I wrote:
> The replacement cost of the equipment would be ~$692 billion, which is > roughly how much the Fukushima disaster will cost. > As Greenpeace pointed out, by coincidence this is roughly the cost of the 2008 TARP bailout. Note however, that nearly all of the TARP money was returned the U.S. government by the corporations and banks. Most of them paid high interest rates on the loans, so they were anxious to return the money. I think most of the money came back within two years. As of last year all but $19 billion of the TARP money was returned to Uncle Sam. The remaining $19 billion will probably not be returned because the companies went bankrupt. That's not good, but you cannot compare it to a $650 billion dead loss. That is, to money spent cleaning up tens of millions of tons of contaminated soil, building a giant sarcophagus for a nuclear power plant, and compensating people for the loss of their houses and livelihoods. Such activities contribute nothing to long-term prosperity or happiness. It is like hiring hundreds of thousands of people to spend 20 years digging holes in the ground every morning, and filling them in every afternoon for no purpose. - Jed
