----- Original Message ----- From: "Kevin Tarr" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, June 03, 2004 10:53 PM Subject: Re: 'Liberal Media Bias'
> This is as idiotic as Dan's theory (from the NYT) that you can compare a > rebuilding effort on a per capita basis, ignoring the 4x difference in > population and 25x difference in land area. My theory is idiotic? Hmm, for that strong of a statement to be true, I must not just hold a reasonble but false view; I must not just hold an unreasonable view; I must hold a view that is so unreasonable that anyone with even a modicum of intelligence would reject it. So, how do you compare rebuilding efforts in terms of effect? Why shouldn't costs of accomplishing X amount of rebuilding scale as per capita. Yes, there might be a bit of ecconomics of scale, but you certainly wouldn't expect the costs to build schools for a population of 28 million to be roughly the same as that for a population of 3 million. You'd expect it to be, roughly, 9x as much. You also mentioned area. It seems reasonable to me that some costs scale as area. For example, roads per capita in Alaska are more expensive than they are in Rhode Island. But, with Afganistan being more sparsly settled than the Balkans, that would argue for a higher, not a lower per capita expenditure. The only think that would make sense is the arguement that the US can't afford the money to do the job right. Well, if that is true, it certainly cannot afford the money to handle Iraq. We've aready spent hundreds of billions there; and yet we claim poverty when thinking about a few billion/year investment? Its always possible, of course, that I am missing the obvious. So, if someone can point out why it is idiotic to think that the costs of rebuilding Afganistan can reasonably be expressed as a per capital cost; I'd be very much oblidged. In would be very helpful to point out why ~$75 per person per year is more than enough of an investment. I would also very much apprecate knowing why the much greater investment of the drug cartel in Afganistan does not give them unwanted influence. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
