The following is an example of the Augean Stables that will have to be mucked out before there is any hope for a rebirth of liberty in this country. It was submitted by what I fear is the typical American nowadays – the reflexive authoritarian, moral illiterate and market economics ignoramus. EPautos readers refer to such people as Clovers (more here).
The subject matter is mandatory insurance. In this case, car insurance. But the principle applies generally (its acceptance is the reason why we now have mandatory health insurance and probably soon mandatory life insurance, with much more to come, if the principle is not identified and rejected) and so is of general interest:
“As you stated 35 thousand dollars is not enough anymore but at least 35k goes toward the injured party. Car insurance is a competitive business. Insurance companies do not make thousands of dollars off of you. If Libertarians were right that car insurance companies make a fortune off of you then wouldn’t you think Eric would open his own insurance company and make millions of dollars? Eric my insurance for my car is about $580 per year with $300k coverage. Only a fraction of that bill goes toward liability. Eric that is far from getting rich off of me due to the costs that insurance companies have but as Eric says, an imbecile never did understand finances. I also pay extra so that I am covered up to a million dollars if I cause harm to others. I am not like a Libertarian and make the innocent go bankrupt and lose everything when you hit them. If we had your world a guy can be stopped at a stop light and lose everything he has. Eric that is why I do not want a Libertarian society. I know, you enjoy harming the innocent.”
Clover,
In the first place, a “competitive business” does not need to force people to do business with it.
When you cannot say no to a transaction, you have almost no negotiating power.
Geico and Progressive are like the Lucchesi and Gambino families. Maybe you can choose to pay tribute to one of them rather than the other; but you will pay, regardless. So – by definition – you pay more (when you would have preferred to pay nothing for a “service” you don’t need or want) and what you pay will necessarily be more, regardless, precisely because there in no option to say “no.”
Do you really maintain that the cost of a thing is reduced when people are required to buy it – provided they are allowed to buy it from more than one government-backed mafia? That the cost of a hamburger would be less if government required everyone to buy one each week, but allowed us to buy it from either McDonalds or Wendy’s?
In fact, the cost of a hamburger is low because both McDonalds and Wendy’s must live in perpetual dread of people electing to not eat there at all.
The insurance mafia is one of the most profitable government-backed cartels in existence because it has a captive market. When everyone is forced to pay in, the price goes up – not down.
If insurance is so fabulous, so desirable, why, pray, must the mafia force people to buy it? The question answers itself – which is why the question is never asked by people such as yourself.
Clover writes: “Insurance companies do not make thousands of dollars off of you.”
Really? Let’s see. I have been forced to pay the mafia on average $1,000 annually to “cover” all my vehicles. I’ve been doing so, under duress, for decades and have yet to cost them a cent in losses. But being forced to buy insurance has cost me tens of thousands of dollars. I would literally have at least $30,000 in my bank account right now – and that’s not factoring in the lost opportunity cost of that money. I could have used it to buy property, for instance. Property that might have tripled the initial investment.
So, in fact, the insurance mafia has made a small fortune off of me. As it has off of millions of other people, none of whom have ever caused any harm to anyone. Yet who have had harm done to them – via being compelled to purchase mandatory insurance.
You justify this on the basis of pre-emptive punishment. Your position is that the possibility of harm-caused justifies the assumption that harm will be caused. On this basis, it is acceptable to force people to indemnify against what has not actually occurred – even if it never occurs.
Logically, on this basis, there also ought to be mandatory Murder Insurance, since it is equally possible that any of us might, at some point, commit a murder. Murders are costly to society, too. Therefore, everyone should be required to buy mandatory Murder Insurance. How about Obesity Insurance? Wife Beater Insurance? Emotional Angst Insurance… and so on? If not… why? On what basis?
But this – logic – does not penetrate your numb skull.
Nor morality.
Clover writes: “If Libertarians were right that car insurance companies make a fortune off of you then wouldn’t you think Eric would open his own insurance company and make millions of dollars?”
No, Clover. And do you know why? It is because Libertarians do not believe in thuggery. Do not use violence to steal people’s money – as insurance companies do.
As people like you do.
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There is no Auto insurance requirement in New Hampshire. While technically the law says that you must have financial ability to cover yourself, in reality there is no requirement to prove this ability. Of course, insurance makes sense, so most NH drivers do carry insurance.
I’d be very comfortable driving without insurance because I know I’m a damned good driver (objective evidence of which being decades of accident-free driving) and accordingly would rather have the money in the bank (where it could be used, if need be, to pay for damages I cause) but which will still be in the bank if I don’t cause damage, which is probably what will happen.
Most latter-day Americans have been conditioned to assume the worst will happen – and now have insurance for three or four or five different things.
No wonder most of them are broke!
There’s always outliers. That’s not really the point. Insurance is about protection against the unlikely but potentially catastrophic event. For most people it makes sense to carry insurance.
But I agree that a mandate is wrong. And as evidenced by my state of New Hampshire, the lack of a mandate DOES NOT result in an epidemic of uninsured drivers bankrupting victims of their incompetence, as Clovers love to portray.
The wife loves game shows and was watching Who Wants To Be A Millionaire while we’re in bed.
I turned to her and said, “Do you want to have Sex?”
“No,” she answered.
I then said, “Is that your final answer?” …
She didn’t even look at me this time, simply saying, “Yes..”
So I said, “Then I’d like to phone a friend.”
I took my wife to a French restaurant. The waiter, for some reason, took my order first.
“I’ll have the entrecôte, make it rare, please.”
Jokingly, he said, “Aren’t you worried about the mad cow?”
“Nah, she can order for herself.”
My wife dragged me along to her high school reunion, where she kept staring at a drunken man pounding down drinks as he sat alone at a nearby table. I asked her, “Do you know him?”
“Yes”, she sighed, “He’s my old boyfriend. I understand he took to drinking right after we split up those many years ago, and I hear he hasn’t been sober since.”
“My God!” I said, “Who would think a person could go on celebrating that long?”
My wife sat down next to me as I was flipping channels. She asked, “What’s on TV?”
I said, “Dust.”
She didn’t appreciate that.
My wife was hinting about what she wanted for our upcoming anniversary. She said, “I want something shiny that goes from o to 150 in about 3 seconds.”
So I bought her a bathroom scale.
The doctors say I’ll walk again, but I’ll always have a limp.
Two years ago, I decided to buy my wife’s mother a cemetery plot as a Christmas gift… Then last year, I didn’t buy her a gift. When she asked me why, I replied, “Well, you still haven’t used the gift I bought you last year!”
My wife was standing nude, looking in the bedroom mirror. She was not happy with what she saw and said to me, “I feel horrible; I look old, fat and ugly. I really need you to pay me a compliment.”
I replied, “Well, at least your eyesight’s damn near perfect.”
I’m typing this with one hand, and am still recovering from that last one.
You know you’re not looking at a free market solution, when you see all kinds of signs telling you what you must do or not do. Or even if there are layers upon layers of laws and rules required to make something happen.
In a free market there’s every chance roads will disappear, and cars will become almost completely worthless. Because the odds are, they’re both terrible mal-investments that never should have been. And never again will be, when men are finally free to trade and interact as they choose with each other to transport themselves from one place to another.
One thing that is free market. Is an escalator. A fairly complex thing, not immediately obvious how to use it. Yet it always works out, and it gets people from one floor to the next. No signs or rules are required.
Another free market device is an elevator. It gets you from the ground to a hundred stories above, with nothing to study, memorize, conduct libertarian studies about, nor any call to read the writings elevator founders stories about, in order to enjoy the benefit of them.
I appreciate that some find it educational to consider exploring hybrid scenarios. Perhaps I am excessively obtuse and ineducable. But whenever collectivist swords are somehow going to be beaten into individually owned plowshares in some way that brings freedom and dignity to mass man, once more. I become skeptical and curmudgeonly.
I have trouble with my vision, I guess. I don’t see any way to throw good money after bad. When you’ve been participating in something self-destructive and ruinous. You’re better off running away from the situation, when you finally get your chance. Let some other sucker worry about what to do with the mess and zombified people.
If you get clear of such things, the next generation won’t even know or care much about them, and that is probably for the best.
Wow, my Dad’s
countryteam has the best record in theentire worldentire NFL. I really want to immigrate there, because things will be so much better in the land of theAmerican PioneerCarolina Panther, long may her flag wave.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkzUt8cwnNE
I’ve always been a student, and just love watching inside baseball about the
republicans and democratsAFC and NFC because these kinds of games are so meaningful in our lives.Sure my ability to travel is restricted because I broke a rule and didn’t pay the amount of
seat license taxfederal income tax necessary to effect the transfer of hisPanther’s citizenshipUnited States season ticketsto my family. Rules of the game are the rules of the game.But I will never abandon my love of
Pohllllllliticcs.fuhhhhtball. It it is a diversion that feeds the bottomless hunger of my soul to no end.Sure my family’s tobacco fields were all burned to the ground so the
United States Institutional buildingsPanther’s stadium and clubhouses could be built. But what’s done is done.Might as well be a student and scholar of the great game, since every alternative pursuit is prohibited by the National Fatwa Football League anyway. And besides, its just so got dam fulfilling and intellectually noble.
Best team leader everhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTtcF19NURw
Best team leader ever
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jeRZx9X4Fdo
It’s morning in Charlotte boys. Woo frickin Hoo.
