Greenpeace is not a credible source. On Apr 2, 2012, at 3:24 PM, Jed Rothwell wrote:
> 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 >
