Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing

Book Description

A timely and much needed corrective to the current infatuation with cost-benefit analysis and the derelict logic used to defend it.

As clinical as it sounds to express the value of human lives, health, or the environment in cold dollars and cents, cost-benefit analysis requires it. More disturbingly, this approach is being embraced by a growing number of politicians and conservative pundits as the most reasonable way to make many policy decisions regarding public health and the environment.

By systematically refuting the economic algorithms and illogical assumptions that cost-benefit analysts flaunt as fact, Priceless tells a "gripping story about how solid science has been shoved to the backburner by bean counters with ideological blinders" (In These Times). Ackerman and Heinzerling argue that decisions about health and safety should be made "to reflect not economists' numbers, but democratic values, chosen on moral grounds. This is a vividly written book, punctuated by striking analogies, a good deal of outrage, and a nice dose of humor" (Cass Sunstein, The New Republic).

Essential reading for anyone concerned with the future of human health and environmental protection, Priceless "shines a bright light on obstacles that stand in the way of good government decisions" (Public Citizen News).

Customer Reviews:

Priceless -- Precisely!.......2006-04-27

I think Heinzerling and Ackerman show within their very first chapter that they are totally "on" to the tricks of the "C/B/A" Dick Graham policynakers of our day, that they have a powerful critique of and rebuttal to that technique, and a talent for putting forth some very good, easily-understood examples that enable anyone with interest in the subject and a decent amount of common sense to figure out the great (hmm) game being played "out there."
I hate economics jargon, but i really liked this book.

Not Everything Has a Price.......2005-10-19

Although sometimes threatened by dry matters of obscure economics, here Ackerman and Heinzerling manage to keep their intriguing moral arguments in full view. The authors convincingly condemn the cost-benefit analysis that has become fashionable for the current administration, and corporations, when evaluating public health and environmental regulations. Such economic practices have resulted in embarrassing, and frankly inhuman, corporate decision making – the most famous example being the case of the Ford Pinto in which the company decided not to fix a minor defect in design because the lives of the people who could potentially be killed were (economically) worth less than the up-front costs. This type of heartless economic analysis is now being used by the Bush administration, and especially the imperious Office of Management and Budget, to "evaluate" all existing and proposed regulations, particularly any advanced by the EPA or other politically targeted agencies. Hence, all regulations are subjected to purely economic cost-benefit accounting. Tellingly, military spending is inherently "inefficient" by this standard, but has never been subjected to such statistical determinism.

Ackerman and Heinzerling convincingly demonstrate that this accounting is heavily politicized, with the costs of health or environmental regulations vastly overestimated, and the benefits to society vastly underestimated. This is often because matters of life quality and morality, which are essentially "priceless," tend to be given zero value in these purely accounting-oriented analyses. And in all cases, arcane and shifty accounting methods can further push the results of the cost-benefit analysis in the direction desired by the politicos who are crunching the numbers. The authors tend to shy away from the obvious conclusion that such supposedly impartial economic "science" is really a cover for politicians and corporations to advance their harsh anti-regulatory agenda and ideology. However, they still do a marvelous job of pointing out not just the errors of such accounting methods (via many real-life examples), but also in showing that supposedly "impartial" economics are advanced for immoral, unjust, and even anti-human ends. As Ackerman and Heinzerling conclude, true economic and environmental justice requires holistic thinking about the state of the real world, not atomistic politics. You can't put a numerical price on everything, especially human life and public health. [~doomsdayer520~]

A hugely important book - brilliant and scary.......2004-03-18

If someone tells you that a regulation will cost $100 million but produce only $50 million in benefits, you'd probably think it was a good example of government bureaucrats running amok. But what if you then found out that what the regulation would really do was force polluters to cut emissions in order to prevent thousands of cases of life-threatening illness over the next three decades? And that the $50 million benefits "pricetag" was developed by a bunch of green-eyeshade types who regard each life as worth about $3 million, and who then use a statistical trick to make 87% of that value disappear?
Ackerman and Heinzerling have written a brilliant and scary book that lays out in chilling detail just how widely such techniques are now being used in making decisions about when to adopt health and environmental safeguards - and when NOT to. They also reveal that many of the horror stories repeatedly trotted out by critics of environmental and health standards NEVER ACTUALLY HAPPENED.
The authors' prose is engaging and their arguments are compelling. Essential reading for anyone who cares about health and the environment - and who thinks that industry shouldn't be blindly trusted to do the right thing in safeguarding them.

Very readable, very important!.......2004-03-05

This book will truly open your eyes. This book presents a rare chance to peak behind the curtain and see how our government goes about making life and death decisions.