State rape reductio ad absurdum:
Yes, I’m forced to buy insurance against my will according to someone else’s will, or risk being thrown in a cage. But I can’t get too upset, since it is something that might be useful down the road.
Sure, my wife was raped by muslim immigrants, but my sperm count is low and we’ve been wanting a third child. We’ve decided it’s better to look at the glass being half full, where possible. Off to Walgreens for an EPT now, fingers crossed.
What we’re up against, is mostly ourselves.
yes, in a sense, if you have any assets, insurance could be considered a “protection” scheme.
but, i think it fair to inform you that in this litigious world, to have assets and not to have insurance would be a significant risk. predator attorneys and predator judges can have their way with you[i.e., there can be no justice].
i think it also fair to state that insurance is only a part of the picture. a more important part is the knowledge of the insurance agent[an independent one of some stature, desirably].
so far, i have never been responsible for any auto accident. still, i have been rear-ended. and the driver had a fraudulent insurance cert. he was cited. cops left. my insurance company filed a claim only to learn that this individual had no insurance with that company. i had his address. his driver’s license was not fraudulent. i wrote him that if he didn’t pay me for the repair that i would report him to the texas department of public safety. i included the quote for the repairs. he came to my office, gave me cash to settle. he had become honorable.
but then there was one insurance company, usf&g. i truck driving down interstate 45 lost a crate. it bounced under my benz, ripping out the tranny. truck driver never stopped. the usf&g adjuster approved the repair/replacement. after the work was completed, however, usf&g refused to honor the adjuster’s work authorization. leaving me with 10k bill.
now what do you do? to sue usf&g would cost more than 10k. i was forced to swallow the loss.
sure, i reported this to the state insurance commission. and my independent insurance agency suspended it business with that company. but, no one made me whole.
i have several other stories. but i bet you get my drift.
Hi Albert,
To reiterate: My beef is not with insurance as such. It is with requiring everyone to buy it. When it is available – and you’re free to buy it (or not) then the element of compulsion is absent, which eliminate the moral wrong. And because there’s no compulsion, the insurance company is compelled to offer its services on terms acceptable to both parties.
That’s free exchange. The basis of a free society.
When you’re forced to buy insurance, you (and they) know you’ve got no meaningful alternative except to buy insurance – whether from company A or company B. Therefore, both company A and company B can charge higher prices as well as do shitty things such as increase your rates based on nonsense such as a speeding ticket.
In some states, such as NY, you don’t have to buy insurance, you just have to prove your financial ability to meet the minimum state requirement to pay in the event tha you harm someone while driving. In NY that can be done one of three ways. 1. Insurance. 2. A Bond that will pay in the event that you don’t/can’t (the bond company will seek reimbursement resent from you) or 3. By opening an escrow account for the minimum amount ($60,000) If you truly don’t want insurance #3 is the cheapest option. I assume most other states allow you to do this as well.
Hi Jim,
This still amounts to the same thing. The presumption of harm caused. You haven’t harmed anyone, yet you’re harmed by being forced to lock up a bunch of your money on the basis of “well, something might happen.”
My argument – a moral one – is that no matter how uneasy you may feel about what might happen, you haven’t got the moral right to hold another person accountable for things they haven’t actually done.
It’s morally necessary to wait until they have actually done something (caused harm) before you have any right to hold them accountable.
The debate over guns is very similar to what we’ve been talking about here. It’s interesting to me – as an example of the widespread problem of people not being able to apply principles to particulars – that even “conservatives” who are stridently opposed to what’s styled gun control tend to also favor mandatory insurance. Yet, consider: The argument for gun control amounts to the same thing. Some people can’t be trusted; harm might be caused. Therefore, guns must be controlled. That is, people must be forced to hand over their guns. Or gun ownership must be strictly regulated by the state. Etc.
I think it was the writer William Burroughs who said, “Whenever there’s a mass shooting, they always go after the people who had nothing to do with it.”
Same with forcing people who’ve never caused a motor vehicle “accident” (most aren’t; hate the term) to buy insurance because some people have wrecked, or might. Or don’t pay their bills.
Eric, thanks for another *spot on* essay.
Here in Florida we have State mandated insurance. What they call, “no-fault” insurance. What we call, “your fault” insurance.
Interestingly, motorcycle insurance is not required. The only caveat being that helmet use is required should you decide not to purchase insurance.
The result? Motorcycle insurance is so reasonable it makes sense to have it.
Sometimes I ride with a helmet, sometimes without. Either way, I’m covered.
As a retired Firefighter/EMT, I can’t remember how many, “car vs. motorcycle” calls I have responded to over the years. Most of them resulted in a kid lying next to the road with his leg going in about three or four directions and an elderly gent or lady sitting in the car, tears streaming down their face, saying, “I didn’t see him. I just didn’t see him.” Usually the kid was waving to another biker AND/OR the geezer was unable to turn to look both ways before pulling out.
What we are up against is impotent, irrational, insanity. All we have to do to defeat it, is to stop lending it aid.
It’s not a case of saying or believing the right sort of things. But rather one of always doing the right thing and never consenting to any kind of evil which helps them. This means only, we must never render any assistance to enemies plotting our destruction. Ever, no matter what, regardless of the alleged ends.
Withdraw your consent. Grant them no sanction as their captive victims.
The “sanction of the victim” is the willingness of the good to suffer at the hands of the evil, to accept the role of sacrificial victim for the “sin” of creating values.
This is the entirety of what is wrong with the world, This is the thing that destroys men and nations, and where the battle for life has to be fought.
Our common enemy is that of the inverted morality—and our call to battle, is only to see that our sanction is its only power.
Evil is impotent— evil is the irrational, the blind, the anti-real—and that the only weapon of its triumph was the willingness of the good to serve it.
Just as the parasites around us are proclaiming their helpless dependence on our minds and are expecting us to voluntarily accept a slavery they have no power to enforce, just as they are counting on our self-immolation to provide them with the means of their plan—so throughout the world and throughout men’s history, in every version and form, from the extortions of loafing relatives to the atrocities of collectivized countries, it is the good, the able, the men of reason, who act as their own destroyers, who transfuse to evil the blood of their virtue and let evil transmit to them the poison of destruction, thus gaining for evil the power of survival, and for their own values—the impotence of death.
There always comes a point, in the defeat of any man of virtue, when his own consent is needed for evil to win—and that no manner of injury done to him by others can succeed if he chooses to withhold his consent.
You have the power to put an end to all your outrages, as I have, by pronouncing a single word in your mind.
And I have already pronounced it.
The word was “No.”
Is that a quote from ayn Rand?
As far as I know, the one state in the U.S. without mandatory auto insurance is New Hampshire. If you don’t have it, and you have a mishap, you pay out of pocket. A judge can mandate insurance for a record of reckless driving and other hazardous moving violations, or put a buttload of money in escrow.
As a result, the insurance companies actually have to compete and the products cost less. I’d wager more folks in New Hampshire carry insurance than in (mandatory) New Jersey per capita.
Yes, that’s true. I live in New Hampshire and the insurance is much cheaper than in the neighboring states. Therefore, more people have insurance.
It’s also interesting to point out that New Hampshire is the only state that does not require seat belts. But guess what? The seat belt use rate in NH is just a bit higher than the rate in Massachusetts, where there is a hefty ticket if you don’t click-it.
http://freestateproject.org
Hi Baxter,
Amen.
If insurance were priced reasonably, I’d almost certainly buy a liability-type policy without being coerced.
The problem, of course, is that the cost of a policy is not reasonable – precisely because it is coerced.
They have you over a barrel – you can’t say no.
Oh, you can buy the policy from Progressive rather than Geico. But you will buy it from one or the other (or some other) and they all know it. They also share data – and of course, all have access to your DMV record (as if having received a speeding ticket in any way means you are a poor driver). They collude in this way to keep prices at a certain high level. You may “save” $50 here vs. there. But you’re still paying hundreds more than you would if you could just say no.
I told the company that issued my house policy to cancel the policy when they arbitrarily increased the premium by 20 percent. It was a great feeling!
I was rear-ended in Houston so many times I lost count. Most couldn’t speak English and few had insurance. The only one that had insurance was driving a Diamond Reo with such a long, high hood that he must’ve forgot I was in front of him at the red light with me in a tiny Mazda. The last time I was hit from behind there I just asked the driver how much cash he had in his pocket to settle the damages.
A few years ago I forgot to close a window and someone broke in while I was at work. It looked like an extended smash and grab, and they got several hundred dollars worth of junk electronics. However they also disturbed one of my gun hiding places (which I have since learned is the first place thieves look for guns, so it’s no longer there), and some ammo, so I figured I should call the police.
The deputies (I live in an unincorporated part of the county), about 7 in all -they all happen to live in the same neighborhood, arrived right away and proceeded to investigate the premises. They took several dozen pictures, found a bunch of finger prints, and even managed to grab a shoe print using some high-tech electrostatic device. All very impressive. I asked what the chances were of them recovering my stuff. The answer was “well, you should keep an eye out at the local pawn shops and see if anything comes in.” Wait, isn’t that your job? The deputy then handed me a multipart form: “this is what you submit to your insurance company.”
It then became clear to me that it was all just for the insurance company, and they had no intention of doing anything to catch the thieves. All they intended to do was document the incident so that the insurance company wouldn’t have to send someone out, instead just reviewing the file and rubber stamping it. Maximize the profits by socializing the expenses. That and it was one heck of a show for me. Better than TSA security theatre.
Turned out that they didn’t find the gun, just the ammo. And I didn’t bother filing with the insurance company, figuring they’d up my rates to cover the payout anyway. And now I have a decent security system, with cameras and lots of clear signs indicating such. Even if I drop the monitoring plan later, I’ll still have the system (and the signs) and it seems to me that’s a good enough deterrent, much better than insurance. And I make sure the place is locked up when I leave.
*Edit* – Turned out the thieves didn’t find the gun. Of course neither did the deputies, even though right after they left I found it right away under a pile of clothes.
so, where IS that place which is the first place thieves look for guns? I’m wondering if I’ve put some value wobbles in the same place here….
Eric, a friend went through this 30+ years ago with a Browining ProSteel safe full of very expensive guns. I have the same safe, 1150 lbs of it empty. His wasn’t bolted down and living in a neighborhood of yuppies no one thought to check out 4 huge black guys going into his garage while he was on vacation and hauling out a huge safe. He found a few guns in pawn shops even though he had a list of the serial numbers(pawn shops, legalized fencing and cops love them). They were in such bad shape he quit looking since the insurance company wanted to assess them compared to used guns, something you couldn’t say of any gun he’d bought new, all of them looking as nice or better than the day they were purchased and some worth a great deal more than new. After recovering a couple and dealing with insurance, he didn’t WANT to find any others and took the lesser screwing of not finding them at all so the insurance companies couldn’t “evaluate” their worth. Bolt down your safe.
OTOH, the state and feds fought over ours. I hope they shot it out for some of them.
In Michigan the court may order the suspension of driver’s license, you will also have to prove the vehicle has been insured for not less than six months and pay $50 plus any other additional fees. Right there means that county courts can and do implement fines that are arbitrary and in many cases beyond excessive. But that’s what the court system in America is for: to rob the people of their wealth.
Insurance is a con game, whether it’s auto, health, home or any other.
The worst is the Affordable Care Act, passed by a corrupted congress and rammed down the throats of Americans whether they want it or not. This is another form of creeping tyranny for total government control over our lives.
But is not to worry comrades, government bureaucrats know what’s best for the proles.
Instead of mandatory insurance, how about just inculcating in people the idea that they are responsible for their actions–and back it up with legal force? Pay triple damages in 60 days or, if unable, serve prison time for 60 days. That should incentivize anyone.
Extra piece of turkey for you for this one Eric.
I love sending these insurance pieces to my actuary buddy
( makes about 300,000.00 annually) that wants to be libertarian but has
to sing lullabies to his conscience.About working for Corleone family.
He can not argue principle,and that what this piece is about.
Thanks, Cowboy!
We have to keep shoving it in their faces. They want to use euphemisms. To not face the thuggery that is at the bottom of it all.
Let’s keep at it!
Couple of comments here. I’ve financed my share of cars over the years. In all cases, the bank or finance company required me to carry full coverage insurance while there was an outstanding loan amount. That is a good thing, as they are protecting their investment. Same as Tor pointed out, the last 2 apartments I’ve lived in required me to carry renter’s insurance. Again a good thing, as they’re protecting themselves and the other tenants.
But the government requiring me to carry insurance? Not a good thing. The one and only time I’ve been hit and totaled by another driver, he was “in between insurance companies.” That means he was uninsured, a deadbeat, and nowhere to be found when a lawyer I consulted tried to go after him. And guess what? The state required drivers to carry insurance before they’d allow you to register a car. Deadbeats will violate the law anyway, Clovers. Doesn’t matter if the gov’t requires insurance, the irresponsible will simply do without. So why mandate it? Oh yeah, those lobbyists for the insurance mafia petitioning the at the statehouse have to get paid somehow.
When insurance is mandated, only outlaws will do without insurance. And the rest of us will suffer anyway and be poorer for it. So what does the responsible person like you and me do in a no-mandate environment? Carry the insurance we voluntarily would have taken out anyway, and add the rider for uninsured motorist (and stop to think about this one – if insurance is mandatory, why do they sell riders for uninsured motorists? Hmmm?????).
Well-said, Jim.
And thus, beyond Clover’s ken.
I have no issue with insurance per se; indeed, insurance can be a good thing. It’s the mandate I object to, both on moral and practical economic grounds.
While I grok that sone people are anxious about risk, it is nonetheless morally wrong to presume harm and (much more so) to impose a harm on someone who has not caused any.
This is what forcing people to buy insurance does.
You might hit someone. Therefore, you must pay money to the insurance mafia – which gets to keep it, even if you never actually do cause harm.
Well, why not require people buy Assault Insurance? Rape Insurance? Gun Insurance? Insurance for any bad thing that might happen?
The harm visited upon the innocent by mandatory insurance, meanwhile, can be considerable. I, for instance, have been forced to part with at least $30,000 over the past 30 years. In civil or criminal law, what sort of offense would I have to commit to justify a fine of that magnitude? Yet I have caused no harm or injury to anyone. But nonetheless, I’ve been relieved – under duress – of $30,000.
There is also the economic aspect to consider. I myself would freely buy a policy if it made economic sense. For me, that would mean a policy that only covered damage/harm I caused to others and which was priced to reflect the extremely remote likelihood of my actually causing damage/harm to anyone (based upon decades of accident-free driving).
Also, and in particular, that in no way penalized me on the basis of bullshit traffic offenses. My record of not causing accidents is the only relevant consideration.
It was incredibly liberating to tell the company that issued my house insurance policy to cancel the got-damned policy when they arbitrarily raised the premium and could cite no reason having to do with me for this increase. This happened about four years ago. I am at least $7,500 richer – or rather, less poor.
If one could do that with car insurance, there is no doubt in my mind that the cost of insurance would – once again – be reasonable.
Thing is people could become reasonably self-insured by escrow savings account of some sort. But the cartel doesn’t want it to work that way. Yeah I know some states have a self insured option but the conditions are usually exceedingly disadvantageous.
For instance in Illinois it takes secretary of state approval and depositing $70,000 dollars with the state. Yeah. You have to trust Illinois government with $70 grand of your money.
Back in the days before California mandated insurance, the “financial responsibility law” required one to bear the burden of any damage caused another whilst driving. No one HAD to have insurance (except if the car was financed, but that was part of the cost of not paying cash.. the pound fo flesh that is blended in with the ton of flesh called “interest” on the loan, the car being security, needing to be protected.
BUT.. if you crashed, AND damaged someone/thing, AND could not pay the damage out of pocket AND did not have insurance to cover it, THEN they would lock up that car’s title and registration, mandate YOU store the thing OFF the road, THEY have the title, and you cannot buy another one, until the damage you caused is paid. SO.. to keep from needing insurance, either 1) don’t crash, or 2) have the cash to fix the damage you caused, else 3) you’re walking for the next while. I think I did prang someone’s wing at one point, but he let me have it fixed by a friend, whom I paid, and all went away happy, except for the insurance company I did not pay. I think that one cost me well under a C-note… about four months of insurance premiums. Not bad for ten years of driving.
“I think you can ignore them, but you’ll be assessed the penalties, and face a fairly formidable bill collector who’ll escalate the consequences for the rest of your life.”
Here in the U.S. that formidable bill collector has been unable to get anything out of me for over 35 years of telling them to go pound sand. Of course there are lifestyle consequences, and at some point they might elect to put me in a cage, but as you know freedom is not free. (For what it’s worth their “laws” are not always as air-tight as they would like people to believe, but being thugs ruling over a brainwashed populace they by and large do whatever the hell they want and get away with it. Rules are for the little people.)
Kind of like the Monty Python sketch: “Anyone have a problem with my little scheme to march up and down the square?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLJ8ILIE780
Many are in a similar situation. As long as you file their infernal documents, you’re somewhat in the clear, it often seems to be the case.
In certain instances, where you’re required to withhold as you go, you’ll see your amount due balloon painfully. But if you’re willing to play their game of chicken all the way to the point of impact, I think they often blink and shrug first.
What do they really care, in the end. Molon Labe. It’s what a real man eats for dinner. The richer and more traditional you are, the less this is something to dabble lightly in. YMMV.
You’ll have to check in with the youzhe utterly uninterested federal collections dept. when the letters come, but from what I’ve seen, it really isn’t too bad. The debtor’s discount is the biggest welfare program going, probably 100 of times bigger than food stamps, public housing, disability, and so on.
The Collection Process
https://www.irs.gov/uac/The-Collection-Process
Kinda makes you think. Why own much of anything, have your name on anything official. Spin yourself a Rube Goldberg trail of shells and LLCs.
And you can be every bit the de facto owner of things, regardless of title and papers, if the day ever comes when specially convulated docs need to be shown to someone, most people who hold this paper, or are paid to verify them, often aren’t even sure what they are or what they mean.
I’d recommend a verbal pre-nup agreement like this. “Everything in this household from now on is yours, or whoever else you want to assign it to. If I leave some day, I’ll take my clothes and everything else that’s only of use or of interest to me, and everything else will still be yours.
Then it’s up to you whether 10% of your property is in that household or 90%. (Never go full domesticated optionless retard.) Unless you’re powerless to keep your business to yourself, and would rather “be honest” even if to a fault that someday loses you your kids, freedom, or who knows what else.
