EPA Drops Value of an American Life

[Brutus]

...and this doesnt consider inflation.

WASHINGTON (July 10) - It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May - a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/epa-dro...10201309990001

[shadroch]

This surprises you somehow?

[Automatic Monkey]

According to the principles of Liberal (i.e., right-wing) economics, only the individual has the right to attach a price tag to his life, and we do that when we agree to work for a wage.

You can agree to give up your life for $10/hour, $5/hour, $50/hour, and all you have to do is find one other person to agree to pay you that much and you're all set.

Now the problem with socialism and similar state controlled economic systems is that some other authority controls wages and prices. Being the cost of everything is ultimately labor, that allows the government to put a price tag on an hour of your life without your consent. That's dehumanizing and immoral, just like slavery, which is why I'm a Republican and I reject all attempts at a government-controlled economy. It makes wages and labor not fully consensual.

This refers to blackjack too. I rate my games in terms of win rate per hour, not advantage. And I won't play BJ for less than I make working as an engineer. For there is neither smoke nor rude ploppies in an engineering lab.

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by Brutus

...and this doesnt consider inflation.

WASHINGTON (July 10) - It's not just the American dollar that's losing value. A government agency has decided that an American life isn't worth what it used to be.

The "value of a statistical life" is $6.9 million in today's dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency reckoned in May - a drop of nearly $1 million from just five years ago.

The Associated Press discovered the change after a review of cost-benefit analyses over more than a dozen years.

Though it may seem like a harmless bureaucratic recalculation, the devaluation has real consequences.

When drawing up regulations, government agencies put a value on human life and then weigh the costs versus the lifesaving benefits of a proposed rule. The less a life is worth to the government, the less the need for a regulation, such as tighter restrictions on pollution.

Consider, for example, a hypothetical regulation that costs $18 billion to enforce but will prevent 2,500 deaths. At $7.8 million per person (the old figure), the lifesaving benefits outweigh the costs. But at $6.9 million per person, the rule costs more than the lives it saves, so it may not be adopted.

http://news.aol.com/story/_a/epa-dro...10201309990001

With the runaway inflation that we have now, I would expect the "value"/price to go UP, not down. zg

[aslan]

Originally Posted by Automatic Monkey

According to the principles of Liberal (i.e., right-wing) economics

Do you mean Conservative (l.e., right-wing) economics?

[aslan]

Originally Posted by zengrifter

With the runaway inflation that we have now, I would expect the "value"/price to go UP, not down. zg

Stagflation: condition of slow economic growth and relatively high unemployment - a time of stagnation - accompanied by a rise in prices, or inflation.

Maybe it's the high unemployment that devalues human life; i.e., products become more valuable than the people who produce them. They keep saying that unemployment is relatively low (below 6%), but that's not what people I talk to are saying. What's that old saying, "Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics."

[zengrifter]

Originally Posted by aslan

What's that old saying, "Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics."

Mark Twain said something different -

"There are three kinds of lies, LIES, DAMN LIES, and statistics."

[Automatic Monkey]

Originally Posted by aslan

Do you mean Conservative (l.e., right-wing) economics?

No. What is colloquially called "conservative" today is actually classical Liberalism- the right of every man to do his own thing, but at his own expense and his own risk. I'm a Liberal.

In most of the world the Liberal parties embrace free-market capitalism, and their opponents are the Socialists.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by Automatic Monkey

No. What is colloquially called "conservative" today is actually classical Liberalism- the right of every man to do his own thing, but at his own expense and his own risk. I'm a Liberal.

In most of the world the Liberal parties embrace free-market capitalism, and their opponents are the Socialists.

But liberal economics is quite socialistic--Keynes, Galbraith, etc. What you described sounded like conservative economics to me, or I guess you could call it classical liberal economics.

I agree with what you say about classical liberalism as equating to what we call conservatism today. So are you a classical liberal as I probably could be called, or are you a new liberal, like FDR, T Kennedy, Obama? To me, modern liberalism = socialism, and modern atheistic liberalism = Marxism, both failed systems in my opinion.

[aslan]

Originally Posted by zengrifter

Mark Twain said something different -

"There are three kinds of lies, LIES, DAMN LIES, and statistics."

There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics. - Twain attributed this to B. Disraeli
http://www.physics.csbsju.edu/stats/display.html

Figures don't lie, but liars figure. - Samuel Clemens (alias Mark Twain)

The latter may be the origin of "Statistics don't lie, but liars use statistics." I don't know.