The Value of an American Life:

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

Silver said:
That gives us an exchange rate of approximately 22:1[/url]

okay... is that close to the actual exchange rate between the US$ and Iranian currency?

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

LordOpie said:
okay... is that close to the actual exchange rate between the US$ and Iranian currency?

comparing foreign money to the US dollar is of little use when you try to determine the true value of the foreign money. since foreign money nomination against the US buck is arbitrarely decided at at least some point in the life or dawn of the foreign currency. (BUT NOT the other way around).

like in Peru, currency in the 80s used to be like 1 million for 1 US buck. now its 3.5 for 1 US bucks. does that mean our currency got 300 000 times stronger??? nope, we just changed currency and erased the 0s out of the bills. same we could have chosen to say our currency will gonna be 10 US bucks for 1 peru Sol. and that does little to describe our current economic status.
same in argentina, same in brazil, and same in every country that has had super, or hyper-inflation.

comparing the money to the per-capita income of its country of origin is a better way to determine the worth of foreign money.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

sounds like dead americans are worth less. I bet $450k goes a lot further in Iran than 10m here. That really pisses me off.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

LordOpie said:
sounds like dead americans are worth less. I bet $450k goes a lot further in Iran than 10m here. That really pisses me off.

not likely, but IMO, money´s worth si not a matter of how fas the money goes. but how hard is it go get it there.

if 450k goes a lot further in iran than in the US, its because its a LOT harder to get it in Iran than in the US.

450k in iran would go a lot further in Iran than 10m in the US.
IF the average per-capita in Iran is at least 20 times smaller than in the US. not necesarlily linked to the exchange rate.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

somewhere in an engineering book, I read that the average US life is worth 2.3 million US bucks.
and in foreign countries, its worth the equivalent of that multiplied by the dividend of the foreign per-capita over 36 000 US bucks (US per capita). i mean, relative to its economy of course. not an absolute worldwide frame of reference.

EDIT. it sounds awful, and its not that I think this is ethical or anything, it was just to count the economical value on a life relative to its economy according to a book i read for raw economics purposes.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

Silver said:
Another thread got me thinking...

Quick back of the envelope calculation gives me this, not taking into account inflation (It's a weekend, ok?) and the fact that some of the lives lost in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing weren't American.

American Life=~$10,000,000
Iranian Life=~$454,000

That gives us an exchange rate of approximately 22:1, not corrected for the Scottish factor or inflation.

http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/05/28/libya.lockerbie.settlement/

http://www.kstatecollegian.com/issues/v100/sp/n100/AP-Iran.html

well, i just checked Irans per capita, and US per capita (a better way to actually tell how much is money worth), and Iran = 7000 US, US = 37800 US.

so the actually exchange rate on how much is the money worth is roughly 5,4. in those settlementes the rate is around 22.

so actually on those settlementes a US life its been overpriced by 4 times, of the iranis life was underpriced 4 times. not as bad a 22 times, but 400% is still a big difference.

however you want to see it.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

ALEXIS_DH said:
so actually on those settlementes a US life its been overpriced by 4 times, of the iranis life was underpriced 4 times. not as bad a 22 times, but 400% is still a big difference.

Okay, that seems more fair. Let's face it, Americans contribute far more to the world than any other group of people. I think we account for a 1/3 of the world's productivity? Iran probably contributes like nothing.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

LordOpie said:
Okay, that seems more fair. Let's face it, Americans contribute far more to the world than any other group of people. I think we account for a 1/3 of the world's productivity? Iran probably contributes like nothing.

in terms of productivity?? i think the per capita is one of the best and simplest way to pinpoint that.

what is the 1/3 of the world productivity??? isnt productivity something along the line of relavite production per individual?? maybe that is in terms of production, or GNP china has got to be da man.

and that is absolute output regardless of cost. very important detail. there is no actual account of "profit" but just of brute output, without substracting enviromental, political, other-live-expectancy costs, etc, etc, that ultimately get paid by everybody.
the transfer of intrinsec costs and losses not accounted nor paid when addressing the brute output of a nation. there is a word for that in the business world which i dont recall right now.
IMO, its my perseption that the highest per capita output after accounting those costs its probably that of the scandinavian countries.

i think the highest per capita is luxembourg. so the most expensive life in terms of nominal money is the luxembourg-er´s.

but my point is that a fair exchange rate between for the value of a life is the equal to the dividend of their per-capitas (national, or to be more precise, their zip code pc). that way both lifes are worth equal relative to their economies. but if you go over that factor of productivity, then you are overpricing one, and underpricing the other.

