According to data from the Drug Policy Alliance, the United States government spends $39 billion each year on the war on d***s. Cumulatively, it amounts to $1 trillion since 1971. However, recent findings have shown that illegal drug use in the US is once again on the rise, putting the effectiveness of these efforts and the amount of money spent in question.
The war on d***s is just one of the many examples where people spent exorbitant amounts on something that isn’t widely beneficial. Recently, a discussion about it surfaced on Reddit when someone asked, “What was the biggest waste of money in human history?”
The responses poured in, from similar war-related expenditures by other countries to the millions of dollars spent on the very first NFT.
These answers may disappoint you but also expose how ill-advised people can get with money.
#1
4 trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban gotta be up there.
105points
#2
Bailing out billion dollar companies during COVID like Delta Airlines that charges me $50 to bring a bag on an airplane. Instead of, you know, training new doctors or fast tracking those already in med school, or paying off their student loan debt.
96points
#3
I gotta go with Nanni for buying that sub-standard copper from Ea-nāṣir bank in the 1700s BCE. Just a terrible decision all around, from what I've read.
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95points
#5
UK voting for Brexit. This has cost billions already in lost GDP with the eventual figure likely in the 100s of billions as it impact compounds in the decades to come.
Collective madness.
Collective madness.
86points
#6
Quantatitive easing, and the banking bailout.
We’ve created a system where businesses can be ‘too big to fail’ and they can expect a bailout when they get into trouble, but when times are good all the profits go to the shareholders. So we’ve privatised profit, and socialised risk. This means we’ve effectively rigged the game for capitalism, making a system where market forces are no longer fully in play, and creating zombie companies that should have folded a long time ago.
We’ve created a system where businesses can be ‘too big to fail’ and they can expect a bailout when they get into trouble, but when times are good all the profits go to the shareholders. So we’ve privatised profit, and socialised risk. This means we’ve effectively rigged the game for capitalism, making a system where market forces are no longer fully in play, and creating zombie companies that should have folded a long time ago.
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80points
#7
Me forgetting to turn off the lights, according to my dad.
71points
#8
Trump's $1.7 trillion gift to the wealthiest of the wealthy. Everyone in the US is paying $5,000 of their taxes directly to them. Call me crazy but I think we should claw it back.
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65points
#9
The Swedish ship Vasa.
The Vasa was built in the 1620s to take advantage of the very newest in warship technology, a second row of guns. It was to be a symbol of Sweden's might, and thus was decorated with beautiful statues and carvings. This ship took three years to build and cost roughly 5% of Sweden's GDP.
Unfortunately, the effect of a second row of cannons on seaworthiness was poorly understood. With great fanfare, the ship set off, experienced its first breeze, and still within full view of the city of Stockholm, capsized and sank.
The Vasa was built in the 1620s to take advantage of the very newest in warship technology, a second row of guns. It was to be a symbol of Sweden's might, and thus was decorated with beautiful statues and carvings. This ship took three years to build and cost roughly 5% of Sweden's GDP.
Unfortunately, the effect of a second row of cannons on seaworthiness was poorly understood. With great fanfare, the ship set off, experienced its first breeze, and still within full view of the city of Stockholm, capsized and sank.
61points
#10
Capitalist agriculture and food distribution. Like every second potato is thrown away, milk is overproduced and thrown away, cow hides are destroyed rather than tanned for leather to keep leather prices stable, insecticides and herbicides to maintain massive monocrops killing pollinators and low key poisoning us instead of higher total mass yield less intensive multi cropping, like keeping pigs on an apple orchard to eat the fallen apples where the apple eating beetles lay their eggs to k**l off a pest instead of spraying... oh no but instead we feed the pigs unsold grocery store stuff, all ground up, the packaging left on rather than paying people to take it off first. So much for labor efficiency, thanks capitalist goons. Restaurants not sending their best either, it's waste cruelty and exploitation all around the chain and the cost is incalculably high.
61points
#11
Most of Dubai's Artificial islands.
58points
#12
The Vietnam War at $176 billion. Countless dead for no reason, and nothing positive came of it.
58points
#13
War on dr*gs, an impossible battle.
Ok_Turnover_1235:
Trillions of dollars later and h*roin is 50x cheaper and 10x more potent.
Ok_Turnover_1235:
Trillions of dollars later and h*roin is 50x cheaper and 10x more potent.
57points
#15
Can’t believe nobody has mentioned world war 1..
Literally all of the world’s most wealthy nations completely financially ruining themselves and slaughtering a large proportion of their young men and all of the historical consequences that followed over essentially nothing and achieving nothing except for a massive geopolitical regression with costs which we are arguably still reeling from today.
Literally all of the world’s most wealthy nations completely financially ruining themselves and slaughtering a large proportion of their young men and all of the historical consequences that followed over essentially nothing and achieving nothing except for a massive geopolitical regression with costs which we are arguably still reeling from today.
53points
#16
Everyone here has better answers but I've gotta mention Twitter. What an absolutely idiotic way to buy a company. Acquire because someone told you you can't, fire 80% of the staff, abolish the branding completely, remove mod support, offer worthless utilities that used to be free as part of a "premium service," then force push notifications to every single user that are really just your personal tweets, and when people still won't listen to you masquerade as an anonymous user on your own app/company, artificially inflate your own follower count, and be your own biggest supporter.
52points
#17
The banana with duct tape.
51points
#18
Got to be that person who bought the first ever tweet as an NFT, purchased for $2.9million, now worth about $4.
45points
#19
When Covid was in full swing and the entire trading market crashed then the federal reserve tried to “stimulate” and “save” our overlord corporate scum by injecting 3 trillion dollars into the stock market just for it to immediately crash again like 2 minutes later.
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41points
#20
The Iraq War (2003-2011): Regarding the cost, Estimates vary, but it's in the trillions of dollars, with some sources suggesting around $3 trillion when including long-term healthcare for veterans, interest on borrowed money, etc.
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37points