The $ Cost of 9/11

By Barry Ritholtz

I try to avoid getting caught up in the 9/11 retrospective hype. I’ve already had my say (A Personal Recollection From a Day of Horror (September 12th, 2001).

Meanwhile, here is the NYT’s infographic of the numbers:

Al Qaeda spent roughly half a million dollars to destroy the World Trade Center and cripple the Pentagon. What has been the cost to the United States? In a survey of estimates by The New York Times, the answer is $3.3 trillion, or about $7 million for every dollar Al Qaeda spent planning and executing the attacks. While not all of the costs have been borne by the government — and some are still to come — this total equals one-fifth of the current national debt.

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Click for interactive data:

Source: 9/11 : The Reckoning
NYT, September 8, 2011