Nickel and dimed: how conservatives are using (and abusing) a flawed economic theory to shortchange us all.("Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything ... Review): An article from: OnEarth

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Nickel and dimed: how conservatives are using (and abusing) a flawed economic theory to shortchange us all.("Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything ... Review): An article from: OnEarth
Osha Gray Davidson
Manufacturer: Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B00082BUJ0
Release Date: 2005-07-31

Book Description

This digital document is an article from OnEarth, published by Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. on March 22, 2004. The length of the article is 2138 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

Citation Details
Title: Nickel and dimed: how conservatives are using (and abusing) a flawed economic theory to shortchange us all.("Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing")(Book Review)
Author: Osha Gray Davidson
Publication: OnEarth (Magazine/Journal)
Date: March 22, 2004
Publisher: Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
Volume: 26 Issue: 1 Page: 38(3)

Article Type: Book Review

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Priceless: On knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing [A book review from: Ecological Economics]

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Priceless: On knowing the price of everything and the value of nothing [A book review from: Ecological Economics]
C.A. Hernick
Manufacturer: Elsevier
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital
ASIN: B000P6XKU6

Book Description

This digital document is a journal article from Ecological Economics, published by Elsevier in 2006. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Media Library immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

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Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.(Book Review): An article from: Environmental Law

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Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.(Book Review): An article from: Environmental Law
Shi-Ling Hsu
Manufacturer: Lewis & Clark Northwestern School of Law
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Digital

Natural Resources | Economics | Business & Investing | Subjects | Books

Book Description

This digital document is an article from Environmental Law, published by Lewis & Clark Northwestern School of Law on January 1, 2005. The length of the article is 21830 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.

From the author: Legal scholarship on the role of cost-benefit analysis in environmental law is often stimulating, but does not seem to be changing anybody's mind. The entrenchment of a camp of detractors and a camp of advocates of cost-benefit analysis parallels the impasse that has stymied environmental law for over a decade. Professors Frank Ackerman and Lisa Heinzerling have coauthored a book that captures most of the arguments from the detractor side, and they have done so skillfully and powerfully. However, this Review criticizes the book's contribution to perpetuating this intellectual stalemate. The book does this by focusing on an environmental theory of moral absolutism and attempting to exclude economic considerations altogether from the environmental law and policy-making process. What is needed is some way of separating out environmental problems that are largely economic in nature, which can be informed by cost-benefit analysis, from those problems that are largely moral in nature, which cannot be informed by cost-benefit analysis. This Review proposes some ideas on how to draw this line. One set of environmental and risk problems that should be removed from the realm of economies includes problems in which the risk of harm is relatively high, such that the risk becomes outright danger. When such a risk exists, it begins to resemble an intentional harm and should be regulated without regard to a weighing of costs and benefits. Another set of environmental and risk problems that should be insulated from cost-benefit analysis concerns situations in which a discrete group is singled out for physical harm on some basis that we find objectionable, such as race. When environmental justice concerns are implicated, there is no effective way of monetizing the injustice of being chosen to bear physical harm. By attempting to draw this line, this Review attempts to advance the debate over the proper role for cost-benefit analysis in environmental and safety regulation.

Citation Details
Title: Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.(Book Review)
Author: Shi-Ling Hsu
Publication: Environmental Law (Magazine/Journal)
Date: January 1, 2005
Publisher: Lewis & Clark Northwestern School of Law
Volume: 35 Issue: 1 Page: 135(40)

Article Type: Book Review

Distributed by Thomson Gale

Book Description

The first of a four-part role series for the workplace learning and performance profession, this title focuses on the WLP Analyst role to isolate and troubleshoot the possible causes of human performance gaps plus how to identify areas in need of improvement.

Book Description

The book brings the up-to-date information about some aspects of regulation of flowering, especially about the role of gibberellins; about agricultural aspects of cytokinin functioning, namely their role in yield formation in cereals; about some signalling systems involved in cytokinin, auxin and ethylene signalling. It contains a review on auxin transport and on transgenic plants with modified levels of auxins and several papers concerning hormones and stress or hormones and cellular structures. As the workshop was held in Moscow, the book represents also a good source of information about research in Russia in the field of phytohormones.

Phytohormones in Soils (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)

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Phytohormones in Soils: Microbial Production and Function

Phytohormones in Soils (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)
Jr.
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Soil Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Evolution | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Microbiology | Basic Science | Medicine | Subjects | Books

Book Description

Details the various physiological responses in plants caused by microbially derived phytohormones--examining the microbial synthesis of the five primary classes of plant hormones. Exploring novel methods for improving symbiotic associations vital for plant growth and development.

