When Statistics Leave One Speechless

My good friend Kara Martin originally posted this, and I felt like it couldn't just stop with me.

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I don't know what your views are, and my goal in presenting this information is not to sway you...it's just that I had thought myself to be a relatively informed citizen, but when these stats were brought up in my service learning class, pretty much everyone in the class was floored, and I feel compelled to pass the information on. On the news, you hear numbers thrown around so much that I think we become numb to them and millions and billions and trillions lose their meaning with us...this should put things back in perspective a little.

American taxpayers spend $195 million each day to fund the war in Iraq. For the amount we pay for ONE DAY of war, we could...

INTERNATIONAL FRONT:
- vaccinate 3/4 of the children in Africa for measles and give millions
lifetime protection from the disease.
- feed all of the starving children in the world today almost four and a half
times over
- build 5,571 AIDS clinics in Africa
- provide 650,000 women in Africa living with HIV/AIDS antiretroviral
treatment for one year
- provide 1/3 of the aid needed for earthquake relief for the four million
people affected in South Asia.
- is equivalent to half of the GDP of East Timor.

DOMESTIC:
EDUCATION
- cover the full cost of attendance for one year at a public college for more
than 17,100 students.
- enroll 27,000 more children in Head Start
- employ 4,269 elementary school teachers or 4,027 secondary school
teachers for one year.

HEALTH CARE
- provide health insurance coverage to 344,500 working Americans
- immunize every person over 65 in the U.S. against influenza 4.6 times
over.
- One day in Iraq could immunize every baby born in the U.S. last year
against measles, mumps, and rubella 14.2 times.

LABOR
- provide unemployment benefits for almost 722,000 unemployed
Americans for one week.
- fund Social Security retirement benefits for one day for over 6.75 million
Americans.
- pay for an increase of $3.34 per hour in the wages of every minimum
wage worker in the country.

So on a global spending scale, just how much money goes where?

GLOBAL PRIORITY $U.S. BILLIONS
Cosmetics in the United States: $8 billion
Ice cream in Europe: $11 billion
Perfumes in Europe and the United States: $12 billion
Pet foods in Europe and the United States: $17 billion
Business entertainment in Japan: $35 billion
Cigarettes in Europe: $50 billion
Alcoholic drinks in Europe: $105 billion
Narcotics drugs in the world: $400 billion
WORLD MILITARY SPENDING: $780 billion
And compare that to what was estimated access to basic social
services in all as additional costs to achieve universal developing
countries:
Basic education for all: $6 billion
Water and sanitation for all: $9 billion
Reproductive health for all women: $12 billion
Basic health and nutrition: $13 billion

...all information above comes from a lecture given by economist
Dr. Nancy Farmer, to properly cite my source. GREAT professor.

Well anyway, I just thought that should share that. Makes you think, huh? Well, I hope it does anyway.
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This makes me want to get off my lazy butt and do something for the world. ~B

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Wow. It's amazing how a week off school can make a girl feel like herself again.

I've found myself actually giggling to myself during the day when just the slightestly funny things happen. I've been more outgoing in the past, oh, two days than I usually am in a week. I've felt more confident.

Needless to say, it was so wonderful to just have a break, relax, visit precious friends, spend time with my sweetie...

Life is good. For the moment, life is good.

(Please, world, don't cave in on me.)