Happy Fun Time

Monday, May 08, 2006

Pimp his ride

posted by Anonymous at 11:50 AM

Because it's not like Americans have to pay taxes or anything...

"... the White House has tasked Lockheed Martin with a dramatic, $6.1-billion makeover of Marine One, the presidential helicopter, starting this summer."

4 Comments:

  • I do agree that they probably need an update considering the current ones date from 1962.

    But that's $265 million per helicopter. That seems a bit excessive. That's probably as much as the F-22 was originally going to cost per unit, before the purchase order cuts (after the cuts, it's about $300+ million per unit). An Apache AH-64 costs $15 million.

    By Blogger Ron, at 5/08/2006 3:16 PM  

  • We need to keep our president safe. If the president were killed by a terrorist organization it would make us appear weak as well as demoralize american citizens. It would invite subsequent attacks and scare the stock market.

    Uh, and I'm sorry if this is out of line, and I do mean this in friendly jest, but that sounds like one of those patriotic generic reasons that can be used to rationalize anything. I mean, why stop at $6.1 billion then.

    We should immediately invest funds into the Sphere of Doom that the President can go into like a safety capsule. Anyone who isn't authorized to look in his direction is immediately incinerated. Because, after all, the death of the President would demoralize us and weaken the market.

    And then we can upgrade the Sphere to include all the amenities he needs, plus a hover module, so that the President can reside in the sphere for the entirety of his term.

    Or how about a Floating Fortress that is basically just a flying aircraft carrier version of the White House.

    By Blogger Ron, at 5/08/2006 3:37 PM  

  • I'm not sure how they arrived at 23, but the current fleet is just under that. I imagine it's influenced by the high maintenance that helicopters require, and that they apparently fly them in pairs, one acting as a decoy.

    By Blogger Ron, at 5/08/2006 4:18 PM  

  • Assuming they are only $110 mil per helicopter, that's a lot of extra $3.57 billion floating around.

    Still, when you talk about a product that you buy, you typically don't describe your at-cost price or remove the profit margin. "This $200 iPod only really costs $50. It just has some additional manufacturing and profit fees tacked on." The end amount spent is an important indicator.

    By Blogger Ron, at 5/08/2006 6:22 PM  

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