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**Written by Doug Powers

Paul Krugman could write a whole book explaining why we should follow through with this petition:

Our favorite of these petitions this month has to be from Colorado man “John D” who, as we reported last week, wants the government to secure resources and funding to begin the construction of a Death Star by 2016.

His rationale for building the mega-weapon from the ‘Star Wars‘ movies is as much public works project than direct threat to the little green men who could be living below Mars’ surface.

“By focusing our defense resources into a space-superiority platform and weapon system such as a Death Star, the government can spur job creation in the fields of construction, engineering, space exploration, and more, and strengthen our national defense,” he writes.

Petitions on the White House website require 25,000 signatures to be eligible for a response, and that number was exceeded today.

So, would building a “Death Star” type of thing be an affordable job creator?

According a recent study it would cost $852,000,000,000,000,000 — or 13,000 times the world’s GDP — just to produce the steel required to build the weapon.

Putting on my “Obama economic advisor” hat for a moment, that would absolutely be doable. It would be simple: Calculate how much all those battles in Star Wars would cost to fight in real life and then budget for them by spreading the cost over a thousand years. Then, call off the wars and front load the “savings” to finance construction. This deal pays for itself! And if there still isn’t enough to cover the cost, any remaining debt is probably nothing that couldn’t be erased with one push of Ben Bernanke’s QE5 button.

**Written by Doug Powers

Twitter @ThePowersThatBe