Let’s Imagine Ways To Spend $5.2 Billion (Other Than Paying 500 CEOs)

$5.2 billion is an awful lot of money going each year to a group of people about the size of the graduating class of a small college. Consider what else $5.2 billion can buy:

The combined income of Fortune 500 company CEOs has exceeded $5.2 billion. Some of these were paid more than $100 million and some were paid less than $10 million, but the outrageous and reckless trend of paying executives hundreds of times more than average employees is widespread.

Right now, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission is working on a long-delayed rule to require corporations to disclose the ratio of their CEO's pay to what the company's average worker earns.

SEND NEW HORIZONS TO PLUTO SEVEN TIMES

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The cost of the entire mission: A bargain at $720 million.

MAKE THE MOST EXPENSIVE MOVIE EVER MADE … THIRTEEN TIMES

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Disney’s fourth Pirates of the Caribbean movie, On Stranger Tides (2011), at a cost of $378 million, holds the title of the most expensive movie ever produced. But it’s a drop in the bucket compared to Fortune 500 pay.

BUILD THE THREE MOST EXPENSIVE SPORTS STADIUMS IN THE UNITED STATES (AND PAY THEIR PLAYERS)

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Add up the construction costs of MetLife Stadium, home to the New York Giants ($1.7 billion), Yankee Stadium in the Bronx ($1.6 billion) and AT&T Stadium in Dallas, Texas ($1.3 billion), and you still have $600 million left over – more than enough to cover the $214,248,571 paid to the Yankees, $138,520,485 paid to the New York Giants and $130,756,499 paid to the Dallas Cowboys.

A YEAR OF ECONOMIC ACTIVITY FOR GREENLAND, ARUBA AND THE MARSHALL ISLANDS

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With the gross domestic product of Greenland (population 55,000) at $2.4 billion and Aruba (population 104,300) at $2.6 billion, there’s even $200 million left over for the Marshall Islands (GDP: $189 million, population 68,000).

A YEAR OF WORK FOR 100,000 FAMILIES

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At the median household income in the U.S. (about $52,000), that’s a year’s worth of income for 100,000 families – or the entire population of Charleston, S.C., or Cambridge, Mass., or Flint, Mich., or Allentown, Pa., or Green Bay, Wis.

A YEAR AND FOUR MONTHS OF THE USDA FREE SCHOOL BREAKFAST PROGRAM

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At $3.7 billion a year to serve over 2 billion breakfasts, this successful program against child hunger is another bargain.

You get the idea. What else can you buy with $5.2 billion? Give it a Google search and let me know with a tweet @RickClaypool.