if, like us, you like to play with numbers, this works out to almost us$135 million per american death, but only us$442k per iraqi - a comparative bargain. also, thanks to improvements in production numbers, each american death now buys us roughly 3.5 million fillups at the pump (that's about 11,000 tankfuls per iraqi death), compared to the wasteful stats at the beginning of the war (only 2 million tankfuls per dead american and just 6,500 fillups per iraqi death).
while all of this has been going on, the oil companies have been consolidating their hold on the market, securing no-bid contracts for oilfield services, production, and distribution, and buying smaller players until just a few powerful names are left in the ring.
it's worthwhile and instructive to look at the change in oil company stock as the death tolls - and our debt load (which you owe to china, by the way) - have stacked up.so what's our takeaway? does exxon demand blood sacrifices in exchange for higher share prices? will cheney (whom we affectionately call tricky dickless, for obvious reasons) get his old job back at halliburton when biden boots him out of his vp digs? did we avoid attacking saudi arabia - where almost all of the 911 hjijackers were actually from - because the saudi royal family is friends & business partners with dubya's family?
how the hell should we know? go find out for yourself!