> When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that.

I like to think about how providing 4-week paid parental leave would cost $2 billion annually and actually help US families. Meanwhile we have spent over $100 billion on this war.

> My favorite interview question: If I gave you a swarm of autonomous drones, what would you do with them?

What signal are you looking for with that question? It feels much more like a thought experiment with friends while having a few pints than something reasonable for a job interview.

> There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that.

Less than half are net income tax payers, IIRC. So if you pay income tax, you're actually on the hook for more $6, on average.

>It pales compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

Thinking of country-scale finances in the same way you think about personal finance is wrong in many ways. Take debt for example. As an individual, it's arguably best not to have debt at all. As a country, sovereign debt is the foundation of the world's money supply and fuels continuous economic growth.

Also, though the U.S. has $31 Trillion dollars of debt, $22 Trillion of that belongs to U.S. domestic traders.

If we were to cut our debt down to zero, we'd cripple ourselves with taxes and stifle growth. We'd have zero debt but we'd be sent into a massive economic depression, and that would likely ripple out across the planet.

> instinctively moving towards the street lamps or the bright hotels.

> I would use drones to hover over the nests to detect if the turtles hatch so people don't have to stand there.

And put brighter lights on the drones to lead them in the right direction!

But if you asked me that in an interview, I would probably question whether I wanted to work there. I don't think random, irrelevant, put-me-on-the-spot questions help anyone on either side of that coin.

Those drones are pretty noisy though.

$3 is still too much and I would rather it go towards paying the debt down.

Side note: The federal government costs about $19 billion per day to operate based on an annual budget of roughly $7 trillion.

So $1 billion is about equal to 4 hour hours of government spending.

> When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

(Your share of overall defense spending is ~1,000x higher, of course.)

I wish political leaders would express it that way. And you need to include the time factor: $10/year for 10 years differs from $20 for a one-time event. And somehow figure in capital accumulation (as opposed to e.g., consumables) and depreciation. But there are clear, effective ways to communicate it: 'I propose each American spend an average of $80/year for 50 years on this fighter jet program'. 'This moon mission will cost everyone $5/year for 2 years.'

To nitpick a little, I think your math is off: There are 350 million Americans, but we need to exclude most children, elderly, etc.

> There are ~350,000,000 of us. When I read we spent $1B, I think about how I'm responsible for $3 of that. It doesn't matter considering the ~$117,550 of the national debt I'm responsible for. It palls compared to the $3,000 a year in interest towards the national debt I'm responsible for.

tax billionaires, then

Would have been nice to do that in Lebanon so that woman could still be alive.

Now you know why there is war. We have war because the U.S. is failing. Just look at the reversal of the 10 and 30 y bonds over the last 20 years. All the free money that was given to the oligarchs killed our economy.

Or we can go even further with the fun thought exercise, by spreading the cost even more: Even $100,000,000,000,000,000 doesn't matter if you evenly distribute it across each atom in the usa.