Real Money

Last night, Zymurgian and I were talking about the economics of the war in Iraq. I pointed out what else we could be doing with the money .

CHICAGO, Sept. 21 -- The money spent on one day of the Iraq war could buy homes for almost 6,500 families or health care for 423,529 children, or could outfit 1.27 million homes with renewable electricity, according to the American Friends Service Committee, which displayed those statistics on large banners in cities nationwide Thursday and Friday.

The war is costing $720 million a day or $500,000 a minute, according to the group's analysis of the work of Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard public finance lecturer Linda J. Bilmes.

We need to stop bleeding our country. We need the money here.