Understand this is a somewhat distorted figure - this means that one F18, which some estimates place as costing as high as 100 million dollars (I'm assuming this includes all necessary electronics, spare parts, armanent, etc.), is thus worth 5,000 or more new cars, or 500 average houses. Which is a silly comparison, since the dollar figure of the F18 does not actually represent much in the way of 'worth.' And I am quite certain that the scrap value of 5,000 cars is much, much higher than the scrap value of an F18, which would be another way to generate a comparison.

Nonetheless, the U.S. has an incredibly distorted economy, biased to militaristic expenditures which tend to enrich the same companies that are now spreading out into non-military functions - Lockheed and traffic cameras comes to mind.