Where Your Dollars are Going....

Crikey is required reading for detailing a variety of matters one simply reads no where else.

Today's Crikey reveals the following:

"By June, Australia's war in Iraq will have cost taxpayers $1.2 billion, according to defence think tank Australian Strategic Policy Institute. That's enough to buy:

42 new high schools each catering for 720 year 7-10 students ... or

Two 740-bed hospitals ... or

116,346 fully subsidised new Long Day Care childcare places (for one year) ... or
25 kilometres of six-lane freeway (at $48 million per kilometre) ... or

480,000 new places in the New Apprenticeships access program that caters to occupations where there are skills shortages ... or

83 new technical colleges.

Depending on your point of view, it's the price we're paying for a) securing Iraqi freedom or b) our subscription fee to the Australia-US alliance. Either way, that's a lot of Australian schools and child care places."

Meanwhile, if you want to keep abreast of "things" and be informed [and not "spoken down" to by the ever-increasing dumbed-down media] do subscribe to Crikey [www.crikey.com.au] and New Matilda [www.newmatilda.com/home/default.asp]

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Mahler's Prodigal Son

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