Customer Reviews:

Phytohormones in Soils: Microbial Production and Function.......2002-09-19

I have read and studied dozens of books on this subject. This is likely one of the most useful and PRACTICAL in this subject. The subject covered here is the next important step in modern agriculture! A new, more productive and sustainable system of food production is not possible without a general understanding and application of these concepts. I was so impressed that I took the time to contact Dr Frankenberger just to meet the man who had such insight into this subject. I was fortunate enough to also meet Dr Arshad at the same time. If you are a 21st century agronomist or sincere student of soil and plant fertility, you are missing something big here.

Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)

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Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)
Lerner
Manufacturer: CRC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Soil Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

Crop Science | Agricultural Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0824700449

Book Description

Emphasizing the unpredictable nature of plant behaviour under stress and in relation to complex interactions of biological pathways, this work covers the versatility of plants in adapting to environmental change. It analyzes environmentally triggered adaptions in developmental programmes of plants that lead to permanent, heritable DNA modifications.

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Plant Responses to Environmental Stresses: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization: From Phytohormones to Genome Reorganization (Books in Soils, Plants, and the Environment)
LERNER
Manufacturer: NY
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000MUAKX0

Book Description

"These images are a spectacular reaffirmation that we are privileged to live in the greatest age of exploration the world has ever known."-From Arthur C. Clarke's foreword

Since the 1960s the National Aeronautics and Space Administration has been sending unmanned satellites to explore the planets, moons, and sun. These probes have amassed a stunning visual record of other worlds, revealing not one but scores of new frontiers, from rust-red Mars to the ethereal rings of Saturn.

Author Michael Benson has spent years compiling and digitally processing the best of these images. In Beyond this "deskbound cosmic pilgrim" (Atlantic Monthly) has pulled together the most spectacular of them into one volume that presents these photographs for the first time as art. The resulting book consists of two parts: the first is a spectacular visual tour of the solar system, with views every bit as compelling as the work of the great landscape photographers on earth; the second is a series of beautifully written essays that explain the story behind these photographs: the history of the probes' journeys, how they work, and why they were built. This book shows us how modern science has revealed the astonishing beauty and mystery of the solar system and its awe-inspiring worlds far beyond any places human beings have ever directly observed.

Book Description

Citation Details

Distributed by ProQuest Information and Learning

Metal Speciation and Bioavailability in Aquatic Systems

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Metal Speciation and Bioavailability in Aquatic Systems

Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Analytic | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books

Industrial & Technical | Chemistry | Science | Subjects | Books

Environmental Science | Earth Sciences | Science | Subjects | Books

General | Science | Subjects | Books

Natural History | Nature & Ecology | Science | Subjects | Books

All Titles | Qualifying Textbooks - Fall 2007 | Stores | Books
ASIN: 0471958301

Book Description

Metal Speciation and Bioavailability in Aquatic Systems is the first comprehensive review to deal with fundamental concepts and models, speciation measurements and field applications in metal speciation and bioavailability in aquatic environments. This volume provides a thorough review of current developments concerning the interactions between trace metals and aquatic organisms. Metal Speciation and Bioavailability in Aquatic Systems provides:

The first comprehensive approach to the subject covering all aspects of trace metal ecotoxicology in the environment.
Essential reading for researchers and graduate students who will appreciate critical reviews of classical and modern methods of metal speciation.
Contributions from leading scientists from many disciplines assessing both analytical and physical methods applied to this growing field of environmental analysis.
An introduction to the use of laboratory bioassays as predictive tools for understanding trace metalorganism interactions.
An examination of the use and limitations of bioassays in management decisions.

The interdisciplinary nature of this topic is highlighted in Metal Speciation and Bioavailability in Aquatic Systems, ensuring that this volume is invaluable for chemists, biochemists, biologists, ecologists and environmental engineers involved in the fields of metal ecotoxicology, metal speciation, environmental and analytical chemistry, and the management of trace metals in aquatic systems.

Book Description

A complete guide to the sport and pastime, Zinn's Maintenance Tips and Skill Building for Cyclists is for the novice and aficionado alike. The book includes routine bicycle maintenance tips, simple tricks to fix troublesome quirks, and tutorials to help increase cycling performance. The focus is on both learnable skills and understanding components and hardware. Specific units range from improving pedal stroke and building a disc brake rear wheel to setting up clip-in pedals and shoes and mastering technical uphills. Famous athletes and mechanics provide special insight, and accompanying photographs clearly illustrate each procedure. Aimed at road and mountain cyclists as well as triathletes, this book presents valuable information in a format that's fun and easy to grasp.

