What am I bid for this life? (Going once, going tw.....)

So how much is a human life worth in New Zealand? It might sound a silly. It all depends on the context as to the value placed on each life.

Some might wonder why I am even asking the question, but it is something we need to get our heads around because like it or not a human life is frequently assessed as having some kind of monetary value for a host of different reasons. I think we need to know the whys and wherefores of these processes because sometimes they defy any logical explanation.

For example when a life is lost through natural causes insurance companies make a payout (if you are lucky) and that amount could be considered as the value that has been placed upon that particular life. But here it is not so much the insurance company that is setting that ‘value’ rather it is the person taking out the insurance policy. However it is still a value and in most cases this will start at around $100,000 and go up from there according to the premium paid and the policy chosen.

ACC is also in the business of assessing the value of human life and their figures are a little less straightforward (as you might expect). Their calculation can involve a funeral grant of up to $4500.00 and a survivor’s grant of $4702.79, plus weekly compensation equivalent to 60% of the deceased’s earnings (roughly). There are some finer points to that, such as additional allowances for dependants other than the spouse, but the total possible amount payable is 80% of earnings. This can be paid as weekly compo or in a lump sum. Obviously the total amount depends on how much you were earning, so of course the very well paid families fare best in this situation as with life insurance. The weekly payments if you choose those, last for a maximum of five years and this is how the lump sum is also calculated. Thus if your nearest and dearest was on the minimum wage their life will be valued at about $93,000.

Accidents in the workplace are another of the areas where determinations as to the monetary worth of human life is regularly determined. In this respect the courts and the Department of Labour are involved. The courts have the power to fine an employer (although not if they are a Government Department apparently) and award compensation. Two recent cases that give an idea of how this works are the case of the worker at Safe Air Ltd (they should change the name) who was sucked into a jet engine he was doing a maintenance check on it. The company was fined $56,000 and ordered to pay his family $22,500 in compo. Thus his life was valued at less than $80K.  

DOC on the other hand couldn’t be fined when their volunteer worker was apparently swept out to sea at Raoul Island and thus they escaped at just $60K which was the payout they made voluntarily to the guy’s family.

Similarly the courts regularly assess the value of a human life when they direct careless drivers to make payments to the relatives of those they have killed through their careless or reckless driving. Currently the most you can be fined for this sort of thing is $20,000 and then only if you can be proven to have been drunk or stoned at the time. Payments for emotional harm can also be levied, but these seldom reach five figures, so the courts are less generous than the insurance companies with a human life worth basically less than $30,000 in total. It would appear they don’t believe the loss to the family is even equivalent to the minimum wage for one year (before tax).  

However it is now official that New Zealand’s lousiest bastards are the Royal New Zealand Air Force who apparently value human lives at a great deal less than any of the above examples.

You will all no doubt remember the tragic helicopter crash on Anzac Day 2010 that resulted in the deaths of three Air Force personnel and serious injuries to another. We now discover after months of red herrings about how the crash came about because of dangerous practices by a pilot who wasn’t properly trained to fly at dusk that he only did it because the Air Force top brass had been moaning about how much it would cost for the guys to stay overnight. It has taken until this week for that admission to be dragged out of the Defence Monster Jonathan Coleface. Then the prick had the audacity to try and blame the Labour Government which hasn’t been in power since 2008!

So how many much was it actually going to cost to put up four men at the Amora Hotel in Wellington which the Air Force were in the habit of using? How close were we to blowing the entire Defence budget had we accommodated these guys instead of making them fly out in dangerous circumstances they had not been trained for? Surely it can’t have been very much?

Well we now learn that the amount at stake was $149.00 per room. I have been unable to ascertain how many the rooms at that price can sleep, but it is probably two and even if it is only one, then we lost three lives and made a mess of another for the sake of less than $600.00.  I think that speaks volumes about how much the Air Force cares about the welfare of its personnel.

And by the way; if you are thinking of making a firm appointment with the reaper any time soon, for goodness sake take out a large insurance policy or find yourself a dodgy accountant to fudge your income figures – there are tons of them about at the moment – just pick a name from the court reports.

