I saw the following diagram on a talk by David McCandless on TED. It is fascinating. More on David here.
Some interesting points to note:
- The enormity of the cost of the Iraq war, especially when compared to feeding AND educating every child on the planet for 5 years. In fact, you can educate and feed them more than 6 times for 5 years!
- The US defence budget, compared to China and Russia.
- The yearly amount given to chairty by Americans, which is 3 times more than the foreign aid given by the world's major nations. The Americans may like to make war (or at least Bush does), but they are very generous. It will be interesting to see how big the overlap is between the generous Americans and the warring Americans...
- The global illegal drug market is almost as large as worldwide advertising spend.
- Bill Gates has his own block...
- Bribes received by Russian officials are of similar value than the global illegal drug market... There must be some pretty rich officials.
- Africa's entire debt to the Western world. Can't be more than a few months of war in Iraq!
