10 Things America Could Buy Instead of the F 35
Click here to read this listicle as originally posted on BuzzFeed.
By Sarah Tully
This plane costs more than twice the number of people on the planet. And it doesn’t really work.
The F-35 Joint Strike Fighter is on pace to be the world’s most expensive weapons system ever. It was designed to be the plane to do it all, and, hypothetically, will eventually replace the F-16s, A-10s, and F/A-18s currently in service.
But while the F-35 sounds awesome in theory, it is exceptionally expensive and is riddled with problems.
For one, it doesn’t really work. There are reliability issues—it cracks, it can’t dogfight and the IT backbone of the F-35 system is deficient.
The Pentagon estimates that the lifetime cost of this currently dysfunctional plane will be $1.45 trillion dollars. That’s this much money: $1,450,000,000,000.
Here are 10 things America could do with $1.45 trillion instead of pay for these insanely expensive planes that don’t really work:
1. Buy lunch for every child who lives below the poverty linefor ONE HUNDRED AND NINETEEN YEARS.
According to the School Nutrition Association, the average school lunch costs $2.08 dollars, and 16 million children live in poverty. That’s lunch for students in kindergarten through the 12th grade for 9 generations.
2. Bail out Greece 26 times.
The International Monitory Fund estimates that Greece will need at least $55 billion USD for its third bailout.
3. Buy a 2.5 million dollar mansion for every single homeless person in America.
In 2014 there were 578,424 homeless Americans on any given day. FYI, that’s more than six times the median price per home in the United States.
4. Produce 24,166 seasons of Game of Thrones.
A GoT episode costs, on average, $6 million to make. With 10 episodes a season, we’re look at over 24 millennia worth of dragon mothering. With that much air-time, they would definitely bring back Jon Snow, right?
5. Buy every single team in the NFL, MLB and NBA combined, SIXTEEN TIMES.
In 2014, the combined value of all 32 NFL franchises was $45.7 billion. The MLB and NBA combined values were $24.3 billion and $19.0 billion, respectively.
6. Cover the cost of treatment for every American who will be diagnosed with cancer this year for 53 years.
Roughly 1.6 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and the average annual health care expenses for newly diagnosed patients are just under $17,000.
7. Buy an electric car for every single resident of New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Virginia and Maryland.
Specifically, a 2015 Chevrolet Spark EV. That’s 52,450,7134 environmentally friendly cars.
8. Pay for five years of tuition at a University of Texas at Austin for the entire population of Texas.
In-state undergraduate tuition at UT is $4,908 per semester. $1.45 trillion is more than enough for 27 million residents of Texas to attend for a full four years plus a victory lap.
9. Build 17,058 miles worth of high-speed rail lines.
California’s $68 billion dollar high-speed rail line project broke ground in January 2015. For the cost of the F-35 program American could build 21 800 mile-long high-speed rail lines.
10. Give every single person on earth 2 malaria nets, 2 water filtration kits and at least 2 pair of durable shoes.
Every 30 seconds a child dies of malaria, 90 percent of people with malaria live in Sub-Saharan Africa. A long-lasting insecticidal mosquito net costs between $5 and $6 USD, and there are 884 million people in the world can’t access clear water. A water filter that supports up to 25 people and lasts a lifetime costs $60. Over 2 billion people worldwide don’t have adequate sanitation and suffer from soil-transmitted illnesses. The Shoe That Grows expands five sizes to accommodate growing feet.
