{"id":381,"date":"2005-01-20T14:01:00","date_gmt":"2005-01-20T21:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/?p=381"},"modified":"2005-03-08T00:46:13","modified_gmt":"2005-03-08T05:46:13","slug":"inaugural-comparisions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/2005\/01\/inaugural-comparisions\/","title":{"rendered":"Inaugural Comparisions"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Progress Report – American Progress Action Fund<\/a><\/p>\n

Christy Harvey has put together an interesting set of comparisions in the style of Harper’s Index – for links to the background, visit the link above please.
Here’s just the list:<\/p>\n

$40 million<\/strong>: Cost of Bush inaugural ball festivities, not counting security costs.<\/p>\n

$2,000<\/strong>: Amount FDR spent on the inaugural in 1945\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6about $20,000 in today’s dollars.<\/p>\n

$20,000<\/strong>: Cost of yellow roses purchased for inaugural festivities by D.C.’s Ritz Carlton.<\/p>\n

200<\/strong>: Number of Humvees outfitted with top-of-the-line armor for troops in Iraq that could have been purchased with the amount of money blown on the inauguration.<\/p>\n

$10,000<\/strong>: Price of an inaugural package at the Fairmont Hotel, which includes a Beluga caviar and Dom Perignon reception, a chauffeured Rolls Royce and two actors posing as “faux” Secret Service agents, complete with black sunglasses and cufflink walkie-talkies.<\/p>\n

400<\/strong>: Pounds of lobster provided for “inaugural feeding frenzy” at the exclusive Mandarin Oriental hotel.<\/p>\n

3,000<\/strong>: Number of “Laura Bush Cowboy cookies” provided for “inaugural feeding frenzy” at the Mandarin hotel.<\/p>\n

$1<\/strong>: Amount per guest President Carter spent on snacks for guests at his inaugural parties. To stick to a tight budget, he served pretzels, peanuts, crackers and cheese and had cash bars.<\/p>\n

22 million<\/strong>: Number of children in regions devastated by the tsunami who could have received vaccinations and preventive health care with the amount of money spent on the inauguration.<\/p>\n

1,160,000<\/strong>: Number of girls who could be sent to school for a year in Afghanistan with the amount of money lavished on the inauguration.<\/p>\n

$15,000<\/strong>: The down payment to rent a fur coat paid by one gala attendee who didn’t want the hassle of schlepping her own through the airport.<\/p>\n

$200,500<\/strong>: Price of a room package at D.C.’s Mandarin Oriental, including presidential suite, chauffeured Mercedes limo and outfits from Neiman Marcus.<\/p>\n

2,500<\/strong>: Number of U.S. troops used to stand guard as President Bush takes his oath of office<\/p>\n

26,000<\/strong>: Number of Kevlar vests for U.S. soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan that could be purchased for $40 million.<\/p>\n

$290<\/strong>: Bonus that could go to each American solider serving in Iraq, if inauguration funds were used for that purpose.<\/p>\n

$6.3 million<\/strong>: Amount contributed by the finance and investment industry, which works out to be 25 percent of all the money collected.<\/p>\n

$17 million<\/strong>: Amount of money the White House is forcing the cash-strapped city of Washington, D.C., to pony up for inauguration security.<\/p>\n

9<\/strong>: Percentage of D.C. residents who voted for Bush in 2004.<\/p>\n

66<\/strong>: Percentage of Americans who think this over-the-top inauguration should have been scaled back.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

While I’m on it, here are just a couple of figures from December’s Harper’s Index <\/a> – the January one isn’t out yet.<\/p>\n

Revenue generated by Halliburton under CEO Dick Cheney from business deals with Iraq under Saddam Hussein : $30,000,000 [Colum Lynch, Washington Post (N.Y.C.) ] <\/p>\n

Estimated revenue generated by Halliburton last year through subsidiaries in Iran : $63,506,000 [Halliburton (Houston, Tex.) ] <\/p>\n

Value of the Halliburton shares owned by New York City’s Fire Department Pension Fund : $3,359,095 [Office of the Comptroller (N.Y.C.) ] <\/p>\n

Number of times since 2002 the city has filed a shareholders’ resolution questioning the risk of doing business in Iran : 3 [Office of the Comptroller (N.Y.C.) ] <\/p>\n

Number of companies in which Tom Ridge holds stock that have a contract with the Department of Homeland Security : 7 [U.S. Department of Homeland Security ] <\/p>\n

Minimum number of bullets the U.S. military purchased for use this year : 1,500,000,000 [Program Executive Office for Ammunition (Picatinny Arsenal, N.J.) ] <\/p>\n

Average number of bullets per Iraqi this represents : 58 [Harper’s Research ] <\/p>\n

Minimum number of countries with a greater capacity to produce nuclear weapons than Iraq at the time of the U.S. invasion : 35 [International Atomic Energy Agency (Vienna) ] <\/p><\/blockquote>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Progress Report – American Progress Action Fund Christy Harvey has put together an interesting set of comparisions in the style of Harper’s Index – for links to the background, visit the link above please.Here’s just the list: $40 million: Cost of Bush inaugural ball festivities, not counting security costs. $2,000: Amount FDR spent on the inaugural in 1945\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6about $20,000 in today’s dollars. $20,000: Cost of yellow roses purchased for inaugural festivities by D.C.’s Ritz Carlton. 200: Number of Humvees…<\/p>\n

Read More Read More<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-381","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=381"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/381\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=381"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=381"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.virushead.net\/vhrandom\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=381"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}