Where and how we build are where big gains can be made in reducing the cost of fires (as well as to many other location specific hazards such as flooding), but to achieve these will require hard choices that thus far we have mostly been reluctant to make.
Even though statistical modelling of the data proved to be inaccurate, cost comparisons of other data sets (loss adjustors costs and UK building costs) was carried out and discussed, allowing the cost of fires to be calculated using over time should the data provided by the new Fire and Rescue Service data collection methods allow for collection of data in a non binary form.
Steel makers, for example, are scrambling to cut expenses to offset the cost of firing their furnaces with natural gas.
Legislation designed to protect those in work raises the cost of firing employees and makes companies less willing to take the risk of creating jobs.
Spain's general strike was called in June, when Parliament approved a labor market overhaul intended to lower the cost of firing workers by reducing severance pay.
They maintain that paying their employees through bonuses helps link pay to performance, reduces the cost of firing people and holds down their fixed costs.Other financial-sector companies are also watching impending regulations warily.
Economists say that Italy's employment rate and productivity have been stunted by high labor costs and that lowering the cost of firing workers and increasing protections for shorter-term contracts would encourage companies to hire, stimulating growth.
But the monetary fund, based in Washington, would attach tough conditions, including pension overhauls, improved tax collection, increasing the retirement age, reducing the cost of firing workers and changing its practices for collective bargaining.
Mr. Bloomberg proposed that those who live in the suburbs and work in the city should pay their fair share of the cost of fire and police protection through a commuter tax.
Talks between the government, unions and business leaders broke down last week after the government refused the business sector's demand that its contributions to the social security system and the cost of firing or laying off workers be reduced.
Britain's firemen's strike is highlighting not only the hose-wielders' remarkably cushy working hours, but also the sharply different ways that other countries arrange things.Fire costs (which include losses, the cost of fire service, insurance administration etc) are about 1% of GDP in most advanced countries.
