Customer Reviews

What Is Life Worth?: The Unprecedented Effort to Compensate the Victims of 9/11

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

Kenneth Feinberg, who had been a congressional aide, a big-firm lawyer, and a mediator, was the ideal person to serve as "special master" adjudicating the claims of 9/11 victims and survivors. This is his relatively brief, spare, unassuming, thoughtful memoir of that nearly impossible task. The best thing about this book is that it does not read as if it were written by a lawyer. Feinberg's empathy for the victims of this unimaginable tragedy becomes very clear. For him, the assignment was literally a life-changing event, as he closed down his law office and became a law school lecturer. Parts of the narrative were a bit slow, but this is an important book.

Mr. Feinberg clearly tells the history of the 9/11 fund to compensate victims. While it is written very factually, which is how a lwayer's mind is trained, the part I found most fascinating was his candidcy with how his own life changed after this experience. He also shared the various attitudes of those who made claims and tired to understand with empathy and compassion their responses. He continually strived toward equity throughout and was willing to listen to critics in order to be as fair as possible. A short and necessary read!!

I thought this book functioned as a "report to the taxpayers", perhaps a counterpart to Kenneth Feinberg's report to the president, on his administration of the compensation fund for victims of 9/11 created by Congressional statute immediately after the 9/11 attacks. The writing is clear and very articulate. Mr. Feinberg does not seem to me to be self-promoting, as another reader commented, but simply reiterating his qualifications and his rationale for the way he administered this fund. For purposes of this review, I am attempting to keep my feelings about the creation of the fund itself separate from Mr. Feinberg's administration of it and his account of that process. His account of it is a very engrossing read - something that came as a surprise to me. I read it twice, once to myself and once aloud to the family. I think this should be required reading in high schools and colleges because it is an extremely important facet of the whole event (which we are still in the throes of) that we speak of as "9/11". There are ethical, philosophical, political, legal and undoubtedly many other positions from which to view the fund and its administration vis a vis history, precedent, and so on. This book is an extremely important report to the taxpayers. I only wish there could be a countervailing report FROM the taxpayers! I do think Mr. Feinberg performed good service to Congress' wishes expressed in the statute creating the fund. However, to refer to the fund as reflective of the great generosity of American taxpayers is a bit disingenuous since American taxpayers did not have a say in the creation or any other aspect of the fund. It was created very quickly after 9/11 and was completely open-ended, an unprecedented action. Its creation raises far more questions than are answered and the implication that it was used to squelch asking many questions still haunts the whole process. However, that was not Mr. Feinberg's issue; he had the statute and the fund and the victims to deal with and his report covers his purview with excellent clarity. I highly recommend this book to every American and would like to see it on bestseller lists, ahead of Ms. Coulter's recently published rant. Mr. Feinberg is obviously an intelligent, dedicated, conscientious, fair-minded man whose very thoughtful account of this particular facet of 09/11 warrants widespread attention.

It is clear from reading this account of the 9/11 Victim's Compensation Fund that Kenneth Feinberg is a compassionate man who bore a tremendous burden in administering the Fund. It is less clear why he alone could have done it.

This is because there is not much in this book about the legal aspects of the Fund. For example, the statute passed by Congress is Feinberg's contant response to criticism about the "economic loss" criteria for awards, but he does not quote it or even use it in the appendix. I would also have liked to read more about how the Fund differed from past compensation funds that Feinberg had worked with, such as the Agent Orange fund. Finally, for a person with such great discretion over awards, I would have liked to hear about how that discretion was exercised in some difficult or unusual cases -- not just that it was used to narrow the range of total awards.

This criticism probably all comes from my legal background, and What is Life Worth? is not a book for lawyers. In place of the technical details is a measured and sympathetic description of the reaction of the victims' families to the 9/11 tragedy -- from a person who may have spend more time talking to more different families than anyone else. This is a very valuable contribution to the history of 9/11 from a unique perspective.

While the book is a quick read at 190 pages, its emotional weight is much greater and is really its focus. Perhaps Feinberg or one of his colleagues will one day write a more academic assessment of the Fund that will satisfy the desire to understand some of the day-to-day decisions that the administrators had to make.

