Sunday, 21 September 2008
More statistics
An interesting side note to my last post, after September 11 is factored in, your chances of dying from terrorism are 1 in 80,000 which is about the same as getting killed by lightning and even less then being killed by a bee or wasp sting. Why does the U.S.A spend $600 Billion on fighting terrorism? It seems to me that it would be a 10,000 times better investment to spend that money on fighting cancer.
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5 comments:
America spends way too much money on fighting "terrorism", and I definitely don't want to defend America. However, there are many other factors to consider in addition to the death rate, or risk of death. For example, what sort of impact does a successful attack have on America's economy?
I see your point. But, every American that dies because of cancer is a lost tax payer. If he/she died young, they could have 10's of years of taxes ahead of them. What does that cost America?
Yeah, but there's a lot more to the American economy than just tax revenue. Think about the reaction that other countries would have if America was successfully attacked again. For example, America would probably look like a riskier place for foreign investors to pour money into. That alone would far outweight revenues from tax-payers who died from cancer.
America shouldn't be spending $600B/year on anti-terrorism. That amount is ridiculously high. I agree that a large portion of that should go to other ventures, like cancer research.
One thing to add to Nick's points - terrorism is often funded by the drug trade - something that kills many Americans and is something America is adamantly against. For example, Afghanistan alone produces 90% of the worlds heroin and 30% of the marijuana. Drugs kill, look it up.
What about the bees - isn't anyone taking care of that?
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