Heck most of us might still be broke, or even further underwater, why even look at the whole picture anymore, better not to know how far you’ve fallen. Or to ease up, because you’re doing well. Better for your confidence, self-esteem, and productivity, not having too literal of a reflection of your position.
I’m no more immune to a hero’s or harpie’s inquisition than the next guy; my secret, is I don’t really know exactly, and whatever I confess can do limited damage to me.
Another YMMV. If you’re at the side of the road, and he’s a statie with a squad car computer, he’s going to know a lot about you, so beware, keep quiet. Actually always keep quiet.
“As long as you file their infernal documents, you’re somewhat in the clear, it often seems to be the case.”
Usually but not always the case. They pride themselves on the laws and regulations being so complex and convoluted that they can go after anyone at any time for any reason. There have been many high-profile prosecutions of people who had bent over and filed the documents and paid their “fairshare” only to be targeted by this criminal organization armed thugs. They do it for political reasons, or simply put fear into the brainwashed masses each April. Comply! Comply!! COMPLY!!!!
You broke the code though, if you have nothing substantial tied to your own name and are thus judgement-proof there’s not a lot they can do. Other of course than to put you in a cage (3 hots and a cot at “taxpayer” expense), but there are more in the underground economy than you might think and there’s not enough room for us all in the gulags.
God bless Irwin Schiff, may he rest in peace!
“Actually always keep quiet.”
When stopped by the roadside tax collectors the only words out of my mouth are: “I am specifically invoking the 5th Amendment and will not answer any of your questions.” (It is important to say that up front as the courts have ruled that if you answer ANY of the oinkers’ questions you have waived your 5th Amendment protection.)
Really the best thing to do in any situation involving contact with the “authorities” is to use their own rules against them.
That 5 Th amendment crap on the side of the road will get people in trouble quicker than anything else. Just be polite and courteous don’t answer questions or even better use normal sounding white lies to facilitate normal clover behavior and more often than not you will at worse get ticket at best a verbal warning. 5 th amendment crap makes you sound like a sovereign citizen and Leo’s have been trained to handle them very differently. The roads are a dangerous place to exercise freedom these days. Until people reach a mass level of discontent with traffic laws nothing will change. By acting like a sovereign citizen you are much more like to be involved in a incident that escalates out of control and ends up with your arrest. Like Patrick said in roadhouse act nice until they aren’t nice.
I’ve never had a problem with simply invoking the 5th and not answering any questions. It does not have to be done in a nasty or confrontational manner. (To quote Beldar Conehead: “Maintain low tones… Maintain low tones!”)
Your mileage may vary, of course.
I agree with oinker. I have to deal with these thugs daily. They’ll even come to your business and audit you and use it to hold you up for 6 figure fines.
When i deal with them I simply wait for what they say and then slyly turn it around on them but never in a menacing or threatening way. I act as ignorant of my supposed transgressions as possible and then ask them what it is I should have done and point out when possible that I have done these things but they just don’t see it properly and offer to educate them all the while doing the “yas massa” bullshit with a bit of knowledge they can’t ignore. Instead of shoving it up your ass, they will cut some slack since they finally realize you know more than what you’re saying. When they point out my windshield washer doesn’t work or has no fluid, I point out it’s not here nor there since the last thing I want to do is cycle my wipers over my super clean glass, side glass, front and rear and all my mirrors.
I had a DoOT’er say he understood why I didn’t want to cycle my wipers and screw up a perfect windshield. He said “I have already noticed your glass is spotless, exceptionally clean”.
I replied to him my glass was waxed, one reason nothing was on it or stuck to it. I wasn’t pulling his leg. I wax my glass after I clean it. I rarely need wipers even in the heaviest of downpours.
Someone who deals with porkers on a daily basis is asking to get it good and hard if you want to go the 5th amendment route.
While it’s true and correct, you’re just asking for trouble. I’ve been a professional driver for 50 years. I learned as a teen to keep the seas calm and lay down all the oil I could to keep them that way.
I could almost quote the Constitution and get a ticket 6 feet long for my efforts and probably a red tag for both tractor and trailer.
With nothing but my bare hands I can simply walk around a rattler and go on my way…..or I can arm myself with a copy of the Constitution and beat him till he gives me a lethal bite…….and then summon all his buddies so they can add insult to injury.
I have no doubt the porkers come down extra hard on truckers.
However I stand by what I said. I am not required to answer any of their questions and my S.O.P. is to ride the 5th Amendment all the way any time I deal with them. I sure am not going to grovel or lick their boots under any circumstances. (What anyone else wants to do when confronted by these thugs is their own business of course.)
Jason, I believe there’s a significant difference between groveling and boot-licking and quoting the fifth to them. At that point they’ll simply stick it up my ass and laugh as I try to pull that 1.75L(fifth be damned) out of it while waiting for mechanics, parts and another rig. A company driver got stopped at 8 am yesterday morning and was still waiting for some help at 6:30 pm. I don’t think he invoked the fifth and probably would have got a red tag for his truck too if he had.
I’m not denigrating you for using it. If it helps you I’m all for it. It’s just something not effective for every circumstance, all boot-licking aside.
The downfall of many a person has been to not realize the value of retreat. Live to fight another day. BTW, I have never grovelled, not the same as being non-combatant. I got a free “go back to the yard” ticket a few months back for simply educating an officer as to what the actual problem was instead of trying to deny the obvious. After I had done so, he said something I never heard another say “Well, I don’t pretend to know everything about one” to which I replied “I don’t pretend to know everything about one either and the first time you hear somebody claim to you’ll know their full of it”. He laughed and said I could return to the yard and fix it instead of sticking a red tag on it where it would remain until fixed to his satisfaction. He had taken pics and sent them to all the higher ups before admitting nobody had a clue as to the problem. It was my showing him the problem and explaining it that led him to let me go. He was reasonable, not something I encounter a great deal and something I’d never encounter if I took the lawyer route. I let the company lawyer do that.
Probably nobody else on the site here has been stopped 3 times in 3 rigs in a week for technical inspection. That third time I got out and immediately looked up trying to get a glimpse of that black cloud. Since all those guys know each other and compare notes, I wouldn’t be able to go anywhere without having one stop me for a Level Two inspection and listen to my spiel about the Constitution they’d be expecting.
So, take-away is:
Go through roadblock successfully, find a “grassy knoll,” and send one of them to the barnyard in the sky. 😀
Or, don’t even pass through the roadblock, or past the porky’s hiding spot… Hike to a vantage point, and handle it, and hike back out…
Getting to be an ugly world, when your rights don’t exist…
Maybe my Dad had the right idea 2 years back.
I remember dreaming once I made it over a decade with no fatwa’d ensure-ance, but then alas, was slain on the side of the chariots paddock by the usual meat-puppet astronaut…
…because in this vision, he’d recently partnered with Gort-on-Steroids – Officer Hal 9000 – who informed the youzhe badged-human input-device that my “claims of residence and status answers, were highly irregular.”
http://semiproper.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/zip-it.gif
Hey Tor – be careful who you call a ‘fat wad.’
Going to work today, I got honked at for I’m not sure what by some humongous obeast African lady in a California car.
It’s been forever since anyone in traffic noticed me. So next light she was right there again in the next lane. And I wanted to be cordial too, so I rolled down the window honked and said “hi lovely day isn’t it.”
She took the opportunity to make an ugly face, flip me off and move over a few lanes when the light changed, I guess they have different ways of greeting in Cali?
I’m thinking that’s how I’ll beat them, instead of joining them. Doing something unexpected and human, is the last thing they’re prepared for.
Hero and mundane statists alike are counting on us all joining them in their dehumanizing rituals. What will happen if we keep enjoying life in our own way, and refuse to get angry because some arbitrary standard isn’t being adhered to. Or some face losing gesture has been performed.
That sure was a big fat angry wad of chocolate this morning. As clover says: “I had to laugh.”
“Clover writes: “If Libertarians were right that car insurance companies make a fortune off of you then wouldn’t you think Eric would open his own insurance company and make millions of dollars?”
“No, Clover. And do you know why? It is because Libertarians do not believe in thuggery. Do not use violence to steal people’s money – as insurance companies do.”
Another thing about this: Even if insurance weren’t mandatory and you weren’t looking to force things on people, you’d need millions of dollars just to get an insurance company started. That’s the thing with cartels. They get plenty of laws and regulations passed to protect themselves from competition. Making it virtually impossible for an average guy to start offering better services at a better price. The capital investment to pay the lawyers in getting a new insurance company off the ground would be astounding.
I have a Taxi business that competes against Uber. I’m in a low regulation place, but I still have to deal with regulations on my taxi business, while Uber has none. Instead of worrying about Uber and trying to get regulations passed against them, I focus on being better. The only thing I desire is to be treated the same as Uber, which unfortunately won’t likely ever happen because of clover(s).
On the other hand, unfortunately for Uber, Clover(s) will probably have their way within the next few years and have Uber pushed out of the big metro area’s. Leaving their business model in area’s like mine where they are free to do what they want and i have to have pigs inspect my vehicles for “safety” and carry a special license with the city because I was around and am considered a “public conveyence”.
Thank-you very little clover(s). You fuck everything up with your belief in coercion and intervention. You can’t leave anyone or anything alone. that’s all libertarians are asking for.
