What is the cash value of a human death?

seriously, anybody got an idea? None of that elemental market value stuff either, I mean what is the cost/benefit of an individual human death?

value that takes into acount current salary, potential salary, current education, health etc.

And then a judge may say screw this and pull a number out of the air!

Firstly you'd have to consider the expected productivity of the person (had they not died). Were they 98 years old and unable to work? Were they 15 and had a full life of hard work cut short?

And not just expected productivity as it would relate to their salary---but productivity inasmuch as what they could offer society as a whole. How much money for OTHER people could that person be reasonably expected to make?

But from that, you must subtract any expected "debits" from society they would make. Is this someone who would be on Public Assistance? Social Security?

ALso factor in any health problems that would decrease that person's productivity, or make them become unproductive earlier than the 'average' person.

Of course, this isn't how much I think a human life is worth (is there even any imaginable worth? Anything we can comprehend?). But I would think if you were figuring cost/benefit analysis, this is probably how you'd do it (but don't pay any attention to me. I failed Algebra :) )

I figure what im after would require dividing the number of dead Iraqis by the profits of no bid contractors, or would it be the number of US soldiers killed over the sum total of oil stolen from Iraq? I dunno, all I know is Iraqi blood is bringing over $2.10 a gallon.

Well, I think that what you're pointing out above makes sense and that you'd have to use both sets of variables (Profits - Iraqi Life + Stolen Oil Revenue - US Soldier Life)

I think, in the end, the life of the Iraqi would end up being more, if only for the reason that the dead US soldier will "cost" the US more than a dead Iraqi will...in death benefits to family, etc.

Again....this isn't to say that I am saying "An Iraqi is worth more than an American" --- this is a hypothetical assuming that "lives" are property which can increase or decrease in value depending on certain conditions (age, location, productivity factor, anticipated debt to society, etc)..

...wait a minute...lives ARE a property which can increase or decrease in value depending on certain conditions....eek!

Example: A severely disabled person who will need to draw heavily on social assistance. :puke:

I hate what money does to society.:puke:

Human life isn't a commodity, though, so I guess you'd have to look at each case individually. I'm sure you could just throw some metrics into an algorithm and get a number, but would it really mean anything?

Papau (#1) is correct on the income analysis of the deceased. Some states limit recoverable losses to just a few thousands of dollars. Wrongful death claims included - in such cases whereas the party at fault (for causing the death) may have an insurance policy covering millions of dollars in damages. If the state where the deceased resided only allows the survivors to collect a maximum of $25k, then that's all the pary at fault is liable to pay.

(the cynical answer requires further clarification)

Bush tried to play the race card by implying that if you are against the Iraq war, then you don't care about liberating brown-skinned people. Yeah, that went over real good. What a putz he is.

Not really. Bush isn't a putz. He is an evil, moronic cocksucker.

I never imagined I'd hear the leader of this country described with those words and have it elicit no more than a nod of agreement from me.

American lives are worth a bit more.

It was an emergency room reality show. You'd think by that age, people would not be afraid to die.

How do you transfer the value of life that is precious at any age into dollars? Money and life are two very different things.

Like President Clinton. He is 100 times the politician that Nixon was, and not even 1/100 as evil.

then multiply by average life expectancy. Adjust as necessary.

there was a show about airline safty & how much something had to cost them in money for life lost before any upgrade to safty would be made.

The figure they used it memory serves was 2.3 million per death.
The instance sighted was the doppler radar. They said how much the entire system was going to cost nationwide & since it was less than the amount they would have to pay out the next time a jet was the victim of the windshear that the doppler was for and it was installed immediately.

If the safty fix works out to be more than the number of people it kills multiplied by 2.3 million over a certain amount of time the people die & the airlines pocket the difference.

just curious, obviously his death was worth more somehow?