Customer Reviews:

Great bicycle book for beginners and experts.......2004-08-12

Zinn's brand new book (2004) is must have in any bike enthusiast's library. Building on his excellent maintenance books, which go into every detail of fixing and tuning your bike, the cycling primer is abundant with tips and tricks to improve riding skills.
Ok, I ride a Zinn bike and might be biased but he is a competent author who used to race internationally and who explores unorthodox ways to cater for special needs of tall (and short) people. The book goes into great detail on how to properly fit a bike, tune it and a good overview on training techniques. I enjoyed reading it and will keep consulting it.

Amazon.com

Part memoir, part literary criticism, novelist Frederick Busch's A Dangerous Profession could serve as a warning to post on the door of every creative-writing program in the nation. Take, for instance, Busch on the glamour of the writer's life: "Yes, the thrill of rising at 5:30 a.m. and writing in the dark cold, or typing late at night after jobs that eat our hearts and livers..." Or Busch on the literary marketplace: "Something that is part of the gift is also a compulsion: that we seek the darkness, not the light; that we serve up grindings of glass in blood sauce rather than the Fifth Avenue soufflé most readers want." Or, finally, Busch on the attitude of the world at large to writers: "...we are the enemy."

What drives people to an activity so manifestly difficult, unprofitable, and against common sense? The author of 21 books, Busch illustrates the ancient need to tell stories by reflecting on writers as varied as Melville, Dickens, Kafka, and Graham Greene. Busch is a perceptive reader as well as an accomplished writer, and it's a pleasure to read criticism so clearly passionate about books as art and not just ideas. The most moving part of A Dangerous Profession, however, is that in which Busch meditates on his own sources of inspiration, including the complex and elusive figure of his own father. There is a little bit of oh-pity-the-suffering writer here, but not a lot--and, in fact, much more of oh-pity-the-suffering-writer's-wife (husbands not included, since Busch doesn't have one). Eclectic, witty, and never less than stunningly written, A Dangerous Profession is a memorable tribute to the rewards as well as the rigors of the writing life. --Mary Park

Book Description

Frederick Busch, one of America's most distinguished novelists, has had an enduring love affair with great books and with the difficult, and sometimes personally dangerous, work that is required to produce them. For Busch, as he writes of his own career and those of his great elders, Dickens, Melville, Hemingway, and others, there was to be no other recourse save the dangerous profession. Writing out of an experience of risk that is suffused with affection, Busch brilliantly explores the hazards of the writing life and its effect on the achievement of benchmark writers.

Customer Reviews:

save your cash.......2001-01-28

I hate to say it, but i struggled through this book. I was looking for a book with more advice; more substance---a book I could sink my teeth into. "A Dangerous Profession" was NOT the one.

For us [brave enough to ADMIT it] wannabe 'writers', there are better books than this:.....There are too many books about creative writing to mention. But if I had the chance to 'do-it-over', I would NOT buy this book.

Busch gets inside the writer's mind.......2000-09-02

The very title is a challenge. "A Dangerous Profession." About writing? What's so dangerous? Suffocation by towers of manuscripts? Rejection of your work by editors? Paper cuts? Who does Frederick Busch think he is; Richard Branson?

No, what this university author's talking about in this collection of pieces are those writers who take risks with their works. Not to write the next potboiling, page-turning best-seller, but something more lasting and more personal. These are writers who live out their lives according to a sort of literary DNA, doing what they must at whatever cost to themselves.

There's Herman Melville, who felt himself finished at age 33 because the book he believed in, "Moby Dick," had earned him "the scorn of reviewers -- they questioned his sanity as well as his skill -- and, by the end of his life, a total of $157." There's Graham Greene's exquisite career writing about how we betray love, loyalty, ourselves. Or, as Busch puts it: "follies were his subject matter, finally -- how, in love, we betray the beloved; how, worshiping God, or a god, or a hope of one, we betray that hope or wish; how, striving to do good, we cause damage."

There's Charles Dickens, whose "David Copperfield" is nothing less than a novel about writing and the power of the written and spoken word can hold over its audience. The novel is also a reflection of the man himself, who carried on stage readings of his works that would leave him exhausted and probably hastened his end. That's writing capable of killing.

But Busch doesn't sustain the promise implied by the title, so the book's not a dirge. He leavens it by including essays on bad popular writing and bad literary criticism, memoirs recalling his early literary career, and a short humorous look at the writer's life from the point of view of the (usually) long-suffering wife.

