Wednesday, July 18, 2012

Them's Some 'Spensive Jobs!

The best argument imaginable against American-style "health care" is shambling about, golem-like, advocating for the poor, unappreciated defense contractors who actually rule us.  (Isn't Dick Cheney on, like, his third or fourth heart by now?)

Former Vice President Dick Cheney took Lockheed Martin Corp.'s side Tuesday in a private meeting with Senate Republicans saying that the projected defense cuts totaling $500 billion could be "devastating" to military modernization and planning, Bloomberg reported.

Lockheed Martin's chief predicts he may have to fire 10,000 workers under across-the-board federal spending cuts. The defense industry and its Republican allies in Congress are increasing their volume this week in a concerted push to avert the defense cuts.

Wait a minute ... $500 billion in spending cuts ... let's see, that's $5.0E+11 ... and that loses 10,000 Lock-Mart jobs ... that's 1.0E+4 jobs ... divide 5.0E+11 by 1.0E+4 ... okay, that's 5.0E+7 dollars per job.  Fifty million freaking dollars per job?  Yes, O yes, that'll devastate the economy all to death, of course.  Good thing we're all innumerate; otherwise, we might catch on.  Can't have that.

("Hey, who's gonna win American Idol this time?")

Here's some more arithmetic.  There are about 314 million people in the US, as of today.  More to the point, the Census Bureau says there are about 114 million households.  $500 billion is $4400 per household.  (It would be an even larger amount per taxpaying household, but ... never mind.)  Can you, yourself, think of a better way to spend your $4400 than putting smiles above the blood-dripping multiple chins of Dick Cheney and the CEO of Lock-Mart?  I'm pretty sure I can think of many ... including making a small pile of hundred-dollar bills out on the back porch and setting fire to it.

3 comments:

Mimi said...

Well, I was an Engish major, Jim; I take off my shoes to count over ten. I'm afraid I don't know what "E" means. However, even I can grasp your point. Wouldn't it be great if a few others--like the rest of the population--could, too? Dream on, Mimi.
Linked this in my blog.

Tim Zank said...

So your theory is, the $500 Billion is all labor..?

Jim Wetzel said...

Nope. Presumably, any $500B in defense "cuts" (which are undoubtedly relative to proposed increases) would affect procurements from contractors other than LockMart, as far as that goes. My point is that the news story closely tied together the prospect of "cutting" $500B with LockMart's threat to axe 10K employees. Think order-of-magnitude, though: if 10% of that is LockMart labor, then those are $5M jobs. Shoot, if even 1% represents LockMart labor, then they're $500K jobs. "Middle-class welfare," indeed. Somehow, I don't think many of those contractor employees are seeing $50M, $5M, or even $500K salaries.

All in all, it seems a little egregious to me to use increased unemployment as an argument for mass murder.