On Tue, 18 Dec 2018 09:58:10 +0700, John B. Slocomb
wrote:

Today's Bangkok Post had an article entitled "US careens towards
government shutdown". From reading the article it seems that the
President wants a 5 billion dollar budget for the Mexican Wall and
Congress doesn't want to give it to him.

5,000,000,000 divided by 1,954 miles is what? $25,588,536.33 a mile
(that may be wrong as I'm not used to working with really big numbers)

It's easier with exponential notation:
$5 billion = 5*10^9 dollars.
5*10^9 / 2*10^3 = 2.5*10^6 = 2.5 million dollars / mile

but even for the largest economy in the world that seems a tiny bit
expensive, doesn't it?

That's fairly close to what it would cost to build a 2 lane undivided
rural road:
https://medium.com/@TimSylvester/i-agree-it-sounds-astronomical-but-i-actually-understated-the-costs-according-to-artba-2e8baeac2a46

"Copying Israel's wall would cut Trump's price nearly in half"
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/copying-israels-wall-would-cut-trumps-price-nearly-in-half
Actually, the construction contract will probably go to one of the
major US construction companies, who will then subcontract the actual
work to smaller Mexican companies.


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Jeff Liebermann
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