Just supposing.........

I’ve been watching with increasing concern as those responsible for the Rena disaster seem to be successfully dodging all the bullets. Furthermore they have amassed an enviable arsenal of their own which they have turned upon those already hurt by their negligence.

Costamare Inc and Daina Shipping have been able to limit their liability to an outrageous extent, due in part to the carelessness of our Government. I say carelessness, but this is a rather generous view for me to take as the more likely scenario is that if we were to probe the issue deeply we would find some kind of concession for some kind of politician ‘coincidentally’ occurred after we agreed to the ridiculous piece of legislation that allows liability for such ‘accidents’ to be limited

Of course there is far more than money at stake in cases such as this. Damage to the environment and the wildlife that live in it are beyond mere dollars. Once animals are dead, money can’t replace them and once an environment is polluted by oil the consequences can last for decades.

So no sooner had our environment been assaulted by what will undoubtedly be found to have been a grossly careless act than we felt the cold steel up us as we learned the ship’s owners would have their liability for damages limited to $12.1M, and WE the people who played absolutely no part whatsoever in the grounding of this ship would have to pay the rest. Now to most of us $12.1M sounds like a lot of money, but to put it into perspective consider these reports:

·         As at 17 October 2011  (just 12 days after the grounding) the costs of the clean-up had reached $4M (NZ Herald)

·         By 27 October the costs of the clean-up had risen to $10M (ODT)

·         As of December 7, then Transport minister Steven Joyce said the cost had risen to $19.5M (NZ Herald)

So as of a week ago the costs had already exceeded the owners’ liability limits by more than 50 percent and we already had to fork out $7.5M of our own money to fund the clean-up which won’t be over for many months yet.

Of course additionally a lot of businesses lost a fortune in revenue over this matter, too. Tourist operations, fishermen, and water sports enthusiasts have all suffered a great deal since Captain Pugwash crashed his tub onto Astrolabe Reef. Some have suffered fatal financial losses and have basically no comeback apart from a few empty promises made a couple of months ago by Ministers keen to get re-elected. Good luck there.

But the latest kick in the guts that delivered to New Zealanders over this sorry saga has been the ransom demands made by the salvors to those unfortunate enough to have cargo onboard. At first they sent out demands to every person with goods on the ship, including private individuals whose cargo was made up entirely of personal effects. Then following a bit of shouting from their customers they made a small tactical withdrawal. They claimed the letters had been sent to individuals in error and should only have been sent to those with commercial cargo on board. It sounds like classic ‘softening up’ tactics to me.

But in any event I can’t see a huge amount of difference here. Both private individuals and businesses have already paid for their goods to be delivered to them. So why should they have to pay for the cost of salvage? Effectively Svitzer is trying to extract payment from the owners of the goods rather than the owners of the ship.

Now some might say this is a non-issue and as most people have insurance they can leave it to their insurance company to sort out. But we all know what happens following a load of insurance claims; premiums go up so the insurance company can recoup its payout. But what on earth could anyone do about it? These massive corporations are too big for a fight by a little man and it would seem the insurance companies can’t be bothered arguing about it. Why would they when they can simply increase their premiums and carry on as normal? Let’s not forget who it was that crashed this tub. Costamare and the rest should be relying on THEIR insurance company for cover.

But what if.....what if somebody found a way to challenge these modern day pirates and mounted a test case against them? It would be expensive and the only way it could ever happen would be through the philanthropy of somebody who cares enough about justice and hates highway robbers.

I don’t know if there is someone or a group of people who would love to give these guys a fright – probably not, but it would be great. I have a theory that is untried, but just might be the path towards how one could unravel this mess.

Consider this; the shipping company entered into a contract with their customers to ship their goods to them. The contract wasn’t to sail them all the way to Tauranga Harbour and then leave them out on a reef. It was to deliver them to the port and then forward them via land based carriers to their destination. 

Failure to do this is surely a breach of contract? The usual effect of a breach of contract is to bring that contract to an end. When this happens the defaulting party is usually expected to pay some kind of compensation to the person whose goods they have failed to deliver. Normally this would involve replacement of the goods concerned and/or a full or partial refund of the freight costs.

