All errors, miscalculations and poor research should be attributed to my advanced age. MC
Green Power, Logic, Morality and Defense Spending
For the $663 Billion we are spending this year on defense, we could build 2,652- 64 MW solar concentrators and produce a total of 169 GigaWatts of electricity. For $663 Billion you could install 82 million roof top photovoltaic panels @ $8000 each. There are 129 million housing units in the US. For $663 Billion you could erect 236,785 wind turbines with a capacity of 473 giga watts. The US annual consumption of electricity is 3.35 TW, wind turbines and solar concentrators would represent 20 percent of the 3.35 TW needed. With other drastic and moderate conservation methods, the 3.35 TW could be substantially reduced.
For $663 Billion could pay a four year college tuition @ $16,000 for 41 million students.
For $663 Billion you could build 1,326 Veterans Administration hospitals @ $500 million each. That works out to 26 new, state of the art hospitals per state.
For $663 Billion you could build 2,882 L.A. Class high schools at $230 Million each. That works out to 57 per state. For Colorado that is almost one per county.
For $663 Billion -16,575 miles of high speed rail line at $40 million per mile. About 331 miles per state.
For $663 Billion 13,260 miles of light rail at $50 Million per mile. For the 50 largest cities in the US, that is 265 miles for each city.
For $663 Billion -29 million Toyota Prius automobiles, representing 10 percent of registered autos in the US saving 37 million gallons per day of the 378 million gallons per day the US consumes. That works out to 13.8 Billion gallons a year or 776 million barrels of oil producing 18 gallons of gasoline per barrel. That represent 128 days of OPEC imports at 5.95 million barrels per day. That $30 Billion is almost 5% of the $667 Billion annual trade deficit or another 1.3 million hybrids built right here in the US.
For $663 Billion -442,000 miles of water pipe.
For $663 Billion -66,300 waste water treatment plants capable of sustaining 45,000 people at $10 Million each. Total capacity 2.983 Billion people. (Half the earth's population)
For $663 Billion -3.07 Million housing units at a median price of $215,000 each
For $663 Billion increasing the entire annual State Department budget, $13.2 Billion, 50 times. The mission of the State Department is peace keeping.
For $663 Billion- 245,555 miles of new interstate highway at $2.7 million per mile. Current size is about 44,000 miles.
For $663 Billion - 221,000 miles of new rail road track at $3 million per mile
For $663 Billion you could feed 363 million impoverished people for a year at $5 per day. There are 963 million malnourished people in the world.
For $663 Billion you could build 1.326 million hybrid buses at $500,000 each. That works out to 26,520 buses per state.
For $663 Billion you can purchase over 66 million top of the line, street legal golf carts at $10,000 each. 1.326 million for each of America's top 50 cities or all 50 states.
For $663 Billion -2,833 Minneapolis I-35 Bridges at $234 Million each. 56 new bridges for every state in the union.
For $663 Billion- 697 Sears Towers at $950 million each. That is 13 for every state in the union.
For $663 Billion- 110 million water wells 500 feet deep at $12 a foot ($6000 each). Enough to supply a well for every nine people in Africa. Total population one billion people.
(Not sure where I am going with this one)The annual profit for Lockheed Martin in 2009, $32.665 Billion. Lockheed employs 140,000 people and represents 5% of the defense budget. Assuming that 140,000 employees represent 5% of the civilian defense labor force, that total would be 2.8 million and would represent almost 2% of the total US labor force. The total US labor force is 154 million. All things considered Ford Motor Company has twice the employees as Lockheed, three times the sales and a negative profit. I suspect Ford represents a capitalist enterprise and Lockheed is a government supported, monopolistic enterprise.
Last, even though the list could be endless, $663 Billion a year is $2,195 annually for every man, woman and child in the US. For a family of four that amounts to an extra $731 a month. Enough to raise the standard of living substantially.
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It is not worthwhile to try to keep history from repeating itself, for man's character will always make the preventing of the repetitions impossible.
- Mark Twain in Eruption
"'Since December of 1946 the French have been fighting a war which has been maneuvered by the Communists precisely along the lines which Mao outlined in this pamphlet. You are a military man--you will please excuse my bluntness--but you made every mistake Mao wanted you to. You ignored his every lesson for fighting on this type of terrain. You neglected to get the political and economic cooperation of the Vietnamese, even though Mao proved long ago that Asians will not fight otherwise...'"
The French commander replies: "' If you are suggesting, Ambassador MacWhite, that the nation which produced Napoleon now has to go to a primitive Chinese for military instruction, I can tell you that you are not only making a mistake, you're being insulting.'' From 'The Ugly American'
"America’s military spending in Afghanistan alone next year will now exceed the entire official military budget of every other country in the world..............."
".........For the cost of deploying one soldier for one year, it is possible to build about 20 schools.
NY Times
December 3, 2009
Op-Ed Columnist
Johnson, Gorbachev, Obama
Imagine you’re a villager living in southern Afghanistan.
You’re barely educated, proud of your region’s history of stopping invaders and suspicious of outsiders. Like most of your fellow Pashtuns, you generally dislike the Taliban because many are overzealous, truculent nutcases.
Yet you are even more suspicious of the infidel American troops. You know of some villages where the Americans have helped build roads and been respectful of local elders and customs. On the other hand, you know of other villages where the infidel troops have invaded homes, shamed families by ogling women, or bombed wedding parties.
You’re angry that your people, the Pashtuns, traditionally the dominant tribe of Afghanistan, seem to have been pushed aside in recent years, with American help. Moreover, the Afghan government has never been more corrupt. The Taliban may be incompetent, but at least they are pious Muslim Pashtuns and reasonably honest.
Continued at the NY Times
My Dear Sir: