What Do We Value and How Do We Show It?

I came across an interesting article recently that explores issues of public goods and our attitudes toward them. You can read the article here:

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2010/08/13/1621427/losing-sight-of-what-matters-in.html#ixzz0xRzEZSbv

There’s a lot more in this article than I want to discuss, but I do want to dig deeper into this issue of what we value. What do we put stock in? What means something to us, and how do we show it? Many say that the best way to determine what we value may be where we put our time and money. But I’m not so sure this is true anymore. Think about what you value most. Is that where most of your time and money is spent? The author has an opinion on this:

“What we value ... is cheapness. Rock-bottom prices. Low taxes. So we get tomatoes that taste like crunchy sponges, but at least we don’t pay a lot for them. Instead of percale bedsheets made in the USA we buy sheets made in countries most people couldn’t find on a map, with seams that dissolve within weeks. We buy food with no taste, clothes that unravel and appliances we have to junk after five years. Our public schools have knee-high crabgrass. People get hacked off if our public parks look better than pesticide factories. But at least they don’t cost us too much.”

First of all, I don’t think we actually value cheapness. I think we truly value good food, good products, and healthy and well-kept communities. Instead, I think we have lost the understanding of the connection between those things which we value and the idea that they are worth paying for. In other words, when we buy the crappy tomatoes that have traveled thousands of miles so that food companies, and consumers, can get them cheaper, we have not lost value in good-tasting food; we have simply forgotten that good food is worth paying for.

And this brings up an important point: we’ve lost all sense of what is valuable. Even more, once we figure it out, we can’t remember the rational behavior involved in showing that the thing has value to us. The result: we can’t decide whether we value our tax dollars or vibrant, healthy communities more. And when we do decide, we behave irrationally. If we value lower taxes, we move out to the suburbs where we rack up infrastructure bills and abandon troubled areas, both resulting in higher taxes. And if we value healthy communities, most of us… well, we move out to the suburbs looking for that community, where the resulting infrastructure and city abandonment problems serve to create less vibrant and healthy communities (plus, more taxes). It’s amazing how backward we have become.

With all of the Tea (Taxed Enough Already) Party stuff going on, a pertinent question to all of this is: What is worth being taxed for? Where should tax dollars go and where should they not go? And to test my own thought; If people should receive tax cuts in poor economic times in order to spur economic growth, then shouldn’t they also be taxed more during good economic times in order to shore up some security for the bad times to come? I’m interested in hearing what people have to say.

2009 US Road deaths plunge to… 34,000???

There’s nothing like optimism to make a horrific number seem okay. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration recently reported that 33,808 people died on our roads in 2009. It’s difficult to even imagine such a number, and the easiest thing to do is to simply not think about it. But for those of you who might be outraged or even just a little concerned about such mass mortality, there are people like Morning Call journalist Dan Hartzell and, alternatively, yours truly.

For those of you who might care, Hartzell alleviates those cares with perhaps the most ridiculous statement I’ve ever heard about traffic deaths: “…the 33,808 deaths recorded last year represent 3,615 lives spared, if you will, compared with the 37,423 people killed in 2008.” Wow! Is this really his idea of good news? He might as well have said, “But at least 310,180,000 Americans survived!” I guess when it comes to our highway system and the deaths that it causes, I’m a little more pessimistic. Try this for perspective: In 2009, the entire City of Easton died on United States highways and roads. Or how about this: 4 times as many people died on our roads last year than Americans who died between 2001 and the present in the 9-11 terrorist attacks and the two resulting wars. Or: Our traffic death rate is twice our murder rate, which itself is second highest in the world! How about this: While the death rate for rail passengers is currently 25 per 100 million miles of rail, our death rate for motorists, put in those same terms, is 1,338,136! And for good measure: Since our roads are subsidized at a rate of about $700 billion per year, or about $5,000 per tax payer per year, every 4,141 taxpayers literally pay for the death of 1 motorist.

And we’re okay with this, because we get relatively cheap subsidized gas, cheap goods transported by our subsidized trucking industry, and free parking. It’s what economists call a “free good,” a purposeful distortion of the market that takes away the demand ceiling so that we’ll continue to support industries that run our economy at perpetually higher rates every year. And it has been so successful that we are willing to put our lives on the line every day just to get a piece of it. Why? Because free goods predictably cause us to recognize that we are getting a massive deal every time we purchase that good (driving). And we all know that Americans simply can’t pass up a deal. To be fair, the rules of psychology show us that no one can, and our corporations and law makers know this all too well.

So, here’s my question: If the libertarian conservatives (and the Republicans who pretend to be ones) claim to be such pure free-marketeers and so deeply concerned about federal spending, why is a federal highway, industrial food system, and local free parking industry that receives over $700 billion per year in tax-payer subsidies (at 10% of our GNP, more than Social Security or Medicare) and kills off entire cities-worth of people not on their radars? Why does no one of importance (who can make or execute laws) ever talk about this? Is it because, as long as they don’t die on the road, they benefit from the system? Or is it because of their thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from said industries? This I would like to know.