Should we spend $1 trillion to save one life? I'll bet we agree we shouldn't spend that much money to save just one person's life.
Ultimately, there is a trade-off to be made between how much we use to save a life vs improving the quality of everyone else's life.
The EPA puts the cost of a life at $10 million [0]. Juries put it at $2.2 million, apparently [0].
But, of course, not all lives are (statistically) as valuable. A 65 year old might have 20 years of life left. A newborn has 80+ years. An 80 year old has a 4% (and rapidly increasing) chance of dying per year. [1]
Should we spend more to save an infant than an old person? I'd say we should because we're saving more units of life-years.
So to save 1 million people, we should spend how much, exactly?
If we go by the EPA, $10 trillion. If we go by juries, $2.2 trillion.
US GDP is $21.44 trillion to give a sense of the magnitude of the cost.
The EPA estimate would entail asking the US to spend the equivalent of half its output or 12.5% of the entire world's output.
If it's 1 million 65 year olds, and life expectancy is 80 years, how much should we spend? A 65-year old has lived 80% of their life. Should we spend only 20%, then?
That'd be $2 trillion under the EPA estimate.$444 billion if we go by juries.
I have no idea if we should provide that sort of discount, honestly, but it's definitely worth thinking about in an era of intense economic impact to (primarily, but not exclusively) save members of that demographic.
The stimulus packages the US government is considering are within striking distance of these discounted numbers at $1.5 trillion or so depending on what passes.
And that stimulus doesn't come close to covering the full impact, either.
The S&P 500 market cap, only a portion of the immediately measurable economic impact, has dropped by ~$2.2 trillion over the last month. [2]
That plus the stimulus is putting us at $3.7 trillion, well over the discounted value of saving a million 65 year olds.
We have other measurements to consult, and we're not even getting started.
The total US stock market cap is 109% of GDP. It was 158% a month ago. [3]
That's a $10 trillion drop. I think the market was overheated, but coronavirus is a huge portion of that drop.
My mom is 80. I don't want her to die in agony, lungs ravaged, suffocating slowly.
This isn't about numbers for me.
Distinguish between wealth and paperwork. As Bucky Fuller pointed out, if all the paperwork disappeared overnight we would have a hellofa fight over who owns what, but no one would (necessarily) starve. If the wealth itself disappeared: the factories, the distribution networks, and so on, we would be screwed.
In the situation today the physical basis of wealth is not under attack, the "human capital" is.
Nevermind the Goddamned paperwork. Save the lives.
Ultimately, there is a trade-off to be made between how much we use to save a life vs improving the quality of everyone else's life.
The EPA puts the cost of a life at $10 million [0]. Juries put it at $2.2 million, apparently [0].
But, of course, not all lives are (statistically) as valuable. A 65 year old might have 20 years of life left. A newborn has 80+ years. An 80 year old has a 4% (and rapidly increasing) chance of dying per year. [1]
Should we spend more to save an infant than an old person? I'd say we should because we're saving more units of life-years.
So to save 1 million people, we should spend how much, exactly?
If we go by the EPA, $10 trillion. If we go by juries, $2.2 trillion.
US GDP is $21.44 trillion to give a sense of the magnitude of the cost. The EPA estimate would entail asking the US to spend the equivalent of half its output or 12.5% of the entire world's output.
If it's 1 million 65 year olds, and life expectancy is 80 years, how much should we spend? A 65-year old has lived 80% of their life. Should we spend only 20%, then?
That'd be $2 trillion under the EPA estimate.$444 billion if we go by juries.
I have no idea if we should provide that sort of discount, honestly, but it's definitely worth thinking about in an era of intense economic impact to (primarily, but not exclusively) save members of that demographic.
The stimulus packages the US government is considering are within striking distance of these discounted numbers at $1.5 trillion or so depending on what passes.
And that stimulus doesn't come close to covering the full impact, either.
The S&P 500 market cap, only a portion of the immediately measurable economic impact, has dropped by ~$2.2 trillion over the last month. [2]
That plus the stimulus is putting us at $3.7 trillion, well over the discounted value of saving a million 65 year olds.
We have other measurements to consult, and we're not even getting started.
The total US stock market cap is 109% of GDP. It was 158% a month ago. [3]
That's a $10 trillion drop. I think the market was overheated, but coronavirus is a huge portion of that drop.
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2017-value-of-life/
[1] https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-drop/n-19-26.pdf
[2] https://ycharts.com/indicators/sp_500_market_cap
[3] https://ycharts.com/indicators/us_total_market_capitalizatio...