4 ms·

If you're going to do a quantitative analysis of the effects of terrorism you'd need to analyze effects other than deaths. 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs,

by rdouble 13y ago

If you're going to do a quantitative analysis of the effects of terrorism you'd need to analyze effects other than deaths. 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs, $40B in insurance payouts, damage to lower Manhattan that still isn't fully repaired, $100B losses in the financial exchanges, probably close to $1T in economic losses total, even before taking into account the misguided wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, the Boston Marathon bombing was far less devastating than 9/11 but still caused an estimated $333M in damage. It does suck that more people die in car accidents but no single car accident can cause a billion dollars in damage.

honzzz 13y ago
How big part of the damage is caused by the terrorist attack and how big part is caused by (over?)reaction to it? If after each car crash the car traffic in the whole city had to be stopped and people were advised not to leave their homes until the 'hit and run' culprit was caught... how expensive would that be?
- rdouble 13y ago
  The numbers I gave were the cost of damage alone, not the response.
  - honzzz 13y ago
    I don't know exact numbers but the numbers you provided do not seem to add up. The Boston Marathon bombing caused an estimated $333M in damage directly? I don't think you can do direct damage like that with primitive pressure cooker bomb. And if you count lost human lives (their insurance etc.) than it's comparable to a bus accident or a bit bigger storm. In my eyes the reaction to it still seems like hysterical overreaction. Calculate all deaths caused by car accidents and compare that to the damage caused by terrorism... and it still seems that the 'war on cars' would be more reasonable than war on terrorism.
msg 13y ago
The harm of terrorism or the harm of our irrational response to terrorism? Obviously 9/11 didn't start the Iraq War, President Bush did. He may have done that in a state of belief that the two were connected, but we should not repeat his mistake. It seems odd to me to lump in how much we poured into terrorism over and above the direct damages, and not to lump in with car accidents how much money we pour into auto safety, road maintenance, and so on. The general point is that we over-respond to trauma, both in our daily lives and a macro society level. Clean living is more important and has broader effects on your life than crime, but it is less sexy on the evening news. Just like car safety and terrorism.
- rdouble 13y ago
  The figures I gave were the direct damages, from wikipedia.
  - mikeash 13y ago
    How do you end up with 430,000 lost jobs from direct damages due to the attack? No, I'm pretty sure those are damages due to the reactions to the attack, not damages due to the attack itself.
    - rdouble 13y ago
      In New York City, there were approximately 430,000 jobs were lost and $2.8 billion in lost wages over the three months following the 9/11 attacks That's just the number on wikipedia. 430,000 people lost their jobs in the 3 months after the attack. I supposed you could argue that it's not direct damages in the sense that 430K people were not all office workers in the WTC, but if they lost their job within 3 months of the attack it seems like the job loss is pretty directly related. And, as a former NYC resident I would not at all be surprised if 430K people really did directly lose their job. The sheer number of people working in that area is immense. I remember an interview at the time with a guy whose bodega located down by Wall Street was destroyed, and he said he did $80K per week in business. And that's just one dude selling sodas, bottled water, cigarettes, etc.
300bps 13y ago
This is the most ironic comment I have read in months. You are effectively saying, "You must include X when considering A." You then completely ignore X when considering B. 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs 35,000 people die per year in car accidents. 9/11 happened 12 years ago. That means 420,000 DIED. That's worse than losing your job. $40B in insurance payouts Progressive alone pays out about $12B per year in auto accident claims. They're only the 4th largest insurer in the United States representing 8% of the market. If the ratio holds out there are approximately $150B per year in auto accident claims but admittedly I couldn't find a direct source for that. $40B in the last 12 years is a drop in the bucket. I could go on and calculate the rest, but I hope you get the point which is your cherry picked (and made up) statistics don't hold a candle to other problems we have and relatively ignore.
- rdouble 13y ago
  Sure, but I'm saying a single event caused this. You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't add up to one major terrorism event. I'm not saying I agree with the way the USA handles terrorism, but it does seem like something you want to avoid. If there was another 9/11 or a Boston bombing happened every year, the country's economy would be massively screwed. My numbers are all from wikipedia's page about the economic aftermath of 9/11 and a Boston Herald article about the Boston bombing.
  - vidarh 13y ago
    The Banqiao Reservoir Dam failures in 1975 cost an estimated 171,000 lives and made 11 million people homeless. That was a single event too. By your line of reasoning that makes 9/11 pretty much irrelevant and we should all care about dam security instead, ignoring that it was an extreme outlier, and that aggregate deaths from other causes quickly outdistanced dam failures again. Clearly there are psychological issues at play that makes us care greatly about large disasters, but that still does not make it rational to compare individual events to decide what resources to use to fight a type of event as a whole over long periods of time.
    - 13y ago
mistermumble 13y ago
> 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs Actually it is possible there were net jobs gained, when you add the increases to national security apparatus.

