Buddy, Can You Spare a Thousand Billion?
There are scads of ways to define winners and losers, but one way we Americans weigh it out is by money. Did Madonna outclass Bing Crosby in the currency-adjusted values of their times? Who is the bigger all-time name by earnings, Sinatra or Elvis? And so it goes.
If you knew, or sensed, I was coming around to a parallel on terrorism versus our free society, congratulations. Or maybe I have just become too predictable. But it’s surely evident to even the most prejudiced members of right-versus-left, conservative-versus-liberal or uninvolved-versus-over-affected that in the numbers game the terrorists are way ahead.
No one dares put a dollar value on what this country has spent since 9/11 that it would not have spent were the towers still standing. Part of the reason is that it’s almost impossible to sift out each and every number. Costs in New York City get the press, but the additional expenses in thousands upon thousands of Keokuk, Iowas and Evanston, Illinoises are stirred in …