glyph42's Journal: The SI unit for measuring damage is "dollars"

I simply find it tasteless that every news report about an earthquake or tidal wave or hurricane cites the extent of the damage in dollars. X people died, Y houses were destroyed, totalling Z dollars. Let me be clear: Z dollars will move from one set of people's pockets to some other (probably intersecting) set of people's pockets. These news reports make it sound like the people are going to pay the earthquake / tidal wave / hurricane Z dollars in extortion money that is never going to be seen again.