3/15/2011 3:33 PM ET

By David Weidner

Japan tragedy is human, not financial

Commentators need to be sensitive to the fact that what's happening to victims of events in the Middle East, Japan and elsewhere is far worse than the effects on our pocketbooks.

Maybe the most distasteful example of our ability to withstand the combined shocks of Middle East revolutions, global hunger problems and the unfolding tragedy in Japan came in the form of bad comparisons.

There was Larry Kudlow of CNBC suggesting Friday that we should be grateful that the human toll of the earthquake and tsunami hitting Japan was much worse than the economic toll. Watch a video of Kudlow's remarks on Japan.

There was Lawrence McDonald, the former Lehman Brothers vice president who wrote an insider account of the investment bank's demise, blogging a piece under the insensitive headline: "Japanese earthquake is tragic; debt tsunami coming is worse."

These comments followed three weeks of discussion about gasoline and oil prices as young Middle Easterners risked their lives -- with hundreds losing them -- in efforts to topple repressive regimes.

The next step will likely be an analysis of how these disasters might affect the rollout of the Apple (AAPL, news) iPad 2 in Tokyo.

If you think this is exaggeration, consider a Wall Street Journal discussion of how global food shortages will benefit the U.S. agriculture industry. There's not one mention of how people going hungry might be an issue.

It's all very useful information -- unless you're being tortured or starved or you're dead.

Pointing this out isn't meant to be an indictment of business journalism. These are isolated missteps by mostly responsible people. Kudlow, McDonald, Roubini, Pesak and the publications mentioned are important voices for investors and the public. They've warned of financial ruin, enlightened us to opportunities and kept us informed.

Moreover, we can't ignore the reality that commodities, oil and the Japanese economy are all important. They help make the world go around. And, to be fair, some of these comments, notably Kudlow's, were made early, perhaps before the full scope of the tragedy was known. (Kudlow later apologized via Twitter, saying he'd misspoken, and reiterated the apology Monday on TV.)

It's also true that the markets have not panicked -- the Dow Jones Industrial Average ($INDU) closed on March 14 fractionally higher than it had finished on March 10 -- and that is encouraging, if only because a steep drop might lead to a global recession

That's not in anyone's interest.

But in times of tragedy, the financial world needs to be more sensitive, at least in how it discusses tragedy. Comparing the loss of life in Japan to the debt markets or suggesting that a global food shortage is a good thing shows how removed we've become, while desensitizing us to the real hardships that people face.

Economic machinations and tragic loss of life don't belong in the same sentence, much less one that suggests the debt problem is somehow more important than the dead washing up on the beach in Sendai.

What's happening to victims in the Middle East, Japan and food-starved nations is worse than what's happening to us at the pump or to the debt or commodities we hold.

Nothing can be worse than the loss of life. But our reaction can add to the tragedy.