look at the tragedies/disasters this past year -- tsunami and Katrina (rightfully) got lots of attention and response ... but then the earthquake in Pakistan that killed 80,000+ and has made 3 million homeless ... no one seems to be paying attention! there are people freezing and the aid agencies are not able to get $$ to buy the tents etc that they need
we are (rightfully) disturbed by the 2000+ American troops killed in Iraq but rarely are the more than 10x that many Iraqis killed ever mentioned
terrorist bombing in London kills a handful and is major news for weeks -- terrorists kill that many every day of the week in Iraq and it's barely mentioned
Congress calls a special session for Terri Schiavo when millions of children are dying of hunger and preventable diseases
and so on ... bottom line is that we (humankind) do not take into consideration the dollars/life or dollars/year lived ... it's all about how deeply something touches us and (I think) about how close it is to us ... a violent explosive death is more scary than a quiet one, a death close to our home more scary than one far away, and the more the victims look like us the more it scares us