[spitx]

  Third, public transportation is generally valued more highly here than
  in other places for a variety of reasons.

If various professionals employed by the state were paid in accordance of their value to the society (even if only to a certain slice of society), members of the armed forces would be centi-millionaires.

That line of reasoning is utter bunk.

[epistasis]

> members of the armed forces would be centi-millionaires.

I don't mean to dispute, but I don't understand this. I had thought that it was impossible that the US' military could be worth the $682 billion per year the US spends on it, that it was a sinecure for contractors. At >1.4 million active personnel, you're talking a value of hundreds of trillions, at least 10x the US GDP. The military is only useful as a threat deterrent and threat defense, what threat could possibly justify that?

[hudibras]

I had the same reaction ("Huh?") but from the other direction. Centi-millionare implies a worth of $10,000 each, or $14 million for everybody.

I guess the moral is that people shouldn't try to be cute when using metric prefixes.