Japan Quake Damage Estimated at $235 [Billion]
Nowhere Near That of The Iraq War
Just trying to put things in perspective...
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Nowhere Near That of The Iraq War
Just trying to put things in perspective...
[Oops...]
posted by Winston Smith at
8:13 AM
8 Comments:
Only $235? Does that include the tsunami?
What did the Iraq war work out at then? $500 plus change?
I must say that these figures are very surprising, and leave me wondering what all the fuss is about, in both cases...
wat
Kind of a tacky use of bad comparables, Winston. I remember when some on the right used to compare annual civilian fatalities in Iraq favorably with US highway deaths. That comparison did little to justify the Iraq war, and your comparison does little to condemn it.
I'm...kinda shocked that people think this is a bad comparison. I mean.. what do you want? What, specifically do you find lacking in this comparison?
I honestly don't see any relationship between what's going on here and a comparison between Iraqi civilian casualties and US highway casualties.
Don't really know what you're sayin'.
WS,
My first reaction was that $235B seemed low. For reference, the article cites the 1995 Kobe earthquake at $100B and Katrina (2005) at $81B. So, maybe $235 B is not too far off. We shall see.
None of these expenses, of course, were sought out, in contrast to the over $700 B spent on the invasion of Iraq.
Completely off topic, have you seen the latest XKCD? Would it make a Philosoraptor Laugh?
Best,
Jim
Jim:
LOL
Affirmative...
I dunno...in retrospect, it did seem like a tacky comparison--'tacky' being, I'd say, a pretty modest criticism, but apt in this case.
I didn't mean to insert my bitching about Iraq at every opportunity, nor to distract from the attention we ought to be paying to Japan...
...Rather, it just struck me (as it often does) what a massive injury we inflicted on ourselves in Iraq (and by 'we' I of course mean 'the Bush administration'...)
Still, 'tacky' seems about right, in retrospect...
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