Orders of magnitude

Over on Capitalists@Work and EU Referendum are covering the ongoing saga of the Eurofighter, where the government are committed to buying another 88 (or 92) redundant Cold War era fighter jets, which are of little use in the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq at a cost of around £27 billion.

That's £27,000 million

Previously we figured that the MPs Expense row that's sweeping the nation at the moment costs about £16 million.

Lets process this just a little

Eurofighter £27,000,000,000
MPs Expenses £16,000,000

or

Eurofighter £27,000 million
MPs Expenses £16 million

That's near as dammit two thousand times more of a cost to the taxpayer, two thousand times more of a waste of money.

Lasy year I did some calculations to quantify government spending in terms of 'taxpayer hours' how long people would have to work to pay off various government expenditure. Back then I figured a taxpayer hour was worth about £4.80 per hour.

On that basis, the MPs expenses is 3,333,333 taxpayer hours and the Eurofighter shambles is 5,625,000,000 taxpayer hours (416,667 taxpayer days and 703,250,000 taxpayer days or 1,603 taxpayer years and 2,704,807 taxpayer years).

Erm, that's based on 2008 taxpayer hours. Things have changed.

Smarter people than me have it that Tax Freedom day was yesterday, 14th May, I must have missed it myself, I haven't been in paid employment this year, anyhoo so The Powers That Be take 37% of your average Briton's earnings. The mean weekly earnings are still last year's figure of £11.78 per hour. So a Taxpayer hour is now worth £4.36.

On that basis, the MPs expenses is 3,669,725 taxpayer hours and the Eurofighter shambles is 6,192,660,550 taxpayer hours (458,715 taxpayer days and 774,082,568 taxpayer days or 1,764 taxpayer years and 2,977,240 taxpayer years).

Its mind-boggling no matter how you chop it up.