It's tough to explain to someone who doesn't write why putting words on paper can be so difficult, why writers can turn into divas in their self-absorption and why those who work so hard to become so good seem capable of sacrificing so much. Busch's look at the writing life reminds us why it is so.

very informative.......2000-07-29

You should read this book if you are a beginning writer who wants assurance that others too have written and been rejected over and over again. IF you think you would like to be a novelist to have glamour, fame, and fortune, than read on so that you can persuade yourself to go into another line of work.

Frederick Busch knows about the dangers of writing, he is a best selling author of more than twenty works of fiction and non- fiction, but you do not see him on nightly TV. Busch examines what makes him and the writers that he admires including Charles Dickens, Herman Melville and Ernest Hemingway continue to write in the darkest hours. The reason is simply to share stories. Busch is the writer of the sixteen essays that are in the book. If a writer is honest with himself, he hopes that what he writes will be interesting to the readers.

Called a Notable book of 1998 by the New York Times, A Dangerous Profession will captivate writers and readers alike, inspiring them to pick up books that they would not normally want to read, which has been the case with me. I would recommend this book to any one who likes to read.

a clear deep-mind book on writing and writers........1998-11-10

You could'nt ask for a more rewarding book to read period.It just happens to be about writers and writing and the the serious craft it is for some and the tough devotion they have to it and how it is life itself and even death for a few.Mr.Busch takes you down to unheard of depths of skills brilliant writers mull in their heads before commiting to paper.A fine,fine book.

intellectual nourishment.......1998-11-01

If you care about writing, if you care about reading, if you want to be exposed to the mind of a man of warmth and exceptional writing talent, than this is a book for you. Frederick Busch will take you on a journey into the mind of one writer: Frederick Busch. He will recount parts of his life with honesty. You will feel comfortable with this very human being. Whether he is writing about his father and his farther's war or his is disecting his own and the writing of others, this book is a treasure of technique, passion, disappointment and love. Read it.

Book Description

On the 12th of November, 2003, in the historic Royal Courts of Justice building in London, the 2004 Pirelli Calendar photographed by Nick Knight was presented to the press, to collectors, and to enthusiasts the world over. Such fanfare and exclusivity began in 1963 when the Pirelli tire company created a calendar featuring pin-up models as a promotional piece to send to its top customers as a gift for the closing year. Every year since, the company has called upon world-renowned photographers such as Richard Avedon, Mario Testino, Peter Lindergh, Herb Ritts, Norman Parkinson, Bruce Weber, and Annie Leibovitz to photograph the world's most beautiful women, including Iman, Cindy Crawford, Naomi Campbell, Christy Turlington, Laetitia Casta, Kate Moss, and many others. It has continued to generate publicity for its exclusivity-the calendar is clamored for by a huge public, but is only available to a very privileged list of corporate customers and VIPs.
A product of the cultural revolution of the sixties, the Pirelli calendar has shaken the media world with the audacity, innovation, and sensuality of its content. The images stretch the parameters of sensual fantasy and fabulous photography, but their subtlety and quality also establish the calendar as a paradigm of its genre and a coveted collector's item.
This book contains the full calendar for all of the years through 2004, and is a must for fashion aficionados, photography buffs, and advertising and design professionals.

Customer Reviews:

Beautiful.......2007-08-10

Absolutely amazing photography, and a great conversation piece. I have a lot of girlfriends who are models and they found the book very intriguing, a nice addition to my loft to say the least.

Gorgeous pictures, great book..........2006-11-03

...binding arrived a bit broken - not enough to return, but still annoying. Great photos unavailable elsewhere

Awesome retrospective.......2006-01-13

If you were on "the list", you got the Pirelli Calendar, which was filled with stunning photographs featuring some of the top models in the world in exotic locations. This was not an item you could go out and buy. You had to buy or sell a LOT of Pirelli tires to get this calendar, but now you can take a look at what only a select few have been privileged to view in this weighty volume.

The photos are mostly excellent in composition, especially the years when set designers and photographers decided to raise the bar and include an actual reference to the tread of the tires in each photo. Some of the most famous faces from the modeling and acting world are featured here- Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Sienna Miller, Linda Evangelista- most before they became super-famous.

I am a car freak, so it sits on the coffee table in my den, alongside a few other large books filled with 18 point text and lots of photographs. Women admire the beauty of the photos, and men by and large look all over each photo for a reference to tires, while admiring the stunning forms of the models.

The Pirelli Calendar : 40 Years, The Complete Works.......2005-08-03

This book is Big! The print quality is above average and the pictures are usually full page. It has everything that the company has published.

blue.......2005-05-26

First of all, before you purchase this book, you should know that it's huge and very very heavy. I like this book because it shows the real supermodels. The only pictures I don't like are the ones with celebrity actresses.

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