Responsibility Math?

Fla. smoker's widow gets $8M in damages

The jury did find that Hess was 58 percent responsible for the cigarette addiction that led to his death. If Philip Morris prevails on appeal, that could cut the compensatory damage award from $3 million to about $1.3 million.

I just want to make sure I understand the math properly.

Stuart Hess is 58% responsible. That implies that Philip Morris is 42% responsible.

42% responsible costs $8 million.
58% responsible would therefore cost $11 million.

As I see it, the widow Elaine Hess should be getting $19 million in total. That would seem fair.

What if Stuart Hess didn't have the $11 million to pay Elaine Hess though? In the name of responsibility, perhaps the U.S. taxpayer can cough up the difference. Surely we can work the money into a future stimulus package.

Let's talk about what $8 million dollars is really worth. Maybe that's enough money though.

Tech coalition launches sweatshop probe

The report by the National Labor Committee, a human-rights group based in Pittsburgh, covers the work environment in the Meitai Plastic and Electronics factory in Dongguan City, Guangdong, China. According to the report, released this month, workers sit on hard wooden stools for 12-hour shifts, seven days a week. Overtime is mandatory, with workers being given on average two days off per month.

The report also said that while workers are on the production line, they are not allowed to raise their hands or their heads, and they are given 1.1 seconds to snap each key into place. Workers are prohibited from talking or listening to music and are encouraged "actively monitor each other" to see if any of the multiple company rules are being transgressed. They are also monitored by guards, according to the report.

It also found that workers are fined if they break the rules, that they are locked in the factory for four days per week, and that they sleep in crowded dormitories. The workers' gross wage is 64 cents per hour, which the report claims "does not even come close to meeting subsistence level needs," while their take-home pay is 41 cents per hour.

At 41 cents per hour, $8 million represents 9,380 man-years of cheap Chinese labor (40 hours of work per week, not that they work that little). And we wonder what is wrong in America? We have clearly lost all ability to understand a big number when we see it.

Don't even get me started on what $1 trillion represents.