- The cost of the American Revolutionary War was $130 million spread over 7 years.I dunno about that last one... inflation, maybe?- The cost of the War of 1812 was $107 million spread over 2.5 years.
- The cost of the Mexican War was $74 million spread over 2 years.
- The cost of production of Peter Jackson's The Lord of the Rings trilogy was $270 million spread over 4 years.
- The cost of building Hoover Dam, with an estimated life span of a thousand years give or take, was $170 million spread over 5 years.
- The cost of digging the Panama Canal was $639 million spread over 34 years.
- The cost of constructing the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel – 17.5 miles long – was $200 million spread over 2.5 years.
- The cost of the Manhattan Project's results – considered by some to be the greatest technological leap within the shortest span of time in history – was $2 billion spread over 3 years.
- The cost of one F-117 stealth fighter, with an estimated lifespan of 20 years, is $45 million.
- The cost of one SR-71 Blackbird, last built three decades ago and first flown in 1964, was $35 million (and it's STILL flying).
- The cost of the Louisiana Purchase, which in 1803 doubled the then-current size of the United States, was $15 million spread over approximately 900,000 square miles.
- The combined cost of the Statue of Liberty and its base – with costs shared by the United States and France – from the time construction began until it was dedicated in 1886, was $530,000 spread over 12 years.
- The cost of the Apollo 11 mission that put the first man on the moon – culminating just more than eight years' effort beginning after President Kennedy challenged America to pull it off in less than a decade – was $355 million spread across 8 days of mission time.
- The cost of appropriations for the Interstate Highway System, per the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1954, was $175 million spread across 46,000 miles.
- The cost of the space probe Pioneer 10, launched in 1972 with a theoretical lifespan of 2 years, was $100 million, currently spread across 33 years and more than 7.6 billion miles (now on trajectory through the Kuiper belt toward the Sun's heliopause en route to the star Aldebaran in constellation Taurus. ETA: 2 million years).
- The cost of building and outfitting the HMS Titanic was $7.5 million spread over 3 years (including 4 days of actual sailing time).
- The cost of James Cameron making a movie about the HMS Titanic was $200 million spread over 3 years (including 4 days using the actual, original script).
- The cost of Alaska, as negotiated between President Andrew Johnson and the Russian government, was $7.5 million spread over nearly 590,000 square miles.
- The cost of the Georgia Dome, boasting almost 400,000 square feet beneath the world's largest cable-supported fabric roof, cost $214 million spread over 2 years.
- The cost of the "Spruce Goose", the largest airplane ever built, from time that Howard Hughes was awarded the contract until completion was $23 million spread across 6 years (culminating in a single flight of a few hundred feet).
- The cost of the Sears Tower, formerly the world's tallest building for 22 years, from point construction started in 1970 was $150 million spread over 3 years.
- The cost of building the Golden Gate Bridge, from time construction began until opening in 1937, was $27 million spread across 4 years.
- The cost of building the World Trade Center, from time construction began in 1966 until final work ended, was $350 million spread across 11 years.
- The cost of George Washington putting his hand on a Bible and repeating an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States was $0 spread across two inaugurations.
- The cost of George W. Bush putting his hand on a Bible and repeating an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States is currently projected to be more than $140 million spread across 1 day.
Tuesday, January 18, 2005
Don't worry, it's only money. Yours, mostly.
Well, let's see what we've gotten so far and what we'll be getting soon...
11 comments:
"The cost of the American Revolutionary War was $130 million spread over 7 years.
- The cost of the War of 1812 was $107 million spread over 2.5 years.
- The cost of the Mexican War was $74 million spread over 2 years."
What is that in todays dollars?
"I dunno about that last one... inflation, maybe?"
Yeah. Inflation of an exaggeration.
Maybe you can enlighten me then: how in the world does putting one's right hand on an open Bible cost $140 million?
"Maybe you can enlighten me then: how in the world does putting one's right hand on an open Bible cost $140 million?"
Maybe you should prove that it is costing 140 million first.