Clover doesn’t have his/her own opinion – rather he/she just feels comfortable following authority. If the government moved towards a Libertarian type style – Clover would follow.
I used to believe that Insurance was the biggest boondoggle ever foisted upon the foibles of mankind, now I know that the biggest boondoggle is the fiat money FRNs, aka monopoly money. And the successful (sic) implementation of fiat money spawned the mandated insurance.
The banking industry(sic)was in deep doo doo in the late 19th century. It was this cabal that though up insurance. You can see how it kept things afloat…..like the Titanic
Liberty Mutual takes in $38.5 billion in tributes in 2013
http://libertymutualcommunications.com/AnnualReview/2013/financials.php
Buys fixed income and equity investments of say 10% of its annual tributes each year. Current pool to pay claims,etc. is $74 billion.
Pays out 90% of its annual tributes in claims, operating expenses, overhead each year. Pays out all kinds of grease money to keep its business “problem free.”
Pockets at least 10% net, after dividends from investments etc. (to spend on salaries, ads, lobbyists, buildings, impressive sounding causes and giveaways, sponsors freedom curtailing legislation as a favor to govt, etc.)
Most likely they find ways to shift income to lower tax countries, which is everywhere else but the US and England.
And you get these figures from? Liberty Mutual? Of course they’d never lie……
20 years ago, they kept 80%, from what I’ve seen first hand.
Take 100 million in premiums a year, put 10% of this into a portfolio fund of investments, worth maybe 10 times highest payouts ever.
Another 10% of revenues pays all the claims, operating expenses, overhead and the rest.
You might be right this is still the case, and these numbers are bogus. But even if you accept these, it’s a terrible gamble and waste of money for policy holders, gamblers who horribly lose their best almost every got-dam time.
Notice how Clover has gone for misdirection instead of dealing with the point I raised. That point being government does absolutely nothing to compel insurance to pay out or for the individual at fault to pay out. All that happens is that the state’s monopoly on legal violence is directed at those who have something to lose to pay the automobile insurance cartel of state licensed companies. The dead beats Clover is worried about have nothing. They are better off risking the fine than buying the insurance. Or just buying worthless insurance for cheap.
It would not matter even if the person who wrecked Clover’s car and caused personal injury had a $800,000 in coverage from the Dewy, Cheatem, and Howe company. Nothing compels that fly by night company to pay a dime. Sure there’s state licensing, but if there is a way not to pay in the policy they won’t pay and that license will be just fine. See, the insurance cartel creates the laws and the policies. The ones that want to cheat people will do so legally and with impunity.
Eric says that a Libertarian would not run and insurance company because they do not believe in thuggery. Give me one example of an insurance company using thuggery. I know Eric you want millions of innocent people to be stuck with the bill and become bankrupt. Eric to me, that is a thousand times worse than any insurance company.
Brent says that the government should make the person pay if they injure someone else and do not have insurance. Tell me Brent what do you want the government to do? Throw them in jail? Do you want them beat up? Do you want them taken to the town square and stone them? Tell me Brent what you want the government to do? They can take part of your wages if they have an employer. That is already being done. What else do you want?
“Give me one example of an insurance company using thuggery.”
Clover, you ignorant slut.
The insurance cartel using State violence and coercion to force people into buying their product is textbook thuggery to begin with.
Beyond that, insurance companies frequently engage in thuggery when faced with the terrible situation of actually having to pay on a claim.
Years ago I was hit by a guy driving a pickup truck who totalled my car. His insurance company was State Farm. Fortunately there were no injuries.
State Farm at first would not even recognize that this guy was their insured, or that he was at fault despite a clear report filed by the State’s stormtroopers showing him to be 100% at fault. State Farm proceeded to attempt browbeating me into having the wrecked car towed at my expense and storing it myself, threatening that I would be hit with storage charges if I did not. They refused to tender any kind of offer for my loss, continuing to stonewall, delay, and threaten. It wasn’t until I got a lawyer involved that they finally sat up and took notice, backpeddled on their previous threats, and coughed up a few bucks for my loss.
Screw State Farm, the insurance cartel, and the stinking government thugs who force us to buy their products but don’t compel THEM to honor THEIR obligations. And screw you, Clover.
Clover, I didn’t “say” anything of the sort. I wrote that your mandatory insurance laws do not require or force the person or insurance company to pay. That getting restitution from your proposed dead-beat no income no assets character is the same as it was before the mandatory auto insurance laws. The laws only ‘work’ on responsible people who weren’t a problem in the first place and either kept a level of savings to deal with things or purchased auto insurance anyway. So basically they do nothing for the problem you say they aimed to solve. They only improve the bottom line of insurance companies.
But you understood this already. You’re being purposely dense and attacking a false argument because you don’t have a response.
I don’t want the state to do anything. You want the state to do something. So what is it you want them to do so you get paid when some idiot with fly by night company issued policy or SR22 that doesn’t pay hits you?
Also you distort what Eric says. Insurance companies have a function in free markets. But we don’t have free markets so insurance companies use the state to generate customers to pay premiums but not create payable claims.
Tell me Brent what is your solution. The solution we now have in place you do get paid if you are injured. You do not get paid by an insurance company if you just tell them you are owed a lot of money. You have to provide proof and if there is no clear proof of loss then the courts get involved. There is insurance fraud and if companies just pay whatever some figure someone grabs out of the air then my rates would double. Before mandatory insurance was in place 100s of thousands of people just lost everything when the dead-beat as you call them injured you.
If Libertarians do not want the dead-beats to carry insurance then tell me what the Libertarian solution is? Do we just accept that just being on the road may cause us to lose everything? Yes I do believe that some states have no fault insurance but that means that if I want insurance to cover me if a dead-beat person hits me then I have to pay a far higher rate to make up for poor aggressive drivers. If we do not have no fault insurance then if I want insurance without making the dead-beats have it then my uninsured and under-insured motorists costs goes way up.
Tell me Brent what is the Libertarian solution with the vast amount of dead-beat drivers we have on the road that can not afford paying even 2 thousand dollars for your losses?
Clover,
Your capacity for lying is spectacular.
Where have I ever argued that “Libertarians do not want the dead-beats to carry insurance “?
A deadbeat is a person who does not pay what he owes. If I have not harmed you, how is it that I owe you money? That is what you are “saying.”
You write:
“Do we just accept that just being on the road may cause us to lose everything?”
Well, yes. Just as we accept the possibility that we may be murdered. Yet we do not insist that everyone who could conceivably commit a murder be required to pay Murder Insurance – and so, treated as a presumptive murderer. But if someone commits a murder, then he is treated as a murderer; held responsible, etc. Why should this be any different for… anything else?
How many times must this principle be elaborated before you grok it?
I argue that people be held individually accountable for their actions; for the harms (if any) they cause; not for actions (harm) caused by others; not for actions (harm) they might cause.
Your argument is based on collective guilt and presumptive punishment.
Which you could at least be honest about. But you endlessly evade the thuggery at the core of all you stand for; perhaps because at some level even you realize it is thuggery and are somewhat chagrined about it.
PS: Your rabid defense of the insurance mafia utterly convinces me that you are either currently employed by an insurance company or were at one time. Tell me (as you style it) whether I’m close to the mark….
Eric thousands of people are involved with accidents daily. Now you are comparing that with murder insurance. Yes Eric I can not compete with you because you compared the loss of billions of dollars from auto accidents to someone who might need life insurance in which 1 in a few million people may want or need.
You said that you did not say that dead-beats should not carry auto insurance but you want it required for them after they hit you. Do libertarians lack any common sense whatsoever?
How much is a life worth, Clover? Surely more than the value of a car. If we are going to base the case for mandatory insurance on the value of the potential loss – which is your argument, not mine – you’ll look even sillier than you already do!
Clover, the fact of the matter is your mandatory insurance does not do anything. It covers up the problem. There are tons of people in Illinois driving without insurance despite your law. There are insurance companies that won’t pay unless you take them to court and maybe not even then.
And if you should ever have a claim against your insurance they’ll raise the rates to cover the difference. So lets say you get your no assets person to have insurance to pay for the first crash he’s in. His rates go up and he can’t afford the insurance. He hits you. No insurance or just some BS insurance. You’re still in the same spot as if there wasn’t a law at all.
That’s the point Clover. I don’t need to have a ‘solution’ that involves government force. I am pointing out that your solution does not change anything. Everything is still dependent on morality of society at large. You trying to create morality from the fear of punishment doesn’t summon it into existence. It actually makes things worse. Now the morality is to have insurance and not be personally responsible. Even if the insurance is worthless.
The simple fact is you’re not making things better, you’re just enriching a cartel.
The solution is what we have now, you carry ‘uninsured motorist’ insurance to cover yourself. I live in a state with mandatory insurance and guess what I pay for every 6 months for each car? If your solution worked I wouldn’t need that.
Brent all companions in the United States cannot be in collusion with each other or they can have severe penalties or be thrown in jail. So Brent you are saying that insurance companies are part of a cartel. Show us your proof and we will fine the heck out of them. If you do not have proof I would call you a liar which I know you are. So Brent are you saying that all dead-beat persons do not have insurance? You are saying the law means nothing? The same amount of people get compensated with and without the law? Give us your source for those facts because I would disagree. Since most states you have to prove insurance before you register a vehicle are you saying that a good percentage of cars are driving with expired plates?
