Story here. There’s some odd components to this story: (1) protesters in South Africa feel that they’re entitled to US tax dollars, (2) they aren’t protesting a cutting back in US funds, but only that we haven’t increased our contribution enough in the last year, (3) they’re proudly wearing “HIV-positive” shirts proclaiming that they have a venereal disease, and (4) no one in this discussion ever acknowledges that the US is basically financially insolvent at this point. Not to blame the protesters: they’re most likely trying to seek help for relatives and friends dying of a terrible disease. It’s just strange to see the politics of US budgeting in action. And it’s the basic fact that government spending responds to political pressure rather than genuine cost-benefit analysis that creates the government calculation problem. Perhaps we should simply have diverted the money we would otherwise spend on red squirrels to the folks with AIDS. I’m willing to bet that the $1,250,000 to be spent saving an estimated 100 squirrels could do more good. What’s 100-squirrels worth of human life? I know we’re worth more than many sparrows, but what about endangered red squirrels? Is there a calculation we could use? If, say, 1 human life is worth 5 squirrel lives we just have to save 20 people with the 1.25 million dollars to make the trade worthwhile.
This article says that it costs about $80 in anti-retroviral drugs to treat an AIDS patient for a year. $1.25 million could then treat 780 AIDS patients a year for twenty years. So every 1.25 million dollar squirrel saving project which saves 5 squirrels per year is done at a cost of the money required to keep 780 AIDS in treatment for a year. Apparently, the current valuation of the US government says that a squirrel is worth in excess of 156 AIDS patients. And I don’t know about you, but in my book no squirrel’s value is ever more than 2 or 3 people. Think about it.
2 Comments
Excellent pair of essays. What craziness. It’s great to have specific examples like this in mind when discussing something abstract like the calculation problem.
Thanks, Tgg. It is indeed craziness. And it’s great to have a reader who knows what the calculation problem is.