"Lawmakers representing the Washington area have complained to the White House about the District of Columbia not getting enough federal help to cover the city's portion of the inaugural security costs, estimated at $17.3 million."
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/ap/20050114/ap_on_an/inaugural_price_tag
"D.C. Mayor Anthony Williams has estimated it will cost the district $17.3 million to help pay for security at the first post-Sept. 11 inauguration, which includes 6,000 law officers and 2,500 military personnel to guard the 250,000 people at the swearing-in and the half-million expected to line the parade route."
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050113/w011304.html
But here's a real cost that comes with every inauguration day: A Federal Holiday for all Federal Workers in Washington. 66 million dollars.
"Inauguration day, with its street closings and heightened security, will also be a holiday for federal workers in the Washington area. That, according to the Office of Personnel Management, costs taxpayers an estimated $66 million."
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050113/w011304.html
Now if the inaugural party didnt take place, if the parade and swearing in ceremony was all called off, all of it, those federal workers would still get their day off and that would still cost the taxpayers 66 million. So it would be unfair to blame Bush for that cost of the "inaugural"
"Federal employees who work in the District, Montgomery, Prince George's, Fairfax and Arlington counties, Alexandria and Falls Church are entitled to a holiday on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, the Office of Personnel Management has announced. As of June, the cost of giving federal workers in the capital area a day off was about $66 million."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63896-2005Jan10.html
"Inauguration Day, January 20, 2001, falls on a Saturday. An employee who works in the District of Columbia, Montgomery or Prince Georges Counties in Maryland, Arlington or Fairfax Counties in Virginia, or the cities of Alexandria or Fairfax in Virginia, and who is regularly scheduled to perform non-overtime work on Inauguration Day, is entitled to a holiday. There is no in-lieu-of holiday for employees who are not regularly scheduled to work on Inauguration Day."
http://www.opm.gov/fedhol/2001.asp
And the first question wasnt answered: What was those costs (revolutionary war for example) in todays dollars.
You know why you buy into such lies? Because your hatred (maybe you don't want to call it "hatred", but it's something close to that) of Bush is clouding your judgement.
Adjusted for today's dollar, the Revolutionary War cost $1.2 billion. Spread over 7 years. Figure that's about $470,000 per day in today's dollars, give or take.
So the money being spend on this one inauguration would have funded approximately 2,980 days of the Continental Army fighting.
You're only citing costs to the District of Columbia, which is footing part of the bill for security. The rest is coming from the public treasury regardless of where you live. The events for the inauguration itself have been described as being anywhere between $40 and now $60 million... but that doesn't figure in the most security for an inauguration ever and $100 million has been the figure I've seen most often cited for how much that alone will cost (but if you think $100 million is a good price to pay for armed escorts to a potty break, you're more than welcome to go and experience it firsthand, friend).
"You know why you buy into such lies? Because your hatred (maybe you don't want to call it "hatred", but it's something close to that) of Bush is clouding your judgement."
"Hate" is such a strong word. It's simply a matter of trust: Bush hasn't done anything to show us that he's worthy of our trust in him. Or our confidence for that matter.
You know why you say such things? Because it's your jealousy of anyone who is stronger than you are, because they AREN'T as gullible or willing to bootlick as you, that leads you to hate them so.
A brownshirt would have looked very nice on you, back in the day.
By the way, it's one thing to hate a man. It's another to have pity on him. Bush is a poor, deluded soul who has never become his own man: he's only let himself be defined as other factors - be it family privilege or drugs and alcohol, and now political power - were willing to make him out to be.
Unfortunately pitying a man can only go so far when his incompetence has cost thousands of lives for no valid reason, is destroying American stability by inviting illegals to flood over our borders, actively erodes the Constitution by ignoring the most basic of the Bill of Rights, nominates full-blown racists and power-mongers for his Cabinet seats (take a looksee at Alberto Gonzalez, you might be surprised at a few things), has proven a capacity for lying to the American people so profound that Bill Clinton now pales in comparison...
Say, while we're at it, why don't YOU give me a reason why I should not only trust Bush, but give him my fullest adoration. What do you see in him that makes him worthy of worship?
