An average of 90 people die every year in the US in lightning strikes. Of 103 leading causes of death of 2.4 million people in the US, assault without firearms killed 5500. 1% would be 24000. If we want more people to live, we should research heart attack, cancer, stroke and so on and buy automatic electronic defibrillators. The media frenzy about terrorism induces bad public policy. We might be able to cut heart attack (acute myocardial infarction) deaths in half from 170,000 to 85,000 a year by spending a one-time $82 billion on defibrillators. That's a one time $1 million for one life saved per year. If we completely stop all homicides not from firearms for that amount of money per year, that would be more than $16 million per life saved. Focusing just on the deaths from terrorism, it's probably closer to $160 million per life saved.

First point:
Substitute "prolonged" for "saved". Cryonauts and christians may disagree, but in the cold hard light of day, no lives are really ultimately "saved".

Second point:
The thing about terrorism is that it kills people in situations where they have the rational expectation of safety. It is deliberately designed to upset people's rational risk assessments. A rational change in risk assesment (okay, they blew up the tube; the bus will be safer) will not long-term improve the situation (oh sh*t, they blew up the bus) - which is why the more expensive route of eliminating the causivity factor has to be taken (the methods of doing of course being subject to vigorious debate). It is very hard for victims of terrorism to be accused of complicity in their demise-they were chosen because they rationally thought they were safe.

By and large people have heart attacks due to poor diet and/or lack (or excess) exercise - at some level, in this day and age, people choose to enhance their risk of heart disease in exchange for comfort now. Thus it might even be argued that they should bear the cost of difibrillators, or at least have some responsibily for their situation.

Equally, society shouldn't invest to much money in superconducting raincoats for idiots who run around in thunderstorms.

Duncan: you neglect prior odds. Do 99.9% of heart attack victims really all see it coming?

You seem pretty heartless. By your logic, should we expect pedestrians to buy bullet proof vests?

Well, you have to keep in mind that the government (I assume you're talking 'public spending and funding') really does not care if you live or die.... but they would prefer you live because they want your money.

Let's look at an 'average' citizen who goes to college, goes to work and retires at 67. That's 45 years in the working force. Since the government is kind of out of touch with reality, they would say an 'average' income in 100K per year. That's 4 million, 5 hundred thousand earned over the 45 years (taking into account less at the entry years, more at the later promotion years.) "Tax Freedom Day" falls in late May- so in round figures 5/12=0.4166 of one's income goes to taxes. Apply that to the 4mil-5 figure.... and you find a taxpayer is worth $1,874,700 to the Hill. They want that real bad- that's why they will fund some health research and pass lots of 'safety regulations.' They don't really CARE about your safety.... but they REALLY care about that (almost) one point nine mil.

The topic is media criticism. The problem is that the media goes around asking everybody how they feel after a bomb blast when the answer is pretty obvious, they feel horrible. Was Don Bolles the last investigative reporter?

Journalists should be flying top cover for the spies that are trying to infiltrate the networks of bad guys. They're suppose to be the guys shining the bright light of truth on them. Where are they? Talk about AWOL!

NEWSFLASH:

We're all gonna die sooner or later; been a fact of life for centuries. I've never understood the concept of "saving lives". Reminds me of saving money by spending money at a "Sale". We could turn over 100% of our incomes to Uncle Sam and the bureaucrats would probably encase us each in gelatin filled, soft plastic bubbles. Guess what? We're all still gonna die.

What if next time the terrorist use chemical or nuclear weapons? Then the death toll will be much higher.

Also, the economic damage of huge cities like NYC or london basically grinding to a halt for days and weeks is enormous even if there was not a single causalty.

New European, I agree completely. Terrorism has the potential to wipe out a whole city, whereas lightning does not. Also the small number of terrorist-caused deaths we have now per year is AFTER spending millions to prevent it, so without the expense there would likely have been many, many more deaths.

But Ken is right, Sam's larger point here is media criticism, not the relative danger. If the media didn't cover terrorism to the extent it does, would terrorists have less incentive to use such tactics? Or would they just try to orchestrate larger events that the media couldn't ignore? I don't know.

In New Zealand they are a little more formal about cost benefit analyses and the talk about "quality of life years" or QUALYs. With the heart drugs around, a victim that survives a heart attack at age 50 might have another couple of decades life expectation. As a utilitarian, I would hope the media would teach people how to live longer rather than to get scared of unlikely, small time attacks.

I agree that big bio or nuclear attacks and other big threats are a concern, but the MSM is pretty silent about those. I had to read in this issue of foreign affairs about the multi-million death threat from avian flu.

Man bites dog will always sell better that dog bites man.