The Price Is Right?

The Price is Everything: Why We Pay What We Do, a book written by New York Times reporter Eduardo Porter is full of some very interesting facts. One in particular that I found extremely attention grabbing and worthy of a blog entry was this. The amount of compensation offered by the U.S. government for lives lost on 9/11 ranged from $6.4 million for the wealthiest victims to $250,000 thousand for the poorest of the victims.

The Constitution of the United States as written by Thomas Jefferson himself, states that all men are created equal. It doesn’t state all men are created equal until their demise, at which time there will be a price attached. This is wrong, right?

Here’s another interesting entry. If it were legal to sell organs, the estimated fair compensation of a kidney donor would be $15,200. Of course on the black market a desperate person would be willing to pay much more. And according to the ethic rules of the American Society of Reproductive Medicine, of which I am not a member, there is a $10,000 cap that can be paid to female egg donors. A Harvard graduate could reap more. I wonder what a University of New Brunswick graduate would fetch. Well it’s a moot point anyway. I never went to Harvard. Those of you who know me will get this.

The taller you are the more money you will earn. Attractive people earn more than the homely. There are always exceptions to the rule as Mickey Rooney, Danny Devito and Rhea Perlman will attest to.

The author states all cost is relative when measured against its benefit. You get a flat tire in your driveway you will search for a replacement and change it yourself. You get a flat tire on the 401 in the middle of the worst snow storm in centuries, in below freezing temperatures on the busiest travel day of the entire year, it’s going to cost you.