From: ben (ben@machinegod.org)
Date: Fri Jan 25 2002 - 16:17:17 MST
[ben 0] I could spend a trillion dollars in a month... Hmm, fascist
dictatorship, or libertarian democracy?... Remote island or one just off the
coast of a friendly superpower? what kinds of defence robots? so many
choices to make...
[Hermit 0] Serious answer to a joke. Ben, you couldn't do it. The very few
things that cost that much are not for sale. Think of the entire shuttle
program. It costs "only" $3.3 billion a year or 0.3% of that [refer
http://w3.access.gpo.gov/usbudget/].
[ben 1] I didn't research the assertion at all because it was a joke, but
researching it after your comments has proved interesting. I never intended
to seriously claim that it could be done in a month, but I am surprised to
find that it would even be difficult, as a single consumer, to do it in a
year. The most expensive tropical island I could find for sale online (that
has a price listed at all - a lot of "if you have to ask..." goes on) was a
scant 10 million (http://www.privateislandsonline.com/caillecbgr.htm) - much
less than I expected. The entire US annual military budget just suggested by
Bush II is $380 billion...
I retract the humor.
-ben
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