthy meals per day to each of the US’s 300 million citizens for 1 year: $90 Billion[5]
Providing $5,000 worth of health care to every US citizen per year[6]: $1.5 Trillion
Terrorism Related Fatalities in the US 1968-2006 – 3,227[7]
Heart Disease and Cancer related mortality in the US in 2005: 652,091(heart) + 559,312(cancer)= 1,211,403[8]
My Conclusion:
Terror and fear are irrational, you will either be killed by terrorism with a nearly 0% chance or not, fear does not decrease the chance either.
So why should we give up our liberties and our resources for protection from an almost non-existent threat when we could give up an even smaller portion of our resources (and no liberties) for a threat that is very real and very preventable… poor nutrition and inadequate health care?
- http://www.reuters.com/article/topNews/idUSN2365065420080124 [↩]
- www.whitehouse.gov [↩]
- http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2008/defense.html [↩]
- http://bp3.blogger.com/_nSTO-vZpSgc/R4RTa3tCUAI/AAAAAAAABzw/ef5q9xtOO0Y/s1600-h/interest-expense-historical-data.png [↩]
- based on my estimate of $300/month per person [↩]
- if you didn’t use it, it could go to someone else, if there was a surplus spend it on something else [↩]
- http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ter_ter_act_196_fat-terrorist-acts-1968-2006-fatalities [↩]
- http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/FASTATS/lcod.htm [↩]
Related posts:
Tags: Afghanistan, Budget, Cancer, citizen, Debt, healthcare, Iraq, mortality, Nationalizing, productivity, statistician, Terrorism, whitehouse