Opportunity cost is a better term than "waste of money"

"Waste of money" is a vague term. A better term for understanding the
economic impact of a project is "opportunity cost". Opportunity cost
measures the benefit of the project versus the expected benefit that could
have been achieved had that money been used for another purpose.

For example, consider the money that the military junta extracted from the
pockets of Brazilians in order to build the launch range. Now suppose
instead that that money had remained in the pockets of Brazilians for them
to pay for their children's education; to pay for food and clothing; to
invest in retirement, or to pay for any of the myriad of things that
Brazilians typically do with their money. Call this the "do nothing
scenario".

Which scenario has or would have had higher economic benefit, the actual
scenario (the one that actually unfoled, with the launch range funded
courtesy of the military junta) or the do nothing scenario?

Ron Menich

"Dr. Omni"
ssi_list@...
06/20/01 Hypothetica
11:03 PM
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...
late 60's to the early 80's. At the time, people complained about the waste
of money and things like that, but anyway they had no influence on the
government decisions ;-). (BTW, the only nuclear power plant built at that
time is now a huge energy supplier in one of our major states, and our only
space base is now being presented for rent to Ukrainians, Chinese,
Europeans
and, apparently, Americans. So, the "waste of money" argument does not look
so compelling after a perspective of two decades.)
...