in this particular case, i think the iranian life is 80% underpriced relative to that of the US-er life. even, after accounting the relative more productivity in the US-er.

and without counting the fact that the people who died, probably are not average iranians, but probably iranians with above-average productivity or per capitas.

so yeah, they got paid only 23% of what the US life was worth at, even after superflous adjusting for productivity, national per capita, likely personal worth, and $hit. not even talk about the true worth, after costs; or the fact that those iranias probably had above averaga per-capitas.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

America is the most innovative country on the planet in terms of everything -- consumer technology, medical research, agricultural improvements, entertainment. The loss of one american -- potentially -- is more drastic to the planet than 10 people from any other country. There are a lot of variables in calculating the worth of a person, not just raw economic data.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

LordOpie said:
America is the most innovative country on the planet in terms of everything -- consumer technology, medical research, agricultural improvements, entertainment. The loss of one american -- potentially -- is more drastic to the planet than 10 people from any other country. There are a lot of variables in calculating the worth of a person, not just raw economic data.

yes you are right. am a bigger consumer of US goods than you or most US-ers. i wont deny it. there is a lot of merit on that on the US to offer such good products.

but in a way, in my mind, the US is like a huge grand cayman island.
GC has an astonishing high per capita. but do you think GC is a as productive as its per capita suggests????

dont you think its per capita has to do with the fact there are more bank accounts than people, and its a capital wonderland where people from everywhere hide-save-invest their wealth??

IMHO, the US is a way has a lot of that. a sizable part of its nominal worth is colateral costs paid by others maybe??
like when you talk about the US making deals in their own terms, else, you get invaded and the like???

so like, with GC, there is a huge brute worth. but am not sure on how big is in reality the net worth.

BUT, back to topic, do you think in the iranian case, any probable, or likely variable outside war economic data is powerful enough to overweight the standard per capita by 400%????? are the iranias in those settlements so far below the average to say its fair their worth is 1/4 of what it should relative to their average iranian life??? :rolleyes:

or the US-ers on those settlements made 4 times more than the average US-er a year on average???

the chances of that settlements being statistically fair, based on raw economic data is very slim.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

fvck it. You two are way too goddamned difficult to troll today. I'm gonna just watch the rest of the Bronco game and root for my fantasy players.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

I'm just going to assume that I'm still a master-troller, but you two respect me too much to get annoyed and you respect my opinion so much that you're trying to see the validity of my arguments.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

going for hat-trick...

the answer you're looking for is... american lawyers are far superior to any other county's lawyers..

N8 v2.0 · Sep 12, 2004

America sux and we should apologize for being so damn good at just about everything.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

Silver said:
Now don't do that. You would be wrong twice with those assumptions...

aww, you post says no, but your PM says you love me.

valve bouncer · Sep 12, 2004

I say it's fair, after all Loopie is probably 22 times fatter the average Iranian.

LordOpie · Sep 12, 2004

Silver said:
Ah, maybe that's why your average Iranian doesn't use a triple?

hey, I went mtb'ing yesterday! Fairly technical stuff too, tho it was only 10 miles.

ALEXIS_DH · Sep 12, 2004

N8 said:
America sux and we should apologize for being so damn good at just about everything.

not really. Nobody denies the merits of the US.
But it takes a noble person who can see further than his own nose to realize the cost of the US benefit is not paid in full by the US.

and to realize that some un-ethical advantages, and sometimes downright wrong, are taken for the sake of this well being.

Unfortunately, there are the usual habitants of smalltownville who live in the bubble of their zip code, wondering how great is the US. fungus fond of the inmensity of the tiny drop of water they inhabit, feeling themselves the kings of their "sea" kingdom.
like a flea thinking of itself as the eyes of the lion, but being no more than a flea in the cornhole.

Skookum · Sep 13, 2004

i'm worth a buck three-eighty!

jdcamb · Sep 13, 2004

Your all wrong. Well maybe not all wrong if your talking about the value of a Americans life in the courts.... But in urban US nieghborhoods your life is worth about $140 or a 8-ball of crack to a deck of heroin. You just hook up with your local crackhead/junkie (not hard to do, they are everywhere), prop him/her, give them a taste (rock/dimebag), they do the deed, they find you after the "work" is done, and well you all live happily ever after or until the Homicide investigator comes looking for you. Happens everyday. Most folks would be surprised at how little thier lives are actually worth. Just a thought......jdcamb

The Value of an American Life:

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