[laughfactory]

If the interest rate on the $1M is 2% then each year the "cost" of the $50,000/yr job is $20,000. So even if we don't factor in inflation (which would certainly change these calculations), it would take more than 33 years to "pay off" the $1M. You'd have to have someone work well over 33 years at $50,000 to recoup much return on your initial investment of $1M. Besides which, as you pointed out, a lot can happen in 33 years...how many jobs remain today that were around 33 years ago? Some of them, certainly, but many of the current crop of high paying jobs have been created in the last 10-20 years by innovation occurring organically in the private sector.

[kyllo]

This is again assuming that the person who fills that $50k/year job contributes exactly $50k/year in value to the economy.

And at some point, when you are talking about investing public funds to create jobs in a period of high unemployment, you need to think of it in terms of subtracting the cost of that person's potential unemployment benefits, medicaid, and other costs that an unemployed person imposes on the public.

So, it's kind of complicated to do a full cost/benefit analysis of this.