Measuring in Iraq-Days

As I have been listening to the Republican convention and hearing about how healthcare reform will cost too much or solving the energy crisis will cost too much, I am reminded of a meeting I was at several months ago where the subject of high speed rail came up as a means of saving on energy costs. As I recall, the estimated cost of a line from Chicago to Minneapolis was about $800 million, and everyone in the room nodded gravely as the presenter explained that such a bucket of money was clearly out of the realm of possibility.

Millions. Billions. Who has any concept of what that means?

But since the subject of Iraq also keeps coming up at the Republican convention (something about keeping America safe, I think), it occurred to me that the two subjects could be better explained by creating a new unit of currency – the Iraq-Day. Estimates of Iraq war expenditure rates range from $8 billion per month by the Congressional Research Service, to $12 billion a month by economist Joseph Stiglitz. So let’s make the math easy and call it $10 billion. So one Iraq-Day = $333 million. (10,000,000,000/30).

That makes it easier to understand the cost of high-speed rail from Chicago to Minneapolis. It’s 2.4 Iraq-Days. Minus the cost of jet fuel or gasoline. I’ll bet you can think of more things that could be measured in Iraq-Days.