I need a new frame of reference (and your opinion)

[unhappycamper]

I've been looking for an easily understood and remembered way to think of how much a billion dollars is. A billion dollars is a shitload of money; it's a one followed by nine zeros: $1,000,000,000.

How many $25,000 jobs can you 'buy' with a billion dollars? $1,000,000,000 / 25,000 = 40,000. So one billion dollars can 'buy' 40,000 $25,000 jobs.

Let's give this a try with some big ticket items.

Here's a $35 billion dollar program that should be rethought: http://www.democraticunderground.com/11783348
35 x 40,000 = 1,400,000
Thirty five billion dollars = 1.4 million ($25k) jobs.

One more: We just floated our newest destroyer, the USS Zumwalt. The cost for this bad boy is $5.6 billion dollars or 7,840,000 ($25k) jobs.

Comments?

Thanks,
unhappycamper

[Sherman A1]

1. A couple of thoughts here

First, one wonders what was wrong with the P3 Orion and why it simply could not be upgraded with a new sensor suite or more efficient power plants or airframes replaced as needed? The aircraft was certainly well tested and able to do the job. But, then it wouldn't be a pretty new jet plane.

Secondly and understand no criticism here, I completely agree with the theme of your post(s) in that this is just another waste of money to the MIC. $25K jobs are a pretty low threshold and doesn't represent a living wage.

[lastlib]

12. it's an easy number to do the math with.....

since it divides evenly into a billion. Perhaps 50,000 would work, but only gives you half the number. Or maybe we could do $10,000 for food stamps?

[Sherman A1]

13. Granted it is

And it's just a number.

[panader0]

14. 25 grand is a lot more than I make....

[orpupilofnature57]

2. This.

https://www.google.com/search?q=us+economy+pie+chart&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=NzrqUr3eJcefkQe-2ICQCw&sqi=2&ved=0CCQQsAQ&biw=1285&bih=753#facrc=_&imgdii=_&imgrc=1hg_jnNPZ5n8QM%253A%3B_tk7wsw7ilKCcM%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ftheiwt.com%252Fwp-content%252Fuploads%252F2011%252F03%252FFederalBudgetPieChart.jpg%3Bhttp%253A%252F%252Ftheiwt.com%252F2011%252F03%252F21%252Fpie-chart-1%252F%3B360%3B360

[unhappycamper]

3. I've been using the 2914 discretionary budget pie chart

But the problem is normal people really have a hard time relating to a billion of anything.

[RC]

17. I would like to see the equivalent pie charts for Canada, United Kingdom, and various European

and Scandinavian countries. And include China and Russia too. That would be telling about how much out of whack this county's priories are.

OK, how about this?


Or this:



World Military Spending
http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending#InContextUSMilitarySpendingVersusRestoftheWorld

[orpupilofnature57]

25. I fumbled around, You got it !!

[jtuck004]

4. 7,84 million jobs. Walmart has about 2ish million employees, so nearly 4 entire Walmart Corps. n/t

[Martin Eden]

5. 20,000 Teachers @50k/year

USS Zumwalt = 112,000 teachers.

[caraher]

6. Arithmetic mistake

Your Zumwalt example is way off - that should be 224,000 jobs (5.6 billion/25,000 = 224,000)

And realistically, a $25,000 job worth having (i.e. with benefits) costs an employer a significant amount more than $25k

But in the other direction, not directing federal taxes into money pits like unneeded weapons can produce more jobs than you might calculate by dividing a program cost by the wages an employer may pay. After all, an employer will make more money than they pay a worker (otherwise they'd hire fewer people).

[JHB]

7. I've informally used something I've dubbed "the BMI index"...

..."Better than Median Income", which is pretty much what you're doing except in increments of $50,000 (better than personal median income. Household median is a little over that, but not by enough to quibble over what is, essentially, a rule of thumb).

As in: "Cindy McCain's earrings have a BMI of 5. Five years of mere-mortal income for a pair of baubles."

[another_liberal]

8. It will cost a million dollars each to keep our troops in Afghanistan until 2015.

We have thirty thousand troops there. That equals thirty billion dollars, or one million two hundred thousand $25,000 jobs.

[ReRe]

9. Seems like a good math exercise, but...

... $25,000/yr job is not a living wage. Why not jack that figure up to at least $50,000/yr?

For the $35 billion, you could only get 700,000 ($50,000 jobs).

So, how many do we have unemployed at this time? Let's say 5 million.

(5 million jobs x $50,000) = $250 billion

Where's that $250 billion bubble going to come from?

Keep in mind that the jobs would need to be secure jobs that would last, or we would end up in the same mess in the future with millions unemployed.

[anasv]

10. OP is wrong on the jobs count

The average job costs the employer 2-3 times the salary - the employer's tax for Social Security, insurance premiums for mandatory workers' comp, HR, healthcare if that's provided, space, furniture, computers, lighting, heat, etc.

[mazzarro]

16. Can you, please, provide a source to validate your claim? - n/t

[Scuba]

19. No, not 2-3 times. Many employers use 30% of salary for benefits.

Plant, computers, etc. are not employee costs.

[Augiedog]

11. Perhaps

One billion dollars produces at least one billionaire who thinks he is a victim of a holocaust like onslaught by the progressive element of America. Poor him, who could have imagined that a billion dollars could bring such angst to such an admirable example of humanity. Maybe he can sign up for Obamacare and get counseling before his delusion of victimization overwhelms his clearly rational life.

[DeSwiss]

15. Here's how I reference billions......

- The JP Morgan way, in trillions.......

K&R

JP Morgan Chase (JPM)

JP Morgan Chase has a derivative exposure of $70.151 Trillion dollars.
$70 Trillion is roughly the size of the entire world's economy.
The $1 Trillion dollar towers are double-stacked @ 930 feet (248 m).

JP Morgan is rumored to hold 50->80% of the copper market, and manipulated the market by massive purchases. JP Morgan (JPM) is also guilty of manipulating the silver market to make billions. In 2010 JP Morgan had 3 perfect trading quarters and only lost money on 8 days. Lawsuits on home foreclosures have been filed against JP Morgan. Aluminum price is manipulated by JP Morgan through large physical ownership of material and creating bottlenecks during transport. JP Morgan was among the banks involved in the seizure of $620 million in assets for alleged fraud linked to derivatives. JP Morgan got $25 billion taxpayer in bailout money. It has no intention of using the money to lend to customers, but instead will use it to drive out competition. The bank is also the largest owner of BP - the oil spill company. During the oil spill the bank said that the oil spill is good for the economy.

JP Morgan Chase also received a SECRET $391 billion dollar bailout from the Federal Reserve.

In 2012, JP Morgan (JPM) took a $2 billion loss on "Poorly Executed" Derivative Bets.

MORE

[toby jo]

18. Corporate mafia.

[Blanks]

22. That's a good link...

A keeper - deserving of its own thread. Has a thread been started with a discussion of that link?

[DeSwiss]

24. I've posted the link previously......

...in reference to JP Morgan threads but not as a thread subject itself.

- Be my guest!

[CrispyQ]

20. What a trillion dollars looks like.

http://www.pagetutor.com/trillion/index.html

[Sentath]

21. That one is good

I like this one too http://xkcd.com/980/

[CrispyQ]

23. That was fascinating.

Thanks for posting.