by rdouble 13y ago

honzzz 13y ago

How big part of the damage is caused by the terrorist attack and how big part is caused by (over?)reaction to it? If after each car crash the car traffic in the whole city had to be stopped and people were advised not to leave their homes until the 'hit and run' culprit was caught... how expensive would that be?

rdouble 13y ago
The numbers I gave were the cost of damage alone, not the response.
- honzzz 13y ago
  I don't know exact numbers but the numbers you provided do not seem to add up. The Boston Marathon bombing caused an estimated $333M in damage directly? I don't think you can do direct damage like that with primitive pressure cooker bomb. And if you count lost human lives (their insurance etc.) than it's comparable to a bus accident or a bit bigger storm. In my eyes the reaction to it still seems like hysterical overreaction. Calculate all deaths caused by car accidents and compare that to the damage caused by terrorism... and it still seems that the 'war on cars' would be more reasonable than war on terrorism.

msg 13y ago

The harm of terrorism or the harm of our irrational response to terrorism? Obviously 9/11 didn't start the Iraq War, President Bush did. He may have done that in a state of belief that the two were connected, but we should not repeat his mistake. It seems odd to me to lump in how much we poured into terrorism over and above the direct damages, and not to lump in with car accidents how much money we pour into auto safety, road maintenance, and so on. The general point is that we over-respond to trauma, both in our daily lives and a macro society level. Clean living is more important and has broader effects on your life than crime, but it is less sexy on the evening news. Just like car safety and terrorism.

rdouble 13y ago
The figures I gave were the direct damages, from wikipedia.
- mikeash 13y ago
  How do you end up with 430,000 lost jobs from direct damages due to the attack? No, I'm pretty sure those are damages due to the reactions to the attack, not damages due to the attack itself.
  - rdouble 13y ago
    In New York City, there were approximately 430,000 jobs were lost and $2.8 billion in lost wages over the three months following the 9/11 attacks That's just the number on wikipedia. 430,000 people lost their jobs in the 3 months after the attack. I supposed you could argue that it's not direct damages in the sense that 430K people were not all office workers in the WTC, but if they lost their job within 3 months of the attack it seems like the job loss is pretty directly related. And, as a former NYC resident I would not at all be surprised if 430K people really did directly lose their job. The sheer number of people working in that area is immense. I remember an interview at the time with a guy whose bodega located down by Wall Street was destroyed, and he said he did $80K per week in business. And that's just one dude selling sodas, bottled water, cigarettes, etc.

300bps 13y ago

This is the most ironic comment I have read in months. You are effectively saying, "You must include X when considering A." You then completely ignore X when considering B. 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs 35,000 people die per year in car accidents. 9/11 happened 12 years ago. That means 420,000 DIED. That's worse than losing your job. $40B in insurance payouts Progressive alone pays out about $12B per year in auto accident claims. They're only the 4th largest insurer in the United States representing 8% of the market. If the ratio holds out there are approximately $150B per year in auto accident claims but admittedly I couldn't find a direct source for that. $40B in the last 12 years is a drop in the bucket. I could go on and calculate the rest, but I hope you get the point which is your cherry picked (and made up) statistics don't hold a candle to other problems we have and relatively ignore.

rdouble 13y ago
Sure, but I'm saying a single event caused this. You're talking about the sum total of all auto accidents over 12 years. Even 12 years of auto accidents don't add up to one major terrorism event. I'm not saying I agree with the way the USA handles terrorism, but it does seem like something you want to avoid. If there was another 9/11 or a Boston bombing happened every year, the country's economy would be massively screwed. My numbers are all from wikipedia's page about the economic aftermath of 9/11 and a Boston Herald article about the Boston bombing.
- vidarh 13y ago
  The Banqiao Reservoir Dam failures in 1975 cost an estimated 171,000 lives and made 11 million people homeless. That was a single event too. By your line of reasoning that makes 9/11 pretty much irrelevant and we should all care about dam security instead, ignoring that it was an extreme outlier, and that aggregate deaths from other causes quickly outdistanced dam failures again. Clearly there are psychological issues at play that makes us care greatly about large disasters, but that still does not make it rational to compare individual events to decide what resources to use to fight a type of event as a whole over long periods of time.
  - 13y ago

mistermumble 13y ago

> 9/11 caused the loss of 430,000 jobs Actually it is possible there were net jobs gained, when you add the increases to national security apparatus.