Right off the bat, I'm sure that it is an unpopular viewpoint, but the very notion of state compensation for victims of 9/11 sickens me. But an article today at Slate (see here) shows the bizarre and often arbitrary measures being taken to determine the amount of largesse being given out -- note that the article itself is not the least bit critical of these measures, even as it spells out some of the politcally-motivated means of determining just who gets how much prize money fo the loss of a loved one:
1) Feminist rhetoric. From the start, the awards are determined useing the Markov Process for determining life expectancy in the workforce for a given victim. This is not a bad idea, if you are going to give out the awards. However, despite the empirically true fact that women have a shorter "workforce life expectancy" than men (i.e. relative amount of time one will actually spend in the workforce over the course of one's life) the larger standard for men is used to determine both. If accurate statistics were used, this would result in the families of women killed in the 9/11 attacks receiving less than the families of men killed. Naturally, one might assume that such a discrepancy would be unfair, since the loss is a tragedy regardless of the gender of the person killed. But the awards are determined first and foremost standards for the approximated loss of income of the victim -- not of any measure of the relative *value* of the victim as a person (which is of course an undeterminable figure as a loss is a loss is a loss.) Therefore, the families of female victims get a dispropotionate share of available relief, in the interests of "fairness," or more likely not out of any desire to be fair, but out of a desire to avoid the unquesionable backlash from the feminist lobby that would occur if the trustees of the fund were to in some way evoke simple facts in their calculations -- simple facts being a great enemy of feminism.
2) For the children -- just not yours. In an huge error in judgment, the relief fund rewards people who have had the simple lack of common sense required to avoid trying to repopulate the world. Whether for cultural or religious reasons, or just plain too lazy to practice birth control, the more kids you have, the bigger your award is. Again, this is a policy that will not gather a lot of unpopularity in Washington, since "for the children" is a jingoistic mantra so deeply ingrained into political rhetoric as to be considered sacrosanct. Yet, people who actually stick to only having children that they can afford, and who take pains to protect them in the event of an untimely death, are penalised -- because the $ 100,000.00 per child award is adjusted downward when such things as life insurance and savings in the form of dedicated trust funds etc. are considered. So, just one more prize for producing too many children to throw on the pile, along with tax cuts, welfare and every other carrot that the state puts in front of people who refuse to keep their reproductive organs under control. God forbid that the VCF trustees not seem to care about "the children;" they'd never work in Washington again.
3) Rich people just aren't going to be missed as badly as normal, decent people. For purposes of calculating income, the cutoff is $ 231,000.00 per year -- in other words, a semi-successful bond trader earning $ 231,000.00 per year and the CEO of a company earning $ 6 million per year are figured as having the same income. Again, nobody ever cries about the rich getting excluded from such things, any more than they cry about the rich getting shafted on taxes, because "they can afford it." But anyone who lives or works in Manhattan can tell you that $ 231,000.00 is really not all that much in the Big Apple -- senior city officials make nearly that much -- so again, what relief there might be for people who can feel better about the loss of a loved one as long as there's a cheque involved is compromised by the idea that people who already have money are not worth as much dead as those who don't.
So as in so many other things, the ugly spectre of egalitarianism has crept into the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund -- and most depressing of all, everyone seems to find it a just and proper thing.
Phaedrus
1) Feminist rhetoric. From the start, the awards are determined useing the Markov Process for determining life expectancy in the workforce for a given victim. This is not a bad idea, if you are going to give out the awards. However, despite the empirically true fact that women have a shorter "workforce life expectancy" than men (i.e. relative amount of time one will actually spend in the workforce over the course of one's life) the larger standard for men is used to determine both. If accurate statistics were used, this would result in the families of women killed in the 9/11 attacks receiving less than the families of men killed. Naturally, one might assume that such a discrepancy would be unfair, since the loss is a tragedy regardless of the gender of the person killed. But the awards are determined first and foremost standards for the approximated loss of income of the victim -- not of any measure of the relative *value* of the victim as a person (which is of course an undeterminable figure as a loss is a loss is a loss.) Therefore, the families of female victims get a dispropotionate share of available relief, in the interests of "fairness," or more likely not out of any desire to be fair, but out of a desire to avoid the unquesionable backlash from the feminist lobby that would occur if the trustees of the fund were to in some way evoke simple facts in their calculations -- simple facts being a great enemy of feminism.
2) For the children -- just not yours. In an huge error in judgment, the relief fund rewards people who have had the simple lack of common sense required to avoid trying to repopulate the world. Whether for cultural or religious reasons, or just plain too lazy to practice birth control, the more kids you have, the bigger your award is. Again, this is a policy that will not gather a lot of unpopularity in Washington, since "for the children" is a jingoistic mantra so deeply ingrained into political rhetoric as to be considered sacrosanct. Yet, people who actually stick to only having children that they can afford, and who take pains to protect them in the event of an untimely death, are penalised -- because the $ 100,000.00 per child award is adjusted downward when such things as life insurance and savings in the form of dedicated trust funds etc. are considered. So, just one more prize for producing too many children to throw on the pile, along with tax cuts, welfare and every other carrot that the state puts in front of people who refuse to keep their reproductive organs under control. God forbid that the VCF trustees not seem to care about "the children;" they'd never work in Washington again.
3) Rich people just aren't going to be missed as badly as normal, decent people. For purposes of calculating income, the cutoff is $ 231,000.00 per year -- in other words, a semi-successful bond trader earning $ 231,000.00 per year and the CEO of a company earning $ 6 million per year are figured as having the same income. Again, nobody ever cries about the rich getting excluded from such things, any more than they cry about the rich getting shafted on taxes, because "they can afford it." But anyone who lives or works in Manhattan can tell you that $ 231,000.00 is really not all that much in the Big Apple -- senior city officials make nearly that much -- so again, what relief there might be for people who can feel better about the loss of a loved one as long as there's a cheque involved is compromised by the idea that people who already have money are not worth as much dead as those who don't.
So as in so many other things, the ugly spectre of egalitarianism has crept into the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund -- and most depressing of all, everyone seems to find it a just and proper thing.
Phaedrus
