When I was in private practice, I avoided thinking about cost and schedule. Not that I was wasteful with my clients’ money, but these matters weren’t my responsibility.
As an Owner’s PM, that’s flipped. Budgets and schedules are what I do. Half my job is to justify funding for these projects (and the other half is to spend the money).
This experience has made war really expensive.
An M1A2 Main Battle Tank costs $9 million. Four of those would build a new 67,000 square feet school of education building that took five years of my life.
It costs $44,000 per hour to fly an F-35. That’s what I paid to demolish a kitchen to create an activity area for disabled residents.
Let’s not even think of all the hours of training for each soldier and the years of productivity that are erased with each well placed bullet.
War is doubly expensive when we factor in the opportunity cost of what hasn’t been built with these funds.
Triply so when we think of the destruction. Even a just war doesn’t negate the wanton waste of such a calamity.
And then we’ll have to rebuild it — if we get that chance.
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Some Links
Last year, I stumbled across Bobby Timmons due to his brilliant Christmas album Holiday Soul. I recently discovered his awesome album This Here is Bobby Timmons. His life ended much too early, but he left us with some great music.
Nadia Gerassimenko writes an eclectic smorgasbord of essays, fiction, poetry, and guest posts that pulls from a wide field of influences including pop, horror, and video games. It’s always a pleasure to read, Her recent story “Siren with a soft sign” is a haunting story of a woman transforming into a flower bed.
I first met Debbie Ridpath Ohi elsewhere, but when she had Inkgirl I knew that Substack’s new “Notes” social media platform had a place for me. Her posts are always insightful, and her occasional long essays about her experience as an illustrator are applicable to anyone who starting (or continuing) a new endeavor.
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Thanks for reading!
Justus Pang, RA