Someone posed an interesting question on the Straight Dope way back in Jan 1991 concerning whether given the cost of the Vietnam War in terms of weaponry and human lives, wouldn't it have been better to bribe the enemy with a nice cash bonus to stop the fighting? Check this out (and the answer): When I was in an artillery unit in Vietnam, we were told that each shell we fired cost the taxpayers several thousand dollars to manufacture, disregarding the cost to develop the weapon itself or the cost of training the manpower to shoot it. We speculated that, considering the great number of rounds we fired, the United States could easily have instead built each Vietnamese a beautiful suburban house complete with swimming pool instead of spending the money trying to kill them. In that way we could have not only won the war but also the hearts and minds of the enemy. So I put it to you: if the cost in dollars of the Vietnam war were divided by the number of Vietnamese, how much could each have been paid to lay down their arms and live peacefully ever after? --Stephen Wilhelm, New York The Answer: http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a3_161.html? What do YOU think?
War is the most profitable business. The amount of wealth redistributed during peace time is nothing comparing to war time