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“Purchased For $2.9 Million, Now Worth About $4”: 30 Examples Of The Biggest Wastes Of Money
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.
This post may include affiliate links.
#1
4 trillion dollars to replace the Taliban with the Taliban gotta be up there.
RELATED:
#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.
#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.
#4
Tax breaks for the rich.
#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.
#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.
#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.
#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.
#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.
Verena 10 months ago
Food waste, from animals bred to end up in the dump to giant monocultures destroying ecosystems, is a crime. It always is paired with overproduction, poisoning nature and animal cruelty. It is a war we as consumers fight against ourselves. Most consumers can achieve a change, by slightly changing shopping habits. There is no general recipe, everybody has to make individual choices. And voting for a club of oligarchs is not helping.
#11
Most of Dubai's Artificial islands.
#12
The Vietnam War at $176 billion. Countless dead for no reason, and nothing positive came of it.
Nils Skirnir 10 months ago
In today’s money about 2 trillion, w/o considering NPV. Of course still less than the Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syrian escapades.
#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.
Forrest Hobbs 10 months ago (edited)
That "war on d***s" that started in, ooh, about the early 1970s, what's it achieved? More illegal d***s, more potent illegal d***s, more dangerous illegal d***s, more harm from illegal d***s. And much greater profits for those at the top of the illegal d**g supply chain. A cynic might conclude that some of those able to influence policy are profiting from this arrangement...
#14
Scientology.
Sven Horlemann 10 months ago
First, it is no religion. They said they are a religion for tax reasons - not paying tax, that is. Secondly, I just saw a video from 2 ex-scientologist, highest level (one the niece of the current leader), and they say there are about 15 - 20 thousand (!) scientologists in the world. Not the millions they claim.
#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.
Nicole Weymann 10 months ago
"But it won't be wasted when we WIN!" /S Plus there's a number of industrialists who got pretty wealthy from aiding and abetting in the slaughter. What's a few million corpses if YOU got rich, or firmly established your dominance over your peers? Of course it was worth it!! /S
#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.
#17
The banana with duct tape.
#18
Got to be that person who bought the first ever tweet as an NFT, purchased for $2.9million, now worth about $4.
ॐBoyGanesh 10 months ago
I was skeptical of the few friends who were raving about crypto, but they seemed to fair ok by getting in early & out quickly. However, with the two who raved about NFTs my opinions on them took a dive & my perspective of who they were had a major shift for the worse. The concept was well thought out, but people ignored the obvious long term flaws of this type of virtual commodity and I just felt they lacked good judgement.
#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.
#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.
General Anaesthesia 10 months ago
"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learnin'?" - US President GW Bush, 2000
#21
When the US government bailed out Goldman Sachs after Goldman Sachs bought AIGs failing bonds at pennys on the dollar, fully knowing they would fail, and getting bailed out by ex Goldman Sachs Ben Bernanke at full face value of the bonds. Biggest robbery of the American Taxpayer and largest waste of money in history.
Colin Powell’s lie about weapons of mass destruction and the resulting War on Terror is also up there. But to be fair the US had to respond to 911 physically. Was just so overblown
Nicole Weymann 10 months ago
"had to respond to 911 physically": yeah, right, gotta go find someone to beat up in revenge. Just try and make sure to get the right guys to set an example. "Right" as in "small enough not to make problems", of course - as opposed to "the ones actually responsible". Still effed up on both counts anyway.
#22
Indulgences. As in the Free Pass given for sins during the Crusades. You could literally buy God's forgiveness for sins past or future.
I'm no accountant but I'm pretty sure that's a waste of money!
#23
Stonehenge.
The whole thing was supposed to be 18 inches tall, but the work crew misread the runes.
#24
New Zealand spent about 25 million dollars (NZD) on a flag referendum, before it started the public were against it saying we would never change the flag, the government persisted anyway, two years later the public voted to keep our current flag, so we did 😅 massive f**king waste of time and money for a result they should have been expecting from the very beginning.
#25
King Louis IX spent something like the entire GDP worth of France on religious relics such as a piece of the True Cross. A sliver of wood said to have been from the cross that Jesus was crucified on. It doesn't take a genius to see it was a fake now.
Annik Perrot 10 months ago
The relics market was a really big thing at the time. Possessing one was a sign of power, and à source of wealth since pilgrims would come by thousands to see it.
#26
Those guys who bought tickets to the titanic sub.
Peter Parker 10 months ago (edited)
Judging by the amount of time they are spending down there, I'd say it was money well spent.
#27
Insurance.
I can't believe this isn't near the top right now with the CEO and the fires.
Verena 10 months ago
Insurance is a bet on misfortune happening to you. Back in the day, people understood that if everybody chips in, hardship of a few could be covered, by this stabilizing the community. Due to today a lot of people swoon and adore the rich and famous, a few people learned how to get rich with that. If you hate the rich, stop making them rich.