Feinberg gives the reader two experiences in one book. First he explaind the rationale behind the compensation fund and provides thoughtful anlaysis and criticism of the fund legislation. This is a useful exercise even for persons experienced in alternate forms of dispute resolution.
Second, and to my mind more importantly, he gives us a vivid perspective on how the victims of 9/11 reacted to their extraordinary loss. He does so in a factual, non-voyeuristic way, but his account is nonetheless very moving.
It's a good book and it's an important book. That's not a combo you see often.

In a book in which he assesses the worth and effectiveness of his own role in implementing a post 9/11 policy to compensate those whose loved ones died in the tragedy, it's not hard to see how Feinberg judges the job done to be an excellent one. Between patting himself on the back for how charming he is in a variety of social settings to the condescending way he looks at the worth assigned to the lives of those who died, this book resembles an extended version of a job interview more than it does a soul searching account of his role in a highly emotional process or a serious analysis of government policy. In short, don't believe the hype and don't waste your time.

Overall i felt the book accomplished most of what it was after. after seeing mr feinberg on television i was moved by him and how the experience made him more "humanistic" but upon reading the novel i felt it missed the point

It gave a very raw reason unto why the fund was established.

It offered great insight into how difficult a task it was

His background wasn't that bad to read about

but what it did lack was the answer to his title "What is life worth?"

It didnt answer that question and meerly glazed over it in like 3 sentences in the last 10 pages of the book.

i bought the book hoping i would see 2 books, the Victims compensation fund how he handled that and why, and peoples' reactions and i wanted the second book to be about what he has learned about the human condition, about what makes a person a person about why he feels they do the things they do, seeing so much grief one has to notice a pattern somewhere.

so in that aspect I'am dissapointed because the book failed to deliver on that, if someone wants to read about the Victims compensation fund, they are at the right place, if you want to study humanity from a person who spent 2 and a half years living and breathing peoples' lives, hopes, dreams and sorrows then you need to go somewhere else.

This book is about the process by which the federal government decided it would attempt to "compensate" the families of the victims of the 9/11 tragedy. While the title would have you believe that in its pages is some insight into answering the question - "What is life worth". I believe Mr. Feinberg makes a few valid points on the complexities of answering this question, his insights are not particulaly deep. He identifies a few of the challenges with coming up a dollar value for each life that was lost (or injured) such as: how to compensate the family of someone with a high income (e.g. bond trader) versus a lower-income individual (dish washer), do we compensate for heroism, pain or suffering, who do we compensate (spouses, children, parents, fiance(e)s, etc..), why do we not compensate for victims of Oklahoma city and other tragedies. These are interesting questions and he does a good job of presenting them with background stories that are generally compelling. Sometimes the anectodes begin to drift away from the topic of the book and these the story becomes a little long winded.

The greatest value in the book is that is a great history lesson. He explains why the fund was created - to prevent a mass of lawsuits (not to "compensate the families" - which we all know could never happen). He states how this tragedy was different that others, and how America (its people and leaders) reacted to it.

The weakest point of this book with the shameless self-promotion. While Mr. Feinberg makes a it VERY CLEAR he served the as the head of the fund Pro Bono (he did it for no pay), I believe it was an extremely lucrative deal in terms of public relations for his firm and for himself. I'm sure that he had the opportunity to make a few bucks with the book (I don't know if he donated proceeds from the book as well). The worst part was that he describes the program as a smashing succes because of the high participation rate (I think around 99%) and the "efficient" manner in which the fund was created. It cost $86 Million to figure out what each of 5560 familes should get. He states that 1.2% is a very low operating costs. He doesn't point out that payments at this level (7 billion dollars) have never been made. Because the payout was so high, even 120 Million or 190 million may seem to be a bargin because the percentage of the payout is still low.

Overall, a worthwhile read.

After watching Mr. Feinberg being interviewed on television I was most anxious to read his book. It goes without saying that the topic is both fascinating and poignant. However, given that the author is extremely distinguished I was perplexed as to why he felt the need to continually bombard the reader with his credentials. I felt quite bogged down with his repeated self-aggrandizing and was rather turned off. He came across as very caring and obviously intelligent during the television interview so I can only conclude he communicates better orally than in written word.

I used this book as a prime source for my graduate level thesis on the subject of the appropriateness of the September 11 Victims Compensation Fund, and whether it should be a model for future funds.