Money is all relative. You and me might spend very little on a trip to have fun, while average millionaires spend on average $13,000 to have fun on their vacation. For billionaires, it costs them hundreds of thousands of dollars to maintain a yacht for their enjoyment. But no individual on earth can afford to use $3 million missile to shoot down $200 drone.
According to General David Perkins, a Patriot missile – usually priced at about $3 million – was used to shoot down a small quadcopter drone. “That quadcopter that cost 200 bucks from Amazon.com did not stand a chance against a Patriot,” he said. “Now, that worked, they got it, OK, and we love Patriot missiles,” the general said. “I’m not sure that’s a good economic exchange ratio,” he told an audience at the Association of the United States Army’s Global Force symposium. “In fact, if I’m the enemy, I’m thinking, ‘Hey, I’m just gonna get on eBay and buy as many of these $200 quadcopters as I can and expend all the Patriot missiles out there’.”
To use million dollars missile to shoot down $200 drone is clearly overkill, but that’s okay when you have a deep pocket of the US military budget. For regular folks, let’s stick with our small budget and don’t overspend on any item that have a bad economic exchange ratio.
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