Dollars and Sense
What’s the value of a human life? According to the U.S. Government, it all depends on whether you’re an American that got blown up by a damn foreigner, or a foreigner that got blown up by a damn American. The U.S. Government pays wildly different ammounts of compensation to the families of the dead. TomDipatch has the numbers:
The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered by al-Qaeda terrorists on September 11, 2001 to his or her family: $1.8 million.
The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered at Haditha, Iraq, by U.S. Marines: $2,500.
The value of an innocent civilian slaughtered by U.S. Marines near Jalalabad, Afghanistan: $2,000.
I don’t think all those insurgents and terrorists hate our freedom; I think they hate the way our government unfairly values lives.
World Bank Accounts
In the spirit of keeping up with the Joneses, the CIA Factbook offers a quick check of bank account balances of world neighbors:
|
Rank
|
Country
|
Current account balance
|
Date of Information
|
|
1
|
China | $ 179,100,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
2
|
Japan | $ 174,400,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
3
|
Germany | $ 134,800,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
4
|
Russia | $ 105,300,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
5
|
Saudi Arabia | $ 103,800,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
6
|
Norway | $ 63,330,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
7
|
Switzerland | $ 50,440,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
8
|
Netherlands | $ 50,170,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
9
|
Kuwait | $ 40,750,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
10
|
Singapore | $ 35,580,000,000 | 2006 est. |
|
. . . |
. . . |
. . . |
. . . |
|
163
|
United States | $ -862,300,000,000 | 2006 est. |
Ouch!
Of course, some people will tell you the U.S. mountain of debt isn’t a problem. You can also run across drug addicts, credit-card abusers, and even war criminals in the Oval Office who say they still have everything under control, too…
Cost of Iraq War
I dunno…it sure doesn’t look like we have it under control:
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May 16th, 2007 at 9:11 am
It is just amazing how our elected officials are acting like Nero. He fiddled as Rome burned, and they do everything in their power to drive this nation deeper into debt.
Millions are wasted on useless pork projects. Trade agreements that put us deeper into debt. Billions in overcharges on contracts. Useless programs that goble up money.
What do we get from all the presidential candidates? Unrealistic speeches which will spend more money, and nothing about tightening our belts and bringing this nation back to a world class nation. We are speeding toward becoming a third world country.
May 16th, 2007 at 5:15 pm
“We are speeding toward becoming a third world country.”
It’s as if the politicians know it would be easier to slip into a dictatorship than to fix the problems…like, we’ve got the most expensive health care system in the world, but 25% of the population can’t afford it, so on a global scale, individual health care in the U.S. is ranked somewhere below the 30th nation in the world. We’ve still got it very nice here, just moving in the wrong direction…
May 16th, 2007 at 6:44 pm
I either need to up my rates or accept currencies other than the dollar.
The way the numbers read to me:
1. We are a junkie nation.
2. We are getting deeper and deeper in debt to our loan sharks/pushers.
3. The deeper in debt we get, the higher the vig gets.
4. Pretty soon we start working for the sharks/pusher.
If I was holding the notes on our country, I’d be having talks with the bushies about how to “secure” the loans better. I’d be asking for laws that would more tightly control the junkies.
Hey just like a dealer, he won’t cut you off until you have no way to pay him.
Anyone see my dark parallel?
May 16th, 2007 at 8:31 pm
Xman: I think sooner or later, the Fed is going to have to print money round the clock to pay off the debt. And with all those dollars flooding the market…well, think of it this way: If tons of diamonds and gold hit the streets, they’d become a dime a dozen. So, too with the dollar…imagine what will happen when dollars become a dime a dozen, and your life savings will only buy a few loaves of bread?
It’s happened a lot around the world, just not in the USA.
On March 23, 2006 the Federal Reserve ceased publication of the M3 monetary aggregate, so we no longer have a clear measure of how much money is on the street.
And if you think you can hedge your retirement wealth by sinking it into gold, think again. The Treasury Department has reasserted its power to seize gold and silver in national emergencies and wartime, and since our Dictator in Chief has declared a War on Terror with no end game, or even a definition of what “winning” means, we’ll likely be at war till the pigs can fly.
May 17th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
I always laugh when celebrities, politicians, or whomever say that we are the richest nation on the planet; especially under the guise of that is why the terrorists HATE US. Historically, debt and arrogance are what our leaders do best, ad infinitum… Debt is a concept that carries from generation to generation, but the numbers become so abstract to the average Joe-not you Joe C- it becomes someone else’s problem. National debt isn’t “my problem” it is the government’s problems. Such “justified” reasoning always drives me mad!
May 18th, 2007 at 9:47 am
This info and the implications are making me feel very insecure.
I need one of those multiple streams of income things…and some of the streams in another currency as a hedge.