#28
Nuclear weapons - 5600 BILLION US dollars
To create a weapon, that is designed not to be used, but instead to create a scenario (mutually assured destruction) so they are never used.
#29
There was no other human project that was of a greater magnitude than the Reality Labs @ Meta. For reference it cost is comparable to the core part of the Apollo Project so far and it is only the beginning. Total cost of Meta's Metaverse exceeded $100B in 2023. No other single project comes close to this. (and its s**t)
Capital Expenditure each year:
2018: $13.92B
2019: $15.65B
2020: $15.72B
2021: $19.24B
2022: $32B
2023: $28.1B
2024: ??? (expect significant reduction)
EDIT:
Fixed the inflation adjustment as correctly pointed in comments. In today's dollars, Apollo program main development was ~$150B, with ~$300B for all auxiliary projects included. Keep in mind, Metaverse is shutting down in its INFANCY after ~$140B devoted to it. Nothing has been fundamentally accomplished other than a multiplayer Sims4 ripoff. Apollo program landed a man on the moon within $180B employing about 400k people pushing the boundary of the technology in electronics, transmissions, material science, propulsion etc. that we inherited as a society.
robert copher 10 months ago
Good, let ALL of Meta fail please. It has added nothing of value to society
#30
The CIA putting a microphone into a cat to spy on commies only for that cat to get hit by a car, I think it was like 6 million dollars and countless years of preparation and training only to be lost under some tires.
#31
Australia's emu war 💀
#32
I'm scrolling long enough, but I never once saw the CIA trying to spy on "friends of Dorothy".
Background: a "friend of Dorothy" was a mid century slang for gay people. CIA thought this slang refers to some random woman who organises drag shows and riots. Many tried to infiltrate the gay community in order to her to this woman. In reality, many queer people had strong affinity to Wizard of Oz movie.
#33
The Great Wall of Gorgan, built by the ancient Sasanian Empire in modern-day Iran. The purpose was to protect themselves from Nomadic invadors.
It was constructed with 100 million man-days of labor, which is equivalent to around 300,000 workers toiling for five years straight.
Considering the average labor cost, material expenses, and other related expenditures, the total cost of the project could have reached an astronomical sum of approximately $130 billion in today's dollars!
Needless to say, that it failed its intended purpose as Huns devised techniques to overcome the wall without much hassle.
Roberta Schrote 10 months ago
I think the Maginot Line in France had the same kind of short-sighted thinking (and cost)
#34
I’d have to say that gym membership I didn’t cancel until 8 years after I moved away.
#35
consider the palace of versailles - louis xiv’s gleaming monument to absolute power. fourteen billion livres poured into marble halls and mirrored galleries, while france’s peasants starved in their millions. but the true waste wasn’t in the gold leaf or the fountains. it was in the way versailles transformed human nature itself into an ornate game of appearances.
the nobility bankrupted themselves maintaining the elaborate fiction of their own importance, spending fortunes on the right clothes, the right apartments, the right to watch the king wake up each morning. they abandoned their estates to crowd into tiny rooms, competing for the hollow prize of royal attention. entire bloodlines extinct now, having spent their last coins on silk stockings and powder for their wigs.
what makes it devastating isn’t the money - it’s how versailles became a machine for converting human dignity into spectacle. aristocrats who once governed provinces reduced to obsessing over who could hand the king his shirt at morning dress. a system so perfectly designed to waste not just wealth, but the very essence of human potential.
even the king himself became trapped in the apparatus of his own glory, every moment of his life transformed into theater. fourteen hours a day performing the role of the sun king, until even he couldn’t tell where the performance ended and the man began. an entire civilization pouring its resources into an elaborate performance of power, while beneath the gilt and gardens, the foundations of their world rotted away.
the halls still stand, of course. tourists shuffle through them now, phones raised to capture the excess. but what they’re really looking at is one of history’s most exquisite machines for wasting not just money, but humanity itself.
#36
The Vatican.
Lyone Fein 10 months ago
Actually the Vatican has been a great investment. Think about how little they had when they started the whole Catholicism thing back in 314. Look at how much they've amassed since then. I'd say the return on the initial cost has been outstanding.
#37
Internet in Australia.
Back in the 2000s, An outgoing Labor Government preposed an ~30 Billion dollar, Fibre To The Premise Nationwide Broadband Network Internet plan promising speeds of up to 100Mbit/s. The incoming Coalition Government, promised a cheaper Fibre To The Node Broadband network that utilised the already installed copper wiring for just under $950 million... And now because of that, the internet in Australia is just barely becoming able to reach speeds on 1000Mbit/s, after a revision to the planned rollout which has cost the Australian Government over 70 billion dollar.
