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The true costs of crimes

Jacob — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 20:12:03 +0000

Have you ever wondered how much committing a crime costs? Researchers at Iowa State University tried to calculate not only its direct costs – the damaged properties, lost careers, prison expenses, and lawyer fees – but also its intangible costs every crime charges to the society, including increased police patrols, more complicated security systems, and more comprehensive life-insurance plans?

The study borrowed an innovative technique from Mark Cohen, the grandfather of violent-crime cost estimates, called the “willingness to pay” estimates. Economists had developed this methodology to measure the price of invaluable, intangible goods for which a market would never exist. To put numbers on it, researchers would ask, for example, how much concerned parties would be willing to pay to save a nearby forest or prevent its development. By factoring responses, the researchers would then come up with estimates to determine the forest’s monetary value.

Going back to the cost of crimes, the research found out that each robbery in U.S., a car-break in, for example, costs $41,288; armed robberies costs eightfold at $335,733; every aggravated assault costs $145,379; rape costs $448,532; and then there is murder with a whooping $17,252,656 price tag.

Apparently, homicide and other forms of violent crimes compel Americans to pay extra just to prevent future violence. The study argues that if we knew how much a crime costs the society, then, perhaps people will better decide how much money to spend trying to stop these crimes from happening.

http://www.slate.com/id/2271951/

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Thanksgiving dinner food items cheaper by 4%

Jacob — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 06:27:35 +0000

Thanksgiving is a-coming and it will be less expensive to hold a feast than it was last year. According to the American Farm Bueau Federation, the traditional Thanksgiving meal which consists of turkey, stuffing, cranberries, and pumpkin pie will drop 4% for 2009.

According to a survey done by volunteer shoppers, From $44.61 last year, it will only be $42.91 instead $1.70 dollars less. This is due to retail food price declines.

Although the news maybe good for ordinary consumers, farmers may not be as happy as poultry and produce production may be expected to be down this year too. Turkey production is expected to drop 8% to 9 % this year. Wisconsin and Massachussetts cranberry growers are also expecting a drop of 18% and 30 (respectively) because of the wetter weather.

Source: Daily Finance

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Are children worth it?

Jacob — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:19:32 +0000

Just as I posted something about the cost of education and how it has been increasingly difficult for parents to provide quality education in hopes of a securing a better future. And the quality of that future has even become uncertain given the financial crisis.

Ben Stein has an interesting article on CNN assessing the net value of children from the cost of rearing them to sending them to school.

The piece explores the reasons for having children over the years. Like it or not, there was a time when having kids meant cheap labor. Today, parents can’t even expect children to help out with mortgage payments or take care of them when they retire.

Maybe the reason is largely because raising modern children is such a major pain in the neck. For one thing, thanks to a variety of factors, often parents have to struggle like galley slaves to get their offspring into private schools and pay for them.

Quite a lot of truth in that.

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