A Human's Value

Go ahead, guess. 5 bucks? 45 million? 68 billion?

I said earlier that some people believe human life is precious, even priceless. But, how much is a human really worth? A U.S. civilian killed in NY by a terrorist on 9-11-01 is valued at 1.8M. An Iraqi civilian killed by a U.S. Marine at Haditha is worth $2500. An Afghani killed by Marines near Jalalabad is worth $2000. That is, these are the amounts paid in restitution to their families for estimated value of their future life earnings, I think. But it can be said we (human beings) are worth both far less and far more..

To answer the question along another line, any human body is worth either 45M dollars or about 5 bucks, depending on how you look at it. A measly 5 bucks, you say? To explain, the chemical elements that make up the body are worth about a dollar. One source said 97 cents. (That's 65% O, 18%C, 10%H, 3%N, 1.5%Ca, 1%phosphorous, .35%K, .25%S, .15%Na, .15%Cl, .05%Mg, .0004%Fe, and .00004%I -and other trace elements). Add that to the value of the skin, and you get $4.50. With 14-18 square feet of skin, with cowhide valued at 25 cents a square foot, that's $3.50.

But let's look at the brighter side, that being body parts: fluids, tissues, and germ-fighters. Bone marrow is worth maybe 23M dollars (1000g at $23K/g), Dna is worth 9.7M, antibodies are valued at 7.3M, a lung is worth $116,400. A kidney is $91,400. A heart is $57,000. Sperm and eggs have value, too. To earn 224K, a woman would have to sell 32 eggs over 8 years. A man would have to make 12 sperm donations a month for 20 years. Of course, extracting this money from someone you know is illegal, unethical, and, they say, impossible. At least I can say I'm worth 45M bucks!

I wonder if this 45M figure includes the price people will pay for hair, for wigs, or the 3.50 for a human pelt. Humans are what, 70 percent water or something, and water is a precious resource, too, even if it is essentially free for a lot of us.

You can compare this with my article on Inequality. In terms of assets, people range on this planet from less than a dollar a day to Carlos Slim Helu, with 68 Billion dollars. I'd never even heard of Slim, before I looked up Bill Gates on Wikipedia. I wonder if Slim's shady. He has or had some investments with big tobacco. That's legal, of course, even if it is a "vice." I've had dreams with Eminem and Barack in them, lately. Barack apparently is a smoker. Anyway, Slim's full name anagrams to 'slouchier, small.' He's obviously anything but. I would like to coin a new psychological term: subliminal abreaction. I don't know if that's technically correct, but it seems right. He's ambitious to be big- hardly a slouch, I would imagine, although he can afford to be.