#38
AOL merger with Time Warner.
robert copher 10 months ago
Wasted potential, AOL at the time was an internet power house. But because the CEOs were dusty old farts they didn't what to do with it. Now AOL is another Blockbuster
#39
Politicians spending hours of taxpayer-funded time on oral mass-debation speeches to promote themselves when they already know how they will vote on things, plus the time spent on researching and speech writing.
Michael Largey 10 months ago
Sometimes they don't know in advance how they're going to vote because the rich haven't told them yet.
#40
Panama canal first attempt. The French didn't understand what they we're getting themselves into and death from mosquitoes killed off too many that the project had to be abandoned.
Nicole Weymann 10 months ago (edited)
The French, in particular Ferdinand de Lesseps, who had already been successful with the Suez canal, messed up massively. According to Wikipedia (yes, I know, but I was not curious enough to REALLY invest time and money) he visited the site three times, always during dry season, and based his planning on these three months' weather conditions. Anyone living in a wet/dry season part of the world may be able to guess how that played out during torrential downpours some months later. The setbacks were hushed up with massive bribes being paid towards politicians, journalists, and news companies to keep investors and public in the dark, and attract more workers. The mosquitoes themselves, while nasty, were only the top of a cake of mismanagement, bad planning, technical problems, epidemic malaria and yellow fever infections (moskitoes as vectors), decorated with landslides, crocodiles, snakes, and other climate/terrain related problems that come with working in tropical swamps. An average of 7.5 workers died per day (altogether 22000) between 1881 and 1889.
#42
The Victorian government here in Australia gave up on hosting the Commonwealth games, they spent $589 million dollars for nothing.
Ripley 10 months ago
But how much more would it have cost if they went ahead? My understanding is that Victoria is seriously broke, and just couldn't afford it by the time the rubber hit the road. To keep going would have entered into sunk-cost fallacy territory. And it's the Comm Games - no one cares, not even the Commonwealth countries.
#43
Probably that Dutch guy who spent money buying tulips in 1636.
ThreadbareAdjustment:
Basically a massive inflation in the price of tulip bulbs in 17th century Netherlands. It's considered the first speculative bubble in history.
A misconception is people were paying so much for the tulip bulbs themselves though. They were actually buying contracts to get one when they bloomed later which only happened a few months a year. So someone would buy a contract on one in hopes of making a profit reselling it...and the price eventually hit ten times what an average laborer would make in a year before the bubble burst completely after about three years.
#44
I cant believe no one has mentioned the failed seige of Rhodes in 305-304.
Long story short, Demetrius I, King of Macedon, was afraid of Rhodes naval power and their potential alliance with Egypt. Demetrius decides he's going to attack Rhodes, but to do so, he's going to need massive machines of war. With Alexander the great's innovations, Demetrius bolstered and scaled them up. (This guy was known as the "Besieger" for his skill in siege warfare)
Demetrius invents and has the Helepolis built, a massive rolling tower on wheels.
The Helepolis was a great siege tower, 130 feet tall and 65 feet wide. It sat on eight wheels and casters so it could be moved forward and back and laterally as well. It had multiple stories connected by sturdy stairs, one for ascending and one for descending. Its sides were iron plated for fireproofing and had portals that opened when the catapults fired. The Helepolis weighed 160 tons and required hundreds of men to move it via the capstan and belt drive and thousands more to push it from behind.
The Helepolis contained a variety of armaments on each of its nine floors. Two 180 pound catapults and one 60 pounder were on the first floor. The catapults were categorized by the weight of the missile it threw. Three 60 pounders were on the second floor and two 30 pounders on each floor above that. The top two floors contained men armed with bows and dart throwers for killing defenders on the city walls. The tower’s ironclad, mechanically-adjusted apertures were lined with animal skins, wool and seaweed to make them fireproof. The Helepolis was the largest siege tower of its time.
When Demetrius brought the Helepolis to bear, the Rhodians knocked a hole through their own wall under cover of night where they expected the Helepolis to attack. They then flooded the entire area with water and sewage so when the massive tower was moved up the next morning it became deeply mired in the mud.
Ultimately, the siege failed and Demetrius left Rhodes, leaving behind all of his siege engines. Years later, the Rhodians sold the remains of those siege engines, including the Helepolis, which earned them enough money to build one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, the Colossus of Rhodes.
#45
My degree.
Verena 10 months ago
Why? Too less information here. At a age of mid-50s, I can assure everybody that no degree is wasted. The vast majority of my colleagues and friends, between mid-40 and 60, do not work in a job that is immediately connected to their degree. The reasons are various, but all took parts of their education and training and recycled it to work happily and successfully in a different field. Job opportunities sometimes require moving, sometimes even to a different country, and learning languages. If dead poor people can change their life by crossing deserts and mountain ranges on foot, and oceans on wonky boats, with the risk of losing their life and are hated for it - it is possible for those with a valid passport and access to dead cheap flights to find a well paid job, too.