"Adjusted for today's dollar, the Revolutionary War cost $1.2 billion"
Sounds little low. 130 million translates into 1.2 billion in todays money? Ten thousand in 1857 translates into one million dollars today. I was thinking the cost of the revolution was more in the tens of billions or even hundreds of billions in todays dollars.
Would you know of any resource, an online calculator perhaps, in which one could see what a dollar, or a million dollars, back then is worth today?
"Say, while we're at it, why don't YOU give me a reason why I should not only trust Bush, but give him my fullest adoration. What do you see in him that makes him worthy of worship?"
Why is it that someone can't defend the man without being accused of outright worshipping him? What do I see in him that makes him worthy of worship? I couldn't tell you. I don't worship him. Yeah, I can see his flaws. I acknowledge them. I agree with you in some of your criticisms (illegal immigration being one example). And yeah, it's true that some people can see no wrong in the man (God knows why), but by the same token it seems that your disdain for him seems to be a little way out there. Comparing him to Hitler, claiming he's a bigger liar than Clinton, etc.
"The events for the inauguration itself have been described as being anywhere between $40 and now $60 million..."
40 million is being taken care of by private donors, for the private party.
"but that doesn't figure in the most security for an inauguration ever and $100 million has been the figure I've seen most often cited"
Just because you've seen it cited doesnt make it true. This 100 million figure is the highest I've heard cited (you're my source) and I'm getting the impression that you choose to cite this figure because it's the highest one you found and as a result, it fits into your anti-Bush prejudice. Had you seen an even higher figure than that, some outrageous sum that couldnt even possibly be true (let's say for example 300 Billion dollars cost for this one inaugural), you would have cited that figure instead of the next lowest figure you have also found: The 100 Million. To your eyes and ears, whatever articles makes Bush sound more worse than he really is, it has to be true.
"A brownshirt would have looked very nice on you, back in the day."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin's_law
You haven't offered up a single bit of evidence that we're talking about an honorable or even Christian man here. All you are doing - all you *can* do - is attack my criticism of him, which his un-Constitutional and even un-American acts have more than warranted.
Neither have you justified why it should cost *anyone* anything, be it $140 million or $14, to swear an oath to uphold the Constitution.
So far as the comparisons to the Nazi mindset goes, I've never seen it more valid in America than it is today. If there's any concession to you (and it's a slight one) I would say that this is NOT something peculiar to the Nazis, but also to Russia under Stalin, the French under Robespierre, and countless other regimes in history. When the state has replaced God. When a mere man receives more adulation than God.
America is simply following their example. I'm not surprised to see this happen: it was inevitable. It always happens to democracies. If you like another concession, it is that Bush is simply the first of many that will be the focus of devotion for the newest incarnation of a religion that stretches from antiquity: Nazism, Stalinism, Maoism (which began with perhaps a dozen people meeting in a classroom and ultimately conquered a billion). Today it's Bushism. Can you, whoever you are, say that you contemplate on God more each day than you do on Bush? Just as the Clinton supporters considered THEIR man before they ever did God? You'd be a fool to be so bold as to admit, even if you give him more homage than he's due, that not just Bush but the office of President is now the high priest of the American religion.
And in a few more years (if we're lucky) it will be something else focused on a person... but ultimately it's Americanism as a religion. Whatever that is supposed to be, it is decidedly NOT Christian, and I choose to have nothing to do with it, or its supplicants.
Since you seem to be one such supplicant, it comes as no comfort to me as a student of history that your kind, however innocuous in nascency, more often than not turn into the ones that operate the ovens, or the guillotines, or the killing fields.
BTW, here's one just for you: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink
And say what one will about Bill Clinton (in two elections he never got my vote) but to lie as he did about his affair with an intern was immoral and unethical... but at least his lies never cost the lives of 1,300-some American soldiers.
To commit to a lie with those results is criminal. To STAY committed to such a lie is insanity.
Looks like other people are seeing Hitler-esque patterns from Bush also:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/article_186.shtml
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