🚀 go-pugleaf

carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) wrote:

>In article <4o9s15$9bv@news.inforamp.net>, dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) writes:
>=carl@SOL1.GPS.CALTECH.EDU (Carl J Lydick) wrote:
>=
>=>=In article <4o54vh$3g@news.inforamp.net> dlj@inforamp.net (David Lloyd-Jones) writes:
>=>= 
>=>==af329@james.freenet.hamilton.on.ca (Scott Nudds) asks, several times:
>=>==
>=>==>  What is the marginal cost of saving a life under the staus quo?
>=>= 
>=>==Probably in the low tens of millions: that guy who got shot down in
>=>==Bosnia.
>=
>=>Bullshit.  The problem is that, as matters now stand, the marginal cost of
>=>saving a life is indeterminate; we'll spend millions of dollars to save a life
>=>that might be lost one way, and fail to spend a few hundred dollars to save a
>=>life that might be lost another way.
>= 
>=Uh, Carl, ahem, that's what marginal/intramarginal means.

>No, shit-for-brains, it's not.  We've got one secnario in which saving a life
>costs $100.  Another in which saving a life costs $1,000,000.  If both
>situations involves situations in which we've just spent that amount (e.g,
>we've spent $1,000,000 to reduce the death rate from Alar by 1, and in the
>other, we've spent $100  to put an interlock on a microwave oven, which
>prevents the death of one child, , then we've got two separate marginal costs
>of preventing a death:
>	The marginal cost of preventing a death due to alar poisoning:
>		$1,000,000.
>	The marginal cost of preventind gealt by using an interlock on a
>		microwave oven:  $100.
 
Carl, you're repeating yourself.  This is the same post you made the
other day, only with different clothes on.  It's still lame.  It is a
commonplace of economics that disaggregation of markets gives
different margins, some higher, some lower; this is the basis, e.g.,
for anti-trust.

>The problem is that morons like Dave see nothing whatever wrong with
>regulations which force the disparity in marginal costs here.
 
Nothing I have said or written makes this even faintly plausible as an
accusation.  The essence of a good insult is that it has to have a wee
touch of truth to it.

>Disclaimer:  Hey, I understand VAXen and VMS.  That's what I get paid for.  My
>understanding of astronomy is purely at the amateur level (or below).  So
>unless what I'm saying is directly related to VAX/VMS, don't hold me or my
>organization responsible for it.  If it IS related to VAX/VMS, you can try to
>hold me responsible for it, but my organization had nothing to do with it.

This disclaimer does not compute.  In real life people who are
competent in one field are generally somewhat competent in all others.
The qualities of care, relevance, sense are all applicable
universally, regardless of the content of the field.  A sensible
person, if ignorant of a field, will be all the more careful in it.
 
Thus every post you have made on economics suggests that you are
likely to be incompetent with VAXen and VMS -- sloppy, thoughtless,
ignorant, careless.  Your only demonstrable positive characteristic is
repetitiveness; unfortunately computers do it better.
 
                                                -dlj.