#46
Ford Motor Company spent $250 million dollars on the Edsel, only for the brand to be an unmitigated failure. That's $250 million in 1958 money. Adjusted for inflation, that's $2.6 billion today.
Warren Peece 10 months ago
Some people love Edsels now. My uncle has one that he spent years restoring. He is a member of the Edsel Owners Club and takes his car to their annual convention every year.
#47
Cleveland Browns paying $250 million for Deshaun Watson.
Brotonio:
So, storytime for non-Americans who don't know who Deshaun Watson is and why that number is so awful:
The Cleveland Browns have long been one of the worst teams in the NFL. Several years, they finally made it back to the playoffs, thanks to the effort of one Baker Mayfield, another quarterback.
However, Browns front office for some dumbass reason didn't want to retain Mayfield, and so decided to spend a $230-250 million dollar contract on Deshaun Watson, as well as include several draft picks in that trade. At the time, Watson had been a quarterback for the Houston Texans, and in his prime was seen as a generational talent who could take a good team a Super Bowl.
AT THE SAME TIME, allegations of sexual assault were springing up against Watson, totaling 20+ women. It doesn't matter if he was the best QB in history, that's awful PR and pissed off the entire NFL fanbase. Still, the Browns paid for him.
Cut forward to 2025, and Baker Mayfield was able to make it to the playoffs with his new team Tampa Bay Bucaneers (even though they just lost), and Deshaun Watson has played F**KING AWFUL FOOTBALL.
He's genuinely one of the worst quarterbacks out there, had been suspended for 11 games due to the allegations, and taken numerous major injuries since getting signed (his most recent one tearing his ACL, which knocks you out for the season.)
Before the Watson trade, the Browns were seen as a team people pitied, because it felt like they could never catch a break each and every year. Now, they are a reviled fanbase, and I don't see their reputation ever recovering until every single person involved with that trade is fired and out of the organization.
TL:DR: The Cleveland Browns replaced their already good quarterback Baker Mayfield with an alleged rapist in Deshaun Watson for millions of GUARANTEED dollars, only for that QB to be absolute ass.
Small edit/ addition: His contract is FULLY GUARANTEED. The only way for the Browns to void it is if he either medically retires, or he's convicted/ accused of another sexual crime OUTSIDE of the 20+ they knew about before he was signed.
Panda McPandaface 10 months ago (edited)
I think I can possibly speak for a lot of the non-Americans here when I say that we really, really don't care.about the money. The SAs are a different matter.
#48
When Mobutu decided to print Zaire money, but the cost of print turned out more expensive than the total worth of the printed money.
#49
Not the dumbest but a personal favorite of mine.
The US military spent hundreds of millions developing the XM-29 rifle. It was basically a grenade launcher with some extra bells and whistles. They wanted it to replace the M-16 so every grunt would be carrying one.
In a shockingly unshocking turn of events, that's a freaking war crime. 300+ million dollars later and a single Google search could've prevented it.
#50
Jeff Bezos' $42M clock that will allegedly run for 10,000 years.
Michael Largey 10 months ago
10,000 years is also the time interval between bathroom breaks granted at Amazon warehouses.
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What do you think ?
Nils Skirnir 10 months ago
The trillions we spend every year to make entertainers, sports figures, gamblers, Las Vegas, billionaires, politicians, etc even wealthier
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
Agreed. No sportsman is worth in a week what I earned in a lifetime (and I was well above average salary).
Load More Replies...
Mook The Mediocre 10 months ago (edited)
"war on d***s" How bloody pathetic is that Puritanical kneejerk censorship? You should be ashamed that you can't use perfectly normal words in your posts. And later you censor the words "kill" and "heroin." Who is moderating these posts - a geriatric nun? It's absurd, and making me leave the Panda behind as a spineless puddle of weak-willed froth.
Jonathan English 10 months ago
Irish government spent €330,000 on a bike shelter for 18 bikes. €330,000 euro on a f*****g bike shed
Nils Skirnir 10 months ago
The trillions we spend every year to make entertainers, sports figures, gamblers, Las Vegas, billionaires, politicians, etc even wealthier
Apatheist Account2 10 months ago
Agreed. No sportsman is worth in a week what I earned in a lifetime (and I was well above average salary).
Load More Replies... Mook The Mediocre 10 months ago (edited)
"war on d***s" How bloody pathetic is that Puritanical kneejerk censorship? You should be ashamed that you can't use perfectly normal words in your posts. And later you censor the words "kill" and "heroin." Who is moderating these posts - a geriatric nun? It's absurd, and making me leave the Panda behind as a spineless puddle of weak-willed froth.
Jonathan English 10 months ago
Irish government spent €330,000 on a bike shelter for 18 bikes. €330,000 euro on a f*****g bike shed
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