Job Opening - Time Magazine Editors

So Time has some article on Hillary Clinton.  I didn't read the whole thing.  Sue me.   But they wanted to let you know that Hillary Clinton has her numbers and facts right.

Hillary Clinton may not get angry on your behalf like John Edwards or inspire you like Barack Obama. But Iowans do not take their role in the electoral process lightly, and Clinton is counting on their level of seriousness to help her turn around the one state where she struggles to maintain the lead that has come so easily in the rest of the country.

Yes Hillary has all the numbers and facts.  

The speech was a lot like school. Within the first five minutes of the almost hour-long presentation, she had given the percentage for the disparity in pay between new jobs created now and those created ten years ago (21), the dollar amount that the average family's income has fallen over the same period (1000), the percentage by which corporate profits have increased because of slow growth in wages (64), how much of the income gains over last six years have gone to the wealthiest 10% (all), the last year at which income inequality was as great as it is now (1929), the cost of the Iraq war per day ($300,000) and the number of home foreclosures in the past year (1.3 million).

Now, I'm not a fan of Hillary.  But this isn't about that.  Perhaps she said the Iraq war only cost $300,000 a day.   Perhaps she believes that and she voted for war with Iran because it seems like a really good deal.  Like dollar store war.    I have no idea if she actually used that figure.  But how can it be that no one at Time could read that sentence and not say, "uh....typo..the war isn't that cheap".   $300,000 a day?

Here are some numbersfrom last year before the war got expensive.

One thing is certain about the Iraq war: It has cost a lot more than advertised. In fact, the tab grows by at least $200 million each and every day.

 

Or how about this.

A new congressional analysis shows the Iraq war is now costing taxpayers almost $2 billion a week -- nearly twice as much as in the first year of the conflict three years ago and 20 percent more than last year -- as the Pentagon spends more on establishing regional bases to support the extended deployment and scrambles to fix or replace equipment damaged in combat.

And now its more like $3 billion a week.   Any mathletes in the house?  Someone want to divide two or three billion by seven and figure out what the war costs per day?  And then could you email that to TIME and CLINTON and tell them to wake the fuck up.

Thanks.

•  Good catch.

  by joan reports on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 07:19:54 PM PDT

•  The Cost of the War Is Way More Than $$$$

  Last year, the UN reported that the Iraq war cost 100 families their loved ones each and every day.

  by karateexplosions on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 07:24:48 PM PDT

  •  "cost"

    yeah, but can you really put a number on the price to destroy a country and all those families?    And can  halliburton and blackwater get paid for all those dead people?

    Your point is well made.  The cost of this war is beyond calculation.   Have you been watching Ken Burn's WW2 documentary?   Humans are slow learners.

    by onemadson on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 07:28:55 PM PDT

    •  I'm Not Suggesting Putting a $ Amount on Lives

      Just saying that if people want to talk about the cost of the war in numerical terms, that this war has "cost" a whole lot of kids to lose their moms, wives to lose their husbands, mothers and fathers to lose their children, et cetera.

      100 per day.

      by karateexplosions on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 07:32:57 PM PDT

      •  i agree

        how our "leaders" can rationalize that it is worth it to kill random innocent people to fight their "war on terror" is beyond me.  

        But apparently Republicans can do this.  And its becoming increasingly clear that our Democratic "leaders" think they can afford letting this all continue.  

        I want to grab them all by the neck and take the to Iraq and show it to them, like I might do to a puppy that had shit on the rug.   Sadly, puppies grow up and learn, our "leaders" do not.

        by onemadson on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 07:48:24 PM PDT

•  Try $300,000,000 per day

  (which is $2.1Bn/wk divided by 7).

  Time was only off by a factor of a thousand. For them, that's almost pinhead pinpoint precision...

  Just FTR, a stack of 300,000 $1 bills would rise about 100 feet, or 30.6 meters--roughly the height of a 9-storey building. Whereas a stack of 300,000,000 $1 bills would stand 100,000 feet or 30.6 kilometers high--that's nearly 19 miles.

  by Uncle Cosmo on Wed Oct 10, 2007 at 08:02:33 PM PDT