July 15, 2004

What would we do with $50 billion?

Joi Ito's Web: Brainstorm 2004 notes - Bjorn Lomborg

Here's some notes by Joi Ito from a conversation with Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg has the right idea, go for the big bang for the buck. I'll bet you could sell people on spending this much money if they knew they could get this kind of return:


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What if we had an extra$ 50Bn to allocate. What would you spend it on?
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The Copenhagen Consensus was a group of leading economists who got together to try to prioritize based on best information available.

What we would do:

1- Prevent HIV - $27Bn will save 29M lives
2- Micronutrients - $13Bn will help more than 1/2 the world
3- Free Trade - would create more than $2000Bn / yr
4- Treat Malaria - $12Bn could come back 10X or more

What we wouldn't do?

Kyoto (global warming) is not a good use of money
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Posted by georgegmacdonald at July 15, 2004 11:03 AM