As usual Clover you refuse to address the point. Your system of mandatory auto insurance doesn’t change anything. You instead create a tangent with numerous strawmen.
Clover, did you know that insurance companies share your claim history with each other? Did you know they are regulated and licensed by the government? People are required by law to purchase their products. That’s all the ingredients of a cartel. Sharing of information to set prices, controlled competition, and a mandatory customer base.
Clover, I’ve been hit twice by uninsured drivers. How did that happen despite the fact that registration requires insurance info? You figure it out Clover. The fact is that people get around the requirement. This is just me. How many uninsured drivers must be out there for it to happen to me twice?
Clover, you’re pathetic. You have to try to make it my fault instead of simply admitting that people are driving without insurance. Both paid BTW. Which goes against your other axiom that people without insurance don’t pay.
The number of players is irrelevant. The players are all government regulated and use a shared claims data base to determine pricing. The database isn’t information on the cars Clover. It’s your claim information. Insurance company B knows exactly what insurance company A paid on a claim because of you. They share information to determine pricing for their mutual benefit. State regulation serves as a barrier of entry and cost floor. In a state where auto insurance typically runs $5,000 a year you’re not going to find a company offering it for $500. That’s why things are the way they are, to prevent that. To create an effective cartel.
Brent, what you say has to be a lie. It’s against the law for insurance companies to trade confidential information. How dast thee accuse the banksters of collusion.
Tell me Brent if you had the figures on how many accidents there are and the severity of those accidents, tell me how that can be illegal price fixing or blocking others from selling insurance? Explain to us little people how that is illegal? Show us how that harms us?
Insurance pricing only takes crash statistics as one of the dozens of inputs on charging insurance. If all insurance companies had to worry about is the number of accidents in a given locality then all insurance companies would charge the same or else many would just go out of business. Insurance companies are like any company in that some are more efficient than others and they charge different rates for more or less risky drivers. Some may also invest better than others etc.
Sorry Brent but my insurance charges for my auto insurance is just over $500 a year and it is only that hi because I am covered 100s of thousands of dollars above the minimums . Good drivers have low rates as it should be. If you are paying $5000 a year, that makes you a poor driver. Hi risk drivers like you should pay more.
It all goes back to you saying you have the right to drive poorly. You have the right to not follow merge ahead signs. You never did tell me why your merge philosophy is better than what is recommend on the signs?
Clover,
Tell us: You do work for an insurance company… right? Which “family” is it?
You’re babbling again Clover.
Eric probably won’t let your comment through again. The last one because of your trolling attack this one for being nonsensical babble.
You’re not addressing the point. The mandatory insurance laws do not mean a victim will be compensated. People by-pass them and insurance companies refuse to pay. That is the simple fact of the matter.
Clover, insurance companies share all their customers’ claim data. For every type of insurance. You’re ignorant if you think it’s anonymous statistics. If you have a claim and the switch to another company, the new company will find about the claim even if it was years later. This is why you should never choose a poor insurance company. A bad insurance company will drop someone after a minor claim. Because of the database it makes it very difficult and expensive to get insurance. If you had a roommate or a relative live with you and there is something on their record it could come up when you shop for insurance. That’s how good the databases are.
The fact that you’re ignorant of what insurance can cost in different states is of no surprise. In some states the average is $2500/yr. Take a 20 year old or something with a V8 in one of those states and that easily goes over $5K.
Hi Brent,
Yup.
Clover’s tactic is to never directly respond to a point made or a fact presented. He simply changes the subject. Or,he manufacturers deliberate lies (e.g., “Eric wants innocent people to pay millions of dollars”).
As regards cost: As you know (but Clover will never admit) the cost, per se, is not the issue. It’s being forced to pay for anything you do not want to pay for, when you have not caused harm to anyone first.
My insurance costs are “low” – by Clover’s standards. About $800 annually for all my vehicles. But I resent having to pay it because (among other things) it fucking adds up. That $800 annually over 25 years is $20,000. I wish to hell I had that $20,000 right now. I could really use it. It would be a life-saver for me. But instead, it’s all gone – into the coffers of a for-profit mafia.
If insurance were not for profit, I’d find it less (though still) objectionable. Everyone is forced to pay into a common “pot,” but at least no one is making a buck – getting rich – off the system. The money in the “pot” is invested in something like Treasury Bills or whatever and damages paid out as necessary/justified. Still objectionable on NAP grounds but far less obnoxious than being forced to pay tribute to a mafia that makes billions in profits, so that creatures like Clover can live opulent lives.
Eric it is people like you that cause us to need mandatory insurance. If you are in desperate need of $20,000 then what happens when you total someone with a $50,000 car or maybe a $100,000 Tesla? I know, you declare bankruptcy and make someone else pay.
Eric it is exactly people like you who are almost broke who cause us to need mandatory insurance. There are too many dead-beats that just would not pay.
Really, Clover?
I pay my bills. And that includes damages caused to others with my car. Which is… none. So I owe no one anything, until I do actually cause harm.
Get it?
If not, perhaps you can explain why you ought not to be required to insure against the possibility that you might murder someone? It is certainly possible that you might murder someone. Right? And if you do murder someone, the costs imposed by your actions would certainly be much higher than the costs imposed by my bumping someone else’s car.
But you’re not bright enough to grok the principle, are you? Or do you just wish to evade it? Think that it’s ok to force me to pay for things you worry “might” happen… but not for things you “might” do?
Clover, once again you decide what I am “saying” by making something up and then attacking it. It’s a wonder you can tie your shoes, or can you?
The sharing of information on individuals is just one of the aspects of the business that makes it an effective cartel. Sharing of information alone does not do it. Since you believe automobile insurance should be based on risk, do you believe medical insurance should also be based on risk calculated from prior claims?
Tell me Brent if your insurance is $5000 a year then tell us what your claim record is. Tell me your driving history.
You do not get a $5000 insurance bill for one claim.
Anyone who has many claims should be dropped or pay a lot. If you are trying to hide this from another company then you should be thrown in jail for making false statements on a contract.
Go re-read the thread branch until you grasp it Clover. Oh wait, you’re doing this on purpose.
I ‘said’ nothing of the kind Clover and you know it.
Brent you said you want previous claims to be hidden from the new insurance company you are applying to.
Insurance premiums are based on risk. People that never have claims pay little. If they switch to another insurance company they still pay little and the new company does not lose money. If you get into a lot of accidents your risk is high. If you switch companies to get the good drivers rate then that company loses money. If you get a lot of bad drivers to switch to one company and if they are paying the good drivers rate then that company goes broke and may not be able to pay all the claims.
What part of that do you not understand Brent?
I “said” nothing of the sort clover. I didn’t discuss my opinions on insurance companies sharing information. I did not express an opinion on how things should or should not work. I only stated as a fact how they do work. Are you doing this on purpose Clover or are you befuddled to the point that you can’t recognize facts from opinions?
Morning, Brent –
The dude has to be an insurance agent, current or ex. The rabidity of his defense cannot otherwise be explained.
OK Brent since it is working correctly at least in my mind that insurance companies giver you a better rate when you are a good driver then why bring up that you hate insurance companies for using a database with your claim information on it? What was your point in complaining about it? If you want fair pricing then insurance companies should have all the information to make the proper decision or as I said before do you want everyone to pay a lot? What is your problem?I see Eric. So if you do not like the owner of your local road and his rules then you will just stay home.
Clover even has scientific researchers baffled…
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans
Outstanding, Bob!
Again responding before Eric decides to let it through or not. Our dear Clover needs me to explain again what I explained before and everyone but Clover grasped.
Clover, I explained this to you already. There are elements to having a cartel. If you don’t have all of them you don’t have a cartel. For instance if insurance companies shared claim information but didn’t have government protection from new entries, new competition, there wouldn’t be an effective cartel. But they have government determining what products have to be, who can provide them, and they share information to have similar pricing. Those are the basic three elements of a cartel. Controlled players, regulated or otherwise fungible product that people must purchase or have no (or only a poor) substitution for, similar if not identical pricing from shared info.
I realize this is all above your head. But it’s the three elements together that make an effective cartel. Without all three there’s no cartel. If new competition can come in the cartel will fail. If the product can be differentiated the players will diverge. If the players don’t share pricing models they start undercutting each other.
Without all three of these elements an insurance company might start offering deep discounts for someone who has been with them for 10 years without a claim. But with them that guy isn’t going to find a better deal that doesn’t suck up a lot of his time so they instead don’t bother. In an aggressive competitive market a new hungry company would see free money insuring such a person. Or the person might realize he hasn’t had a claim in ten years and self insure.
If auto insurance wasn’t mandatory instead of paying $350/yr you might only pay $100 a year Clover. The insurance company would rather have $100 than lose you as a customer. Plus the past decade or three you’ve paid they would have enough to cover a claim should you have one. But without real competition why should they discount you so deeply? No reason at all. They just charge the most they can without you going to another licensed member of the effective cartel.
Eric, Clover probably is or was a government employee, probably a clerk somewhere in the insurance regulation division.
clover, you fucking idiot. I was run over from behind July 23, 2014 and suffered injuries to not only my spine but that end with the thinking part….no, not my ass, my head. Guess how much I’ve been compensated by the fool’s insurance(big rig, big company insurance)? If you guess not a friggin cent you’d be dead on. They have no intention of admitting fault much less paying for any of my medical bills. They could settle with me easily but they wait, like a goddamned crocodile in the Nile, for that moment of ease when they can try to shove the blame off on me or simply let their lawyers do their best to deprive me of compensation. While they sit on billions of dollars, I sit on my lack of money, work my ass off to pay specialists who wouldn’t even consider even speaking with me without paying them up front. You stupid, stupid, stupid little cunt.
