Feinberg

Reading this case study was shocking to say the least. I understand the economic reasoning by giving out more money to those that had a higher annual income and I understand that compensation is to help people keep the lifestyle they had before the accident. But I still, for some reason, cannot wrap my head around the fact that a widow who has no children and whose husband made 125,000 a year can get 4 1/2 million dollars while a widow with 2 kids and whose husband was making 20,000 can only get 900,000 dollars. The math behind that is unfathomable to me.

"All lives are equal." Yes. I would agree to that. No life should be valued more than anyone else's. But you would think when doling out compensation funds, Feinberg would put more value on the number of lives being affected. A wife with four kids gets less money than a widow with none? Yet now she is left alone to pay for all college tuitions, weddings, and doctor bills? That makes no sense. These funds should be given out in accordance to the dependance that the victim's families now have. Don't have enough money for that? Start by taking it away from the airlines. It was their job to prvent something like this from happening in the first place, why should we protect them from being sued? I understand that the companies may have gone bankrupt, but there are other airline companies. People will continue to fly and it is not the economic downfall of the tranportation industry.