There is no independent standard for stating the value of human life? Oh dear what a fur ball. Shirley we can make up one. Social Security provides me with a rough schema. I am worth roughly 2/3rds of my average previous income per month during my productive years from 16 to 65.9 yrs. Technically it should include my earnings at 15, while I was working and didn't qualify for a social security number. Oh well... some value gets lost in any method.
We may not be able to put a dollar value on it, but we have general equation at hand. Human life is worth in proporition to its capacity to sell its labor times the productive years it exists plus its starting capital which can be a positive or negative signed number. Many people cost more than they are worth so they start with a negative total value. This is easily determined by how much they consume before they become productive. Clearly many (the poor and the otherwise disadvantaged) begin life with a negative total value. In the big picture we can postulate them as an element of friction in the otherwise smoothly running machine of the market. Well and then there is an entire industry that spends its time determining what people are worth. It called the insurance industry. They have finely tuned algorithms that crank out dollars and cents down to the thousandth and can nail it in enough cases to make a profit, proof positive of their accuracy. Really boys and girls CG _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list pen-l@lists.csuchico.edu https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
