>> $19 billion in cash and stock (slightly less than the inflation adjusted cost of the Manhattan Project)
Holy Crap !!!
That cannot be right - surely not....
Edit: According to Wikipedia : "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (about $26 billion in 2014 dollars)."
So, if you allow 7bn to be slightly less, then yes. It is right.
And there is worse to come - also according to wikipedia and the BBC, the US spends around 50bn pa, (the UK an embarrassing 4.6bn a year) on science funding - but really, half of US science spending on a mobile IM app.
There may be a disparity based upon how inflation is calculated. Plus or minus 40% after an interval of 75 years is not unreasonable for the purposes of an "about this big" comparison.
A Paasche index will understate price inflation, while a Laspeyres index will overstate it, due to demand elasticity. Governments may change the formula used to report changes in the money supply, using different measures like M1, M2, M3, and MZM, along with the average velocity of money. This obscures the amount of value intentional inflation extracts from the productive economy, at the cost of mathematical accuracy.
You could buy exactly one Manhattan project with 1939-1946 dollars for $2billion, of which 90% was production, and 10% R&D. You could buy exactly one Apollo Program with $25.4billion in 1961-1972 dollars. One LHC costs $9billion 2008 dollars. Tevatron was a bargain next to that at only $120million 1980 dollars.
Put into that sort of scale, with $19billion in 2014 cash, you could do any one of the following:
Build an entire city designed for 50000 inhabitants supplied entirely by renewable energy sources.
Build an entire archipelago of artificial islands.
Bury an Interstate highway under Boston.
Build 3 international-class airports.
Build two subway lines under an existing major city.
Where do you get your marvellous comparison figures from?
Yes, it puts it into a more depressing perspective. Although I would tip my hat to the founders if they decided to build "WhatsAppTown", a city of the future.
In fact I want them to - because when we throw around this kind of cash (the amounts normally only State actors have) we get outliers - sometimes a boring miser who just wants more, sometimes a visionary who tries to build their Jeston style future.
I just hope Facebook stock is going to those who watched the Jetsons on Saturday mornings.
I searched the web for "megaprojects" and grabbed figures from any site that at least sounded legit, so caveat emptor. I pulled anything that felt like it would cost between 15 and 25 billion US$ if it was completed (or completed again) this year.
Holy Crap !!! That cannot be right - surely not....
Edit: According to Wikipedia : "The Manhattan Project began modestly in 1939, but grew to employ more than 130,000 people and cost nearly US$2 billion (about $26 billion in 2014 dollars)."
So, if you allow 7bn to be slightly less, then yes. It is right.
And there is worse to come - also according to wikipedia and the BBC, the US spends around 50bn pa, (the UK an embarrassing 4.6bn a year) on science funding - but really, half of US science spending on a mobile IM app.
How utterly depressing.