Hi Eight,
He finally got to you, too… one can only stand so much. He is, without doubt, the avatar of all this is cretinous about humanity. And I’d bet he either works for or used to work for an insurance company. His rabid defense of them makes no sense otherwise.
eric, guess what? I won’t feel any different regardless of what she says. Yes, she got to me. i had to go in for a DOT drug test today and I’m still pissed. They said I’d be subject to another on a fairly frequent basis now. This isn’t because of anything I’ve done but my employers lax bullshit non-up keep of the rigs I run. It’s the first time in my life I’ve come across this situation and it’s because of bureaucrats with not a clue(all female, not one bit of trucking experience)and insurance companies.
i don’t defend my employers actions in the past since they should have known paying those fines was much more expensive than keeping the trucks in good stead. Like I say, I’ve never experienced anything like this before.
My trucks, and damned if I wish I couldn’t buy one, have never been POS, never had a light out for more than minutes(literally), neverhad a bad brake biscuit for more than the time it took me to find a decent place to stop and replace one, never had an engine oil or anything else leak I wasn’t on top of toot sweet.
I never had the DOT taking me to task……as will happen tomorrow at the home office when I meet with said DOT woman, a pure out and out bureaucrat.
Getting back to today, it’s an affront to be called in for a drug test for no reason. It’s as if, for whatever reason, I’m a drug taker and a danger and need to prove I’m not.
I suppose you simply have to experience it to see how demeaning the entire system is. If I had marijuana in my system, I’d have one hell of a time getting it out quickly. But if I’m a crackhead or speedfreak, it’s only a matter of hours.
Let me tell you how it went. They treat you like a criminal from the get go(been there before). Do into the toilet with empty pockets, piss in the cup but if you flush the commode or run the sink water……it’s all off and you have to come in again. I’m dying since I need to pee so bad and they keep issuing orders. I finally tell them to get off the pot or I’m gonna shit or piss all over the place. So I go do it to their standards(no flushing or running water and I damned sure don’t trust their mirror since it’s size is a dead giveaway it’s not just a plain mirror).
Ok, I’m old, and it hurts me to cut off midstream but I do to not overfill the cup(painful), then place it in the hole in the wall and continue using the pot to relieve myself.
I finally flush and wash my hands and leave the lavatory.
the entire thing is nothing more or less than a show of force. No guns directly involved, just the threat of losing your job, having a record and not being able to find another job with that bad record.
I got home and was still mad. I’m still mad right now. The innuendo of the entire process is something that’s demeaning for everybody. I don’t know anyone who simply takes it and goes on with no other thought.
I had been using a Hall’s mentholyptus lozenge at the time so when I got through with the liquid part, I figured I was through(it’s been that way in the past), but oh no, no not, not in the clover days of totalitarianism. They then instructed me to remove everything from my pockets and remove my jacket. WTF I’m thinking. Ah, we need to test you for alcohol. It was then I said it looked as thought they had plenty to test with. Well no, alcohol is tested via a blow job into a machine. So I get there in the room, sans everything in my pockets(seems like when I pissed in the cup it would have been the time for that……and probably was but they realized they’d screwed up)so I go into the room and see breathtest bs and it his me, I’d done this before just for grins when a friend had been a deputy(never trusted him)and we played with one of these and they’d show you drunk with an onion, garlice, some drinks and various things you normally eat and bs you might buy in the convenience store. It was then i realized I had just finished off on of those Hall’s lozenges. So I ask them if I can go get a drink of water or something I had in my personal vehicle to kill that lozenge.
No dice they said, I couldn’t leave for any circumstance, couldn’t have a sip of water or anything to eat. I tell them from past experience I don’t trust the machine since a bit from an onion will peg it. The tech assures me it’s not that picky or bad but I’m hesitating anyway so she says I can wait ten minutes, an option I take. As soon as I left the room, the other woman there(what man would do this job?) said….and I quote “I had one of those lozenges and failed the test; I had to wait 15 minutes and do it again before I could pass”. Well, that’s reassuring. I was hot for the blow job even after the 10 minute wait but I did so since everything I said was recorded(nice…..ain’t it?) I blew the damned thing eventually and it showed 3 zeros so I suppose I “passed”.
it’s a hell of a demeaning thing and just shows how badly people need jobs, no matter how shitty the pay.
I walk in, with money in hand, and I then have to prove I am no criminal in their eyes. I’m still pissed off and found out I have to meet with the original DOT agent tomorrow to see what her cloverness has to say about it. Shit….shit shit shit. Mama’s don’t let your babies grow up to be truckers…….
Update from yesterday. The parasites I had to see today wouldn’t take the results from yesterday so I had to go through it all again. I didn’t repeat the Hall’s deal but had to give everything I had in pockets to them(hey, I didn’t count my cash either time, stupid me)that could contain liquid. So, I guess people must commonly stash liquid in their pocket knife and of course their cell phone(you know how well they stand up to liquid) and of course my credit cards, fuel cards, DL and the AARP card my wife “got for me” that has yet to save me a penny as well as my ballpoint(the only thing that makes sense of any sort), my keys(squeeze em real hard and they’ll give up a large amount of liquid). They allowed me to keep my glasses. Why not disrobe completely. I could have had a bladder in my skivvies(know a guy who did last year and used it to good stead) or my boots. If govt. and insurance companies can’t make you feel denigrated to the nth degree, I don’t know what can.
Clover,
I don’t believe anyone not afflicted with Down Syndrome could honestly type such as the following:
“Give me one example of an insurance company using thuggery.”
Seriously?
What do thugs do, Clover? What defines them?
When Don Corleone makes an offer you can’t refuse, he’s coerced your obedience by making it clear that if you don’t obey, there will be violent repercussions.
What does the insurance mafia do, Clover?
You know perfectly well. You can’t be that stupid.
Now, we could have an honest debate about this subject – but you’re incapable of that. To have an honest debate, you would have to openly defend using coercion against people who’ve harmed no one for what you regard as the “greater good.” This is the same argument used by every tyrant who ever lived. Which no doubt is why you are reluctant to make it …openly.
Instead, you evade – and you lie:
“I know Eric you want millions of innocent people to be stuck with the bill… ”
No. I want no harm to come to any innocent person, who’s harmed no one. Which means – logic, Clover – that I oppose forcing people to hand over money to a private, for-profit, government-backed mafia, to enrich the mafia’s bottom line and (yes) to pay for “damages” they never caused (but “might”) or damages caused by other people.
You seem to believe it’s ok to force people to pay for damages they didn’t cause – but which you feel they might cause. No refund if they don’t cause them, though.
I don’t believe it’s ok. I believe in holding people responsible for the harms they, as individuals, have actually caused. Not for harms they “might” cause – or harms actually caused by others
You believe in collective guilt and presumptive punishment.
I don’t.
“Give me one example of an insurance company using thuggery. ”
Using the threat of violence or other punishment in order to force a person to buy insurance or anything else is thuggery. Forcing a person to pay for a protection service that he does not want is a protection racket or thuggery; it is not a protection service. Mandatory insurance, like mandatory taxes, is theft because taking a person’s money against his will is the definition of theft. The difference between a peaceful, voluntary act and a forced act is the same as the difference between an act of love and rape. Forcing an innocent person against her will is evil. It is the same crime as rape. All Clovers are thieves and rapists. They are also murderers because they advocate use of force, including deadly force, against peaceful human beings whao have not harmed anyone. Clovers are violent predators and deserve to be treated as such.
If you’re a landlord renting property, especially a great many units, you can absolutely require tenants to carry liability insurance, as long as you put it in the lease.
https://www.onradpad.com/ask-radpad/can-my-landlord-force-me-to-get-renters-insurance/
If various legal jurisdictions start coming after property owners for even more things their tenants do, you can count on the fact that this potential cost will be 100% born by the tenants one way or another.
I can foresee a time when all tenants have to carry liability insurance, that will protect the landlord from property damage, willful and negligent acts against people and property caused by tenants. Lawsuits arising because of tenant actions. And so on.
Right now, such policies are maybe $100 or $500 a year, paid by landlord or tenant, but this will likely increase if they become mandatory like auto liability coverage.
Enroll Tenants
https://help.appfolio.com/help/Content/People/Tenants/Insurance%20Services.htm#EnrollTenants
To enroll the tenant in Tenant Liability Insurance, click edit in the “Tenant Liability Insurance”section and change the status to enrolled. You can also select an effective date, so if you know that a tenant has an upcoming expiration on his or her own policy, you can ensure there is no gap in coverage.
Features
http://sandboxmike.buildium.com/features/renters-insurance-plus/
Minimize risk
Requiring residents to purchase and maintain tenant liability insurance for the duration of their lease can help protect you from paying out of pocket for damages caused by a negligent occupant. With Renters Insurance Plus, it’s easy to enforce a tenant liability insurance requirement across one or all of your properties.