So my contention is that the shipping company would have no right to recover the costs of salvage from the shippers because that is simply an incidental cost they have incurred through their own negligence. Negligence that furthermore could be said to go beyond the bounds of a simple accident given the criminal charges filed against the owners and the crew.

It might be a lengthy bow I’ve drawn, and I am sure that even if I’m right there is probably nobody with the funds or determination to take these guys on. But just supposing someone did; wouldn’t it be fantastic for the common man?

Balmy nights and barmy people

This balmy winter is giving rise to some pretty barmy behaviour; although it is probably rather generous to the nitwits to whom I’m about to refer that I should blame their stupidity upon the weather.

The first culprit is the imbecile who sent a bill to a couple of poor buggers who found themselves trapped on the 22^nd floor of the Grand Chancellor Hotel in Christchurch on February 22. Understandably the pair was mighty pissed off, despite the fact the hotel has since waived the bill (such generosity!). The poor buggers had to exit the rubble via collapsed staircases and eventually get rescued from a rooftop by a crane (while aftershocks were still happening). The bill included a parking fee for their car which was trapped in the building for two months and even a charge for the movie they were in the middle of watching when the quake struck. The Grand Chancellor’s big cheese for Australia and New Zealand explained that the accountant ‘wouldn’t have realised these people were stuck in the building’. 

So where has this retarded bean counter been for the last four months? In outer space? He had to know this was the hotel that was hit by the quake and it would hardly need Sherlock Holmes to figure out that anyone who was in it on Feb 22 should not be sent a bill.

The second idiot to come to my attention this week is the mean spirited individual at the aforementioned guests’ insurance company who refused to pay out on their luggage because he said it could still be recovered. I reckon he should go in and get it if he is so sure about that. Either these people will then get their luggage back or this nincompoop will get a better appreciation of the situation.

And so the ninnies keep popping up. What about the Kronic debate. It’s Kronic by name and chronic by nature if you ask me. I just read of a dimwit in Dunners who reckons she and her partner have spent $8500 on this rubbish over the last five months. As if this wasn’t silly enough, she even had the audacity to say, “It was a natural product, it got us way higher than pot, it is legal, cheaper, easier to get and you get way more than in a tinny [of cannabis]."    

Well clearly she and I have a completely different idea of what is and is not ‘natural’. So for her benefit; a plant that is grown and harvested without any additives is natural whereas a mixture with acknowledged added chemicals (and a few that weren’t like the phenazepam) is not. Here endeth the chemistry lesson.

But her stupidity doesn’t enedeth there; this silly cow and her silly dropkick bloke need an economics lesson, which is rich coming from an impecunious writer such as me. $8500 divided by five equals $1700. Therefore they have been consuming $1700 worth of this stuff each month. They say they used to use the real thing, but I have to wonder how long ago, because for $1700 I’m guessing they could have bought between five and six ounces of cannabis for amount. Now if we take that a bit further it breaks down to between two and three ounces each per month and that is a hell of a lot for one person. If Kronic was getting them any more stoned than that quantity of dope I would estimate they would barely be able to walk or talk on it.

So my bottom line on this one is that there is another idiot involved in this story and it is Hamish McNally of the ODT who is so credulous he actually believed these figures and wrote such a patently stupid story to climb on the bandwagon of Kronic (or chronic if you like) features in the media.

Of course reading drivel like that story and listening to all the posturing by MPs, civic leaders et al about this dreadful ‘threat to our yoof’ and all the things they reckon they’re going to do to stop it unmasks some more idiots. The legislators who ban things like cannabis in the first place have effectively handed a ready-made (and let’s face it profitable) market to the criminal fraternity. But what is really sickening about this is the fact many of these legislators know this is not the way, but none have the intestinal fortitude to take the first step to change it. And why?  Because they are genuinely worried about the dangers of the substance? No; it’s because they are afraid of an electoral backlash in which they might lose their seat and actually have to work for a living.

Where is the Monster Raving Looney Party when you need it, eh?