It's raining money

DarkSyde has a great idea with a misleading name: Operation Golden Shower.

The Plan: Since Baghdad is the key to Iraq, all we have to really worry about is getting the Iraqis in Baghdad to 'like us'. So every day we take about twenty planes and circle all over Baghdad with sacks of money and throw it out the window uniformly. We can use mostly one dollar bills, because that's enough for an Iraqi to live on for a few days, but mix in a few tens or twenties or even hundreds, just to add some excitement and fun. We can make it more fun by using the Cracker Jack marketing method of including some prizes with the money. Something like "This coupon entitles the bearer to a new US manufactured SUV or a four year degree at a major US University courtesy of the American Taxpayer." (via Eschaton, from a guest-post by Avedon)

You can do this big-time and still save bundles of money. More than 160 countries have GDPs over $50 billion. If you assume that half of your budget sticks to Halliburton and its ilk, there are still over 130 countries we can invade for less than half what we're spending in Iraq. But sticking to just the big cities will be a lot cheaper, and would make almost all countries vulnerable to this inspired littering.

Why would a country let us come in and inflate the hell out of its economy? Imagine what people would do to a government that tried to prevent it.

And the SUV coupon is a brilliant touch. It may be the only thing that saves GM.