It was interesting also that some didn’t really want to make a claim, indeed a few never did. Also that some who litigated didn’t do so for financial reasons, but for reasons such as wanting to know what really happened and to send a message to the authorities that they should have performed better.

I think Feinberg also said that those who litigated got less on average than those who didn’t.

BTW, the Law Report segment turned put to be an interview with Ken Feinberg, the guy who administered a $7 billion fund set up to compensate the victims of 9/11. It’s got too many subtle angles to summarise and the transcript would reward reading (I heard it this morning). It was a one off and was what they called ‘vengeful philanthropy’, in other words a political act and one in the eye for al Qa’eda to show US compassion in the face of their brutality. There was no enthusiasm at all for a similar fund for the victims of Katrina feinberg says:

I don’t believe it can or should be replicated.

But to my mind he doesn’t exactly say why.

Its not that things like quality of life are not important. They do need to be factored into the models, but without them we end up getting caught arguing about ideology and people assume immovable, inconsistent positions.

Also I’d note that we should not be slaves to this process. Just because the computer pops out the answer “A” when you were expecting “B” doesn’t mean you have to accept it. But it should be an indication that you need to look at the situation more closely.

There are two people in a burning building and you can only save one. The choice is between a scientist who has knowledge possessed by no-one else which will with great certainty lead to a cure for cancer, and you mother.

I’d make two comments. One is that emotions and values are important elements in decision making as well as reason. Second, that this is properly so.

What I’d choose under the circumstances is irrelevant, but like Caroline and Fine I’m really uncomfortable with a preconceived number as the value of a human life. Numbers have great and unwarranted power. You would be better engaging with the pragmatics and the particular experiential dimensions of each case, although your decisions might be harder to defend in court.

What we are hearing here is that the joint couldn’t run without cheap illegal labour, and there is a fair bit of hypocrisy on the part of certain politicians on the issue.

Peter, there is nothing anti-American in what I have said, but Americans are clearly questioning the Bushistas’ motives.

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OK - I’ll change that to anti Bush instead.

Of course the fact that the EPA pays out a lot more than other government departments would be a perfect reason why the EPA should reduce their ‘value’ so that other departments could increase theirs (money being limited as it is).

No need to blame Bush on this one - but hell, why not!

A lot of the outrage here reminds me of the old stand-up comedians’ saw about the airplane’s black box: “Why don’t they just build the WHOLE PLANE out of that stuff?!”

A high price that a government puts on a life indicates an enhancement of where it is in the support of life.

Government is about choices. If vaccination saves a life for every dollar spent, then that would place the value of a life at $1 for that programme. If you have to start choosing between programs that only save lives/millions of dollars spent then that should only happen after all the lives/thousands of dollars options have already been exhausted.

So if you look at it that way then a dropping price means that the government in question is failing (not such a surprise in this case). It doesn’t mean that you can ask that nation for some number of slaves at the going rate, or that you can pay them the going price then hunt their citizens.

In effect the number is just a ROI valuation.

Well yes, that’s the point. Of course it is important how we value others and the way we actually illustrate that point, is not by blather concerning the sacredness of human life, or by ’shock’ that these kinds of calculations are made (heard of the insurance industry-understand how it works?) but by ensuring that actually existing humans have the best lives the current knowledge and wealth can deliver. I am aware of all the arguments concerning ‘ends’ and the difficulty of obtaining final agreement on these issues, but the endless moralising blather is starting to really annoy me. It is true that these kinds of calculations are made all the time, and it is also true that it is an interesting question as to why and how the different calculations are made which yield different values for a ‘human life’. But the reality is in a practical sense, that people have precisely the value they are able to both imagine for themselves, and impose on those on whom they must rely (in a technical and knowledge based sense) for advice and leadership on a range of questions.

j_p_z, I never took you for a traditional marxist. ha ha ha. So it’s all the multi culturalists fault is it? You are sounding like a trotskyist.

How many children’s lives would be saved with more money for exercise, or upgrading the Children’s, or compensating advertisers in some manner, or better resourcing CSV? Point is, there are much cheaper ways of saving a lot more kids lives than variable speed zones everywhere. But the Herald Sun loved it and Bracks reputation remained good. Buying votes from parents can be costly.

Every year thousands of people get killed and aimed on the roads. We could stop it all tomorrow by restricting the speed limit for all vehicles (including bicycles - mung bean eaters take note)to 5 km/h.

All those in favour say aye.

No takers? I thought so. The costs ($$$$) would far exceed the value of the lives saved.

Then there’s the cost of developing new life saving drugs. Suppose we could develop a drug to cure a very rare form of cancer, at a cost of %100 million per life saved.

All those in favour say aye.

The list goes on and on.

It’s all very distasteful of course. Life is sacred, yada yada - just ask the Pope if you run into him on the Bridge Clim this week - but it does have a value.

I’m sorry if I’m offending anyone, but governments and others have to make these choices all the time - how much should a government spend on measures that save a few lives? And I’d suggest it’s better to acknowledge honestly that we’re engaging in this exercise than pretending we’re not. I’d suggest that governments that valued lives as high as $7 million would probably tax us far more, spend far more than they do on health and very little on much else and probably wouldn’t be very popular - because people out there as much as they deny it, value other people’s lives at far LESS than $7 million.