Tanks by numbers

So apparently almost 600 tanks are going to be built in Wales due to a £3.5 billion order being placed by the British State. At first this sounds amazing, like a real gift but even a cursory look at the numbers will show you that only a moron would think that it was good value for money.

Firstly we need to stress that the UK doesn't own any money trees, magic geese or beanstalks and that the UK is also skint. The three thousand five hundred million pounds that these tanks will cost will go on the UKs ever increasing deficit of well over a trillion pounds.

Even the precious English tax payer cannot afford to keep England afloat and will pass this debt onto their children and grandchildren. Wales will also have to pay its share.

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Using 2011 census figures we can easily see how much the new war machines will cost each constituent nation of the UK. Since Scotland may not be in the UK when the tanks are made it's also worth working out the cost per capita without Scotland. Naturally our share of the tab will go up if Scotland votes YES.

Wales' per capita share will be either £169 million or £185 million depending on whether the Scots want to live in a proper country or want to remain a colony of London. According to the EBC the order for the tanks will sustain 300 jobs in Wales.

Depending on whether Scotland wants to spend £294 million on new tanks or not this means these 300 jobs will cost Wales a minimum of £565,500 or £617,400 per job. And as I have already mentioned, since there are no wizards sleeves oozing with gold this money will go on the already mammoth deficit which Wales has to help pay the interest of. The interest alone is forecast to cost the UK £1 billion per week by the end of the year. And this will be on top of the £4.7 billion (or £5.1 billion) that Wales will have to pay for London to renew its nuclear deterrent.

You need to ask yourself it this represents good value for money or not. If you don't think it is good value for money then the only way of stopping London putting even more debt on our future generations is by freeing ourselves from it.


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