Weighing the Costs

As an RA, one of my duties is to post bulletin boards on my floor. My current board compares the prices of necessities with the prices of things like advertising, consumer goods, war, and political campaigns. Below are some of my bulletin board’s pairs of equally priced things, followed by the statistics they are based on. So for a given amount of money, we choose as individuals, corporations, and nations:

Food for pets in the US and Europe
~ or ~
Food for everyone in the world suffering from starvation or malnutrition

Advertising for Coca Cola and Pepsi
~ or ~
Basic immunizations for every child

A $15 meal out for you
~ or ~
Simple meals, like rice and beans, for you and 60 children
(you can give right now at www.wfp.org)

Five weeks in Iraq
~ or ~
Providing clean water for everyone on earth for one year

An M1 Abrams tank
~ or ~
Providing 13,181,818 children with oral rehydration salts to prevent death from diarrheal diseases

An iPod
~ or ~
957 measles vaccines
(you can give right now at www.gavialliance.org)

Campaigns for the 2004 federal elections
~ or ~
Achieving universal literacy

A “Like It” size of Cold Stone ice cream
~ or ~
Twelve school meals for starving children
(you can give right now at www.wfp.org)

- - - - - - - - - -

www.worldwatch.org/node/1784#a2

• $17 billion is spent annually in Europe and the US on pet food
• It would cost $19 billion annually to elimination hunger and malnutrition
• It would cost $5 billion annually to achieve universal literacy
• It would cost $10 billion annually to provide clean drinking water for everyone on earth
• It would cost $1.3 billion annually to provide every child with basic immunizations

www.worldwatch.org/node/1784#b2

• The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo spent a total of $2.4 billion on advertising in 2001

Wikipedia

• One M1 Abrams tank costs $4.35 million

http://www.results.org/website/article.asp?id=2858

• $0.26 for a measles vaccine
• $0.33 for oral rehydration salts to avert death from diarrheal disease

Cold Stone Creamery in the South Campus Gateway in Columbus, Ohio

• $2.99 for a “Like It” size

https://secure.my-websites.org/supporter/donatenow.do?n=gbss&dfdbid=1044253

• It costs $0.25 to provide a hungry child a regular school meal of porridge, rice, or bean through the World Food Program (www.wfp.org)

www.store.apple.com

• An 80 GB iPod Classic costs $249.00

Local grocery stores

• 42 oz. of oatmeal for $1.49 at Giant Eagle, Kroger, or Aldi
• 2 lbs. of pinto beans for $1.19 at Aldi
• 25 lbs. of brown rice for $20.79 at Gordon Food Service

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

• The US currently spends $2 billion per week on the Iraq war (this is a conservative figure by the Congressional Research Service, but other credible sources place spending at nearly $3 billion per week)

Other fun facts include:

• Americans spent $131.95 billion on alcohol and tobacco in 1995
• $14 billion is spent annually on ocean cruises, $18 billion is spent annually on makeup, and $11 billion is spent annually in Europe on ice cream
• US advertising in the top 10 product categories totaled $44.6 billion in 2007