Obama's Entourage: 40 Planes to India, 45 Cars, 900 Hotel Rooms

[dead0man]

But I agree, we'd be better off with teleconferences.  But there's also the security concern there that important business can't be dealt with due to fear of 3rd party phone tapping.

Cryptography is a very advanced tech.  We can (and do) do secure communications between India and DC quite easily.

My post is my cite.


(on the other hand, I really don't have much of a problem with the President taking his entourage to India as long as it's not happening twice a month or at inappropriate times)

[dead0man]

How much does it cost the US taxpayers per day for 34 warships and personnel, including an carrier strike group (CSG)?  34 ships is 12% of Navy’s active fleet.  And the 2010 budget for the Navy is $500M/day ($180B FY2010/365 days/year), so assuming all costs averaging the same, that’s $60M/day just in naval costs.  And considering the daily cost of a CSG is much much higher than the average cost, that could easily be $100M/day in Navy services.

And all those things would have to be paid for whether the Group was hanging around India "protecting the President" or cruising across the Indian Ocean or sitting in a dock in San Diego.

then, what is actually price tag, $190M/day?  and if you don't know the actual cost, then how can you refute the $200M/day?

As others have pointed out, this is just nuts.

[dead0man]

Depending on one defines an active ship, there are between 238 and 436 ships in the US Navy.  They are in the process of scaling back.  They'd like to settle on a total of 313, but there is only funding to maintain a little over 200. 

In comparison the Royal Navy has 241 (most of which are landing craft).  The PRC's Navy has 1157 (of which a third are landing craft). OUTRAGEOUS!

Just for fun, the USAF has 10.

[dead0man]

Of course.  I was just pointing out, maybe with a little too much subtlety, that numbers of ships is a pretty stupid metric to use when whinging about how big the Navy is.  The US Navy's budget is blah blah bigger than the next blah blah Navies as well.

(I'm not  mocking, I'm just too lazy to look up the specific numbers)