What Are We Worth?

I read an article in the newspaper yesterday about the value of human life. Apparently certain groups/companies tell people how much money they think a human life is worth. And so do certain parts of the government. What I don't get is how it can change from one year to the next or even one company to the next. According to these companies, people have become more valuable in recent years even though the amount of people has also been growing. And how can we say that every life has the same value? Can we even say that? Is it wrong to think that someone could be considered more or even less valuable than someone else?

We all know that certain people mean more to us than others; we can't help that. Our friends and family are more important to us than complete strangers are. While we do care about people that we don't really know, we don't care about them as much as the people we know more personally. Then there are the celebrities who everybody knows about. People seem to think celebrities are worth more than normal people just because people know who they are. How can we measure how much people are worth? And why do we even feel the need to measure it? I think it's the human thing to do: stick a price tag on life. Making something "worth" money puts it in perspective for us.

The statistics:

• The Environmental Potection Agency set the value for $9.1 million while during the Bush administration the EPA set $6.8 million
• The Food and Drug Administration figured $7.9 million but in 2008 the FDA estimated $5 million
• The Transportation Department put our worth at $6 million