Mathematician John Paulos has been working hard to help us imagine the amount of money spent to invade and occupy Iraq. Many experts suggest that it has cost $700 billion in direct costs and probably twice that much if you include the indirect costs. Others estimate the cost at $2 trillion. Paulos asks us to assume that the amount is one trillion, then sets out to help us imagine what one trillion is:

Another way to get at the $1 trillion cost of the Iraq War is to note that the Treasury could have used the money to mail a check for more than $3,000 to every man, woman and child in the United States. The latter alternative would have an added benefit: Uniformly distributed and spent in this country, the money would have provided an economic stimulus that the war expenditures have not. Alternatively, if the money was spent in an even more ecumenical way and a global mailing list was available, the Treasury could have sent a check for more than $150 to every human being on earth. The lives of millions of children, who die from nothing more serious than measles, tetanus, respiratory infections and diarrhea, could be saved, since these illnesses can be prevented by $2 vaccines, $1 worth of antibiotics, or a 10-cent dose of oral rehydration salts as well as the main but still very far from prohibitive cost of people to administer the programs.

How about illustrating a trillion by reference to time and money:

It would take almost three decades to spend a trillion dollars at $1,000 per second, and if spending at this rate occurred only during business hours, more than 120 years would be required to dispense the sum.

[These photos are from the March 2007 St. Louis protest of U.S. military action in Iraq]