How much money should the government spend to extend the life of an 80 year old sickly person?

Boilerman's buddy Pete - who lives in a big house!!!! - hasn't witnessed ANY deaths.

I think that settles it, doesn't it?

I don't know what happened with the parents, whether they survived, anything about a lawsuit.  Close to 80 deaths so far.

As Kevin described regarding hypothermia, the only good thing about freezing to death is that is is generally without pain (in the late stage), actually a sense of peace.  The person becomes sleepy and pretty much can't resist the urge to go to sleep, take a nap, whatever you want to call it.  Death ensues if no intervention.

My two brothers foolishly chose to go canoing on a December day, snow starting to fall.  They loved canoing and were both home on holiday.  Canoe tipped over, they got soaking wet, fingers wouldn't work enough to light matches.  They started trudging to get to their car which was not close.  They began to feel the need to sleep.  Younger brother begged to stop and sleep a while.  Older brother had just enough brain cells left to know they had to keep walking.  Luckily came to a cabin, faced a man at the door pointing a shotgun at them but realized "you boys are wet!"  Let them in and get dry, drove them to their car in his truck.  They could easily have died from hypothermia if they'd not kept going.

Candy

Well, Boilerman, glad you finally explained your position.  No problem, everyone needs more education and health care and better prison systems.  Spend here, or spend there.  It is never a simple answer, even down to how a household budget is spent.   Summer camp, special education class,  or replace the aging car?

But you simplified it as if I (or whomever) were to decide about saving the life of one person, granny who wasn't in the best health, by one year by spending a king's ransom on her...one person.  You could have saved me the time I spent explaining the ethics of decision making (not that it always happens that way).  Next time, ask your question but follow it with what you think instead of taunting me or others to start/continue discussions that went nowhere, until now.  Thanks for explaining your position, now.  And BTW, you assume too much based on something somebody writes.  You are almost as bad as Xxxxx at doing that.  Giggle on at our stupidity.

Candy

What Boiler is best at is saying "Xxxxx says..." or "Xxxxx thinks..." followed by something that Xxxxx never said or thought. He then argues against that nonexistent position. It's called a "straw man argument," and has been the favorite tactic of conservative talk show hosts and pundits for years. "WHY DO DEMOCRATS WANT TO DESTROY THE COUNTRY?????" WHY DO THE DEMOCRATS WANT SOOOOOOOCIALISM?????" "WHY DO DEMOCRATS HATE FREEDOM????" Delivered, if via video, with eyes bugged out and purple skin tone.

As you've now received the Boiler treatment, you're correct in saying that his gross oversimplification of the issue makes discussion impossible. Of course needs and wants are infinite; of course resources are finite. That's the definition of economics---meeting the former to the greatest extent possible with the latter.

One easy way to increase the resources that are available is to not piss them away on things that are useless. I don't know how many people could have gotten say, a hot meal or a night's shelter--or a lifesaving operation--from the money blown on Da Wall, but I'll bet it's a considerable number. The Trump tax breaks for the rich went into corporate coffers and the wallets of billionaires; that money is just sitting there while the government struggles with the fiscal consequences of the pandemic.

So I'm reluctant to discuss costs of social programs, and things such as universal health care, with people who support a political party whose sole goal is to further enrich the wealthy and keep themselves in power, even at the expense of the law and American society. And just for the record--I find any discussion of whether we should spend money to keep people from suffering ridiculous. Of course we should do that.

And you know what the really ironic part is? If we had a more robust social safety net, and people didn't freeze and starve in the dark, die for lack of medical care, etc. etc. etc., the billionaires would make more money! The fat cats would get fatter if the mice had enough to eat! But our ruling oligarchy doesn't want to see their tax bills increase by 0.0004% to make that happen; they're too shortsighted to see that they will ultimately recoup those expenditures many, many times over.

Can you tell me where it was that your brothers, soaked and freezing, knocked on someone's door only to be greeted by a man holding a shotgun, so I can draw a 500-mile radius circle around that place and never enter that circle for the rest of my life?

You can't guess, Kevin?  Arkansas.  Cadron Creek vicinity.  But give the guy credit.  We are talking cabin out in the woods, no neighbors in close vacinity.  When the man realized my shivering brothers weren't there to do a home invasion he and his wife let them in to dry out, fed them some coffee and victuals (that's the official spelling of vittles), and drove them to their car.  Not so bad, those folks.  See, you judge too quickly.

Candy

Shotguns, pointed at people, even with only the best of intentions (!!!), sometimes go off. That, writ large, is what's wrong with GUNZ. They are too often used casually and carelessly. For too many people, the substitute penis is an answer to every situation. The guy ultimately did the right thing--after threatening to kill them. Maybe the hot coffee was his way of apologizing.

Plus, just another liberal snowflake bleeding-heart observation on my part, but you point a shotgun at someone, it tends to, uh, traumatize them. And I'd hazard a guess that they were already quite traumatized. When the guy realized that the persons knocking on his door weren't trying a home invasion...well, how often is someone knocking at your door intending to do that? For that matter, why would someone planning a home invasion knock? (Now, greeting a Jehovah's Witness with a shotgun---that, I can get behind.)

Anyway, thanks for identifying the location---I already wasn't planning to ever get within 500 miles of Arkansas, so...reinforcement!

Here's an obvious place to spend more money, since some believe that risk should always be minimize/eliminated.  I'm sure that you've read about the flight that left Denver on it's way to Hawaii which experienced a catastrophic failure of one of it's two engines.  Of course, the plane can fly 5 plus hours with one engine, but if the second engine fails, all on board will die.

There were certainly grannies on board, and certainly that dictates that we add a third engine in case the first two engines fail?  This one could be positioned in the rear of the plane.  Of course, this would require more fuel consumption, and then we have to worrie about the health of granny breathing polluted air.

What to do?

Deep woods Arkansas circa 1960s, prowlers' approaching. "Hand me my rifle, woman." 

Normal operations.  Might be humans with bad intentions (like messing with your still).  Or a bear. 

Or some revenuers.  LOL.

Yes, Kevin, you should stay away.  It is really a beautiful and peaceful state.   You'd hate it.

Candy

I would like the beauty. I might not like the people.

I feel the same way about Utah. Absolutely gorgeous scenery, but sooner or later, a Mormon slithers up to you. Unlike Arkansas, he won't be holding a gun. He'll have a copy of the Book of Moron.

Uh, Mormon.