I read in the news that after decommissioning its aircraft carriers, the US Navy sells them to a scrapping company in exchange for $0.01.
How does something that cost over $5 billion to build and contains over 50,000 tons of steel get reduced in value to a mere single cent?
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You’re not looking at it the right way. Look at it from the buyer’s standpoint. You’re about to buy a boat weighing 50,000 tons whose purpose in life was to carry airplanes which were specifically designed to be able to take-off and land on this boat. It’s *HUGE* and expensive just to run it. Crew, fuel, logistics like feeding those people at sea…
That boat has no use to you. The only party you could possibly sell it to is a different military that also has aircraft carriers. And the US Navy could have just as easily sold it to them instead. NOBODY wants it.
At this point the value of this boat is what it’s made of. And you’re going to have to disassemble it yourself and separate all the parts, dispose of anything you don’t want/can’t use, etc. Even if you could make millions of dollars turning it into scrap metal, you’ll spend millions of dollars taking it apart and doing all that stuff. Oh, and while you’re disassembling it you’ll need to store it somewhere and keep it safe. Presumably a lot of water is involved in that process.
That’s a very tough purchasing decision. The fact that it only costs a penny is downright irrelevant. Even if you were paid a million dollars to take it, would you?
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