Americans Less Likely to Be Killed in Severe Weather, and Other News

Donald J. Boudreaux: “The evidence shows that Americans are increasingly less likely to be killed in severe weather, and I’ll wager $10,000 that this will continue.”

Megan McArdle: We cannot pay for Social Security’s shortfall by rescinding the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget makes the same point.

Does a seismologist have a duty to warn others of a pending earthquake? If he doesn’t, has he committed manslaughter?

Comments (4)

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  1. Joe S. says:

    That was a very interesting editorial by Boudreaux.

  2. Vicki says:

    Answer to the third item question: I would say yes.

  3. Greg says:

    Agree with Joe. But it won’t matter for the global warming enthusiasts. No matter what happens — more storms, fewer storms, etc.) — they will claim it is the result of global warming.

  4. Devon Herrick says:

    If you were to analyze death tolls from natural disasters, you will find a high degree of correlation between poor countries, extreme poverty, over-crowding, poor governance and corruption.

    Poor people live closely huddled together in substandard housing or in poorly-built apartment buildings where graft and corruption allows building codes to be routinely ignored. When disasters come, the poor are disproportionately affected. Substandard housing collapses easily harming the occupant who are densely packed in the dweling.