That’s an important question to ask, because if you think about what advertising is: it’s about influencing. Businesses, big and small, influencing consumer behaviour so they make more money.

Outsell Inc. recently published a report putting out some numbers. Estimated budget  for advertising and marketing in the USA 2008: $412,400,000,000 (yep, about 412 billion dollar).

To put things in perspective: The Iraq war so far costs the USA: $558 billion according to zfacts.com.

The USA spends about $2 billion a  year for international food aid (but only one third of that is actually being spend on food, the rest is paid for shipping services and other stuff).