werepossum
Elite Member
- Jul 10, 2006
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The $200 per day figure is starting to look more reasonable. A fleet of 34 warships will accompany the President. http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/34-warships-sent-from-us-for-obama-visit-64459
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/obamas-india-visit-slammed-for-over-the-top-spending-64405?cp
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/obamas-india-visit-slammed-for-over-the-top-spending-64405
This is a three-day trip, not a ten-day trip as was previously reported. Thus the cost of getting the approximately 500 security personnel plus three heavy lift aircraft, forty armored cars, thirty-four warships, numerous Navy and Air Force war planes and tankers, and all their assorted crews and support personnel to the scene ahead of time will be divided into only three days, not ten as I thought, and $200 million per day doesn't seem so outrageous, especially given that India has a severe terrorism problem. Also, although Obama is supposedly taking thousands of people, most of these costs would be the same or at least comparable were it just the first family.
Of course, most of these personnel would be paid the same regardless of whether they are in India, so the actual incremental cost of the trip - overtime, room and board, per diem costs, fuel, Indian contractors - would be much less. Only by counting the total cost of everyone and everything involved would you possibly approach $200 million. And of course that number is pulled straight from someone's ass anyway - the actual cost might be $80 million or $250 million. And the incremental cost probably isn't more than ten or twenty million per day - expensive, but probably not much more so than moving any President to any potentially dangerous area not already controlled by the US military.
A top official of the Maharashtra government privy to the arrangements for the high-profile visit has reckoned that a whopping $ 200 million (Rs. 900 crore approx) per day would be spent by various teams coming from the US in connection with Obama's two-day stay in the city.
Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/obamas-india-visit-slammed-for-over-the-top-spending-64405?cp
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/obamas-india-visit-slammed-for-over-the-top-spending-64405
This is a three-day trip, not a ten-day trip as was previously reported. Thus the cost of getting the approximately 500 security personnel plus three heavy lift aircraft, forty armored cars, thirty-four warships, numerous Navy and Air Force war planes and tankers, and all their assorted crews and support personnel to the scene ahead of time will be divided into only three days, not ten as I thought, and $200 million per day doesn't seem so outrageous, especially given that India has a severe terrorism problem. Also, although Obama is supposedly taking thousands of people, most of these costs would be the same or at least comparable were it just the first family.
Of course, most of these personnel would be paid the same regardless of whether they are in India, so the actual incremental cost of the trip - overtime, room and board, per diem costs, fuel, Indian contractors - would be much less. Only by counting the total cost of everyone and everything involved would you possibly approach $200 million. And of course that number is pulled straight from someone's ass anyway - the actual cost might be $80 million or $250 million. And the incremental cost probably isn't more than ten or twenty million per day - expensive, but probably not much more so than moving any President to any potentially dangerous area not already controlled by the US military.