Integrated tenant screening:
Premium: $99 setup fee, $18 per screen
1099 electronic filing:
$25 per batch + $3 per form for mailing
The more regs, the more jobs that are created, and the larger the economy grows statistically.
If you read the literature on libertarian anarko capitalist sites like LewRockwell.com a property owner in the libertarian utopia can demand anything they want.
Since the government owns the roads the gov can demand proof of very minimal insurance. In the libertarian utopia the roads would be privately owned. There is no reason to believe private owners would allow you to use their property without proper credentials, insurance, ect. Private owners might not let you use their roads at all allowing only commercial drivers. So watch out what you wish for.
Hi George,
Yes, but the missing element here – with regard to government roads – is legal monopoly and coercion. We are effectively forced to use the roads – and to pay for them.
Private roads might require “x” – but provided no one is forced to subsidize them, then there is no moral issue. And take away the monopoly – so that competition exists – and there would be market pressure to keep costs (and hassles) down.
Here’s a parallel example:
Gun Club A provides a venue for target practice, with a small membership or pay-as-you-go fee, with each user asked to sign a liability waiver that absolves the gun club from any financial responsibility for harms you cause (if any) while shooting, etc. No harm – no foul. Or expense.
Gun Club B is similar, but requires you to present proof of gun liability insurance in order to use the range. Whether you cause harm or not, you are stuck with a big bill.
Which range will likely have more customers and be more profitable?
Probably, it will be Gun Club B. Which will result in pressure (but not force) on Gun Club A to offer similar (or better) terms.
The same principle applies to roads.
Or rather, could, if roads were not a government monopoly imposed on us by force.
George is also being disingenuous with his use of the term “libertarian utopia.” If he really has read any amount of libertarian literature he would certainly would know that one of the key concepts is that “Utopia is not an option.”
Libertarian utopia is my name for the place described in the articles on lew Rockwell.com.
In the libertarian utopia there will be plenty of coercion for those that do not follow rules. Proposed Libertarian law seems to be based on trespass and contracts.
Libertarian roads will likely be run by oligopolies just like other industries.
Hi George,
Who’s advocating utopia? Thomas Moore coined this term, which translates as nowhere. Exactly so.
You are setting up a straw man, then knocking him down.
I advocate something which I regard as better than monopolies and coercion: Free markets and free interaction.
If you’d like to discuss that, great!
“Free markets and free interaction.”
OK, what does that mean for roads? Who owns them? Who maintains them? Who decides who can use the roads? What happens if someone breaks the rules? One criticism of libertarians is they are full of ideas of how things should be run, but they never seem to say who is going to be in charge and how they got to be in charge. I would tend to assume that when you say ‘free markets’ you mean roads would be privately owned sort of like rail roads.
“Libertarian utopia is my name for the place described in the articles on lew Rockwell.com.”
Read the articles on LewRockwell.com. I call the world described in those articles the Libertarian Utopia for lack of a better phrase. There are a few articles on how roads could be privately owned. Needless to say you may or may not be allowed to operate a vehicle on those roads, but that’s just the free market allocating or not allocating resources to you, so it should be OK with you.
Utopia building is what statists do. Each camp has visions of what utopia is and they are willing to murder people to achieve it. Libertarians don’t care what you and your friends want to do, just don’t involve anyone who doesn’t want it.
If you want fascist land or commie land or whatever that’s fine, just don’t involve anyone who doesn’t want that. But there’s the rub, statism fails unless it can force or con productive people into it. I know some statists honest enough to admit that, but most won’t.
“Free markets and free interaction.”
OK, what does that mean for roads? Who owns them? Who maintains them? Who decides who can use the roads? What happens if someone breaks the rules? One criticism of libertarians is they are full of ideas of how things should be run, but they never seem to say who is going to be in charge and how they got to be in charge. I would tend to assume that when you say ‘free markets’ you mean roads would be privately owned sort of like rail roads.
“Libertarian utopia is my name for the place described in the articles on lew Rockwell.com.”
Read the articles on LewRockwell.com. I call the world described in those articles the Libertarian Utopia for lack of a better phrase. There are a few articles on how roads could be privately owned. Needless to say you may or may not be allowed to operate a vehicle on those roads, but that’s just the free market allocating or not allocating resources to you, so it should be OK with you.
“Libertarians don’t care what you and your friends want to do, just don’t involve anyone who doesn’t want it.”
Not true. If you read the articles on LewRockwell.com there is plenty of coercion and use of force. Force is used to enforce contracts and to remove trespassers for example.
George,
You state legitimate questions.
IIRC, many early turnpikes in the USA were private roads. For one to use them, one needed to pay the fee demanded by the entity operating/maintaining the turnpike (private road) or not use the road.
I am not aware of the rules with most of these turnpikes, but I would think that if one was not harming the road or others, then one was permitted to travel the road that they paid to use. If they were harming the road or others, them appropriate actions could be taken including (but not limited to) being banned from using the road.
Probably most private roads would be operated in similar fashion as current day turnpikes (PA, NJ, NY, MA, etc.). With enough incentive and profit motivation, someone may use a better system. (Perhaps using cameras, transponders, or some other type of technology)
One unique feature of roads is that it is difficult to have competing roads between two cities. Usually there are not many ideal routes (usually 1 or 2) between two cities. Other routes would be longer and/or more inconvenient to use than the ideal (shortest/quickest) route.
If the ideal route is too expensive to use, then people with look for reasonable alternatives. A private entity can not charge too much for its road or it will go bankrupt. A gov’t entity with a monopoly of roads needs not concern itself with competition.
(I probably could write this better, but I hope I made my point clear enough.)
“IIRC, many early turnpikes in the USA were private roads.”
Yes, privately-owned roads were the norm in the 19th century:
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/turnpikes-and-toll-roads-in-nineteenth-century-america/
“Probably most private roads would be operated in similar fashion as current day turnpikes ”
I doubt it. First government roads are run by central planners, which all libertarians claim choose sub optimal plans. Second private roads in the Libertarian Utopia would be run for maximum profit, government roads are run with balancing tolls and fairness. On government roads less than well maintained autos, barely competent drivers with minimal insurance can for small amounts of money drive on a major highway. I personally would expect on a rationally run road that insurance liability limits would be in the millions of $.
Since anyone disobeying the rules would be considered a trespasser or in violation of their agreement expect there to be coercion to stop them. Since the owner a highway in the Libertarian Utopia is given tremendous discretion I would not be surprised if as a labor saving devise they did not require a way to remotely take over the controls of you vehicle.
I find it interesting that people think Libertarianism is about changing the rules government imposes on them such as helmet laws while at LewRockwell.com it is about privatizing ownership of decision making, coercion and, as Marx said, the means of production, distribution, and exchange (and everything else). Watch out what you wish for especially if you own vintage autos or motorcycles, 2 classes of vehicles ‘The Man’ may not like on his highway.
As far as coercion goes, back in the day the rail road industry had no problem tracking down Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid to Bolivia even though the Fed gov could not.
As a speculation I would not be surprised if as states like New Jersey go bust due to pension liabilities to retired state workers, running highways like the Garden State and the NJ Turnpike are done for maximum monopoly profit. Broken heroes on a last chance power dive will not be able to afford the tolls and be forced to take the bus while the heavily taxed mansions of glory slowly decay, there will be no place left to hide (Springsteen, Born to Run).
Hi George,
You write:
“…government roads are run with balancing tolls and fairness.”
According to whom?
How can it be “fair” when you have no meaningful alternative? When the price (and conditions) are dictated and effectively unavoidable?
You appear to believe that central (and coercive/collectivist) planners are more benevolent as well as more efficient. But is there evidence for this – leaving aside the moral issue?
The fact is, non-coercive/non-collectivist methods have not been tried (that’s point one) and so it’s a straw man to argue against them by trotting out assumptions about them.
I grant that coercive collectivist methods can achieve spectacular edifices. The pyramids. Or the Interstate Highway System (modeled, it is worth noting, on the Nazis’ Autobahn system).
But that is not a moral argument. Indeed, it is a negation of morality.
Would I rather less “progress” and more liberty?
You bet I would!
The only reason “what about the roads?” exists is that it is one of the few things people expect of government and it serves as a distraction. That combination is great for derailing any discussion of a free society and far more effort has been put towards it that it deserves priority wise.
Roads are about the most pay to play thing in the government sphere in this country and are probably somewhere down around item number 15,000 of things to be addressed by libertarian dismantling of the status quo despite the subsidy to the trucking industry.
I’m all for a public board of managers of the roads instead of a giant expensive government. Keep the public road systems. If we get to the point where we can honestly debate the values of private roads vs. public roads we are already living in a society that is several orders of magnitude more free than what we live in today.
How about we start with the basic concept of owning our own bodies?
Hi George,
I think (with no offense meant) you misunderstand the meaning of force; that is, of aggression. I am not committing aggression against you when I set “terms and conditions” for (as an example) coming onto my property, or into my home. You are free to not come onto my property or into my home; and to leave at any time, if you wish.
But I do not own everything, or even the adjacent property. Therefore, you are free to go there (or not) as you wish, subject to mutual agreement. No aggression is involved.
When government is involved, the situation is very different. There is no alternative – and you are compelled to pay as well as obey. That is aggression.
You wrote:
“…you may or may not be allowed to operate a vehicle on those roads, but that’s just the free market allocating or not allocating resources to you, so it should be OK with you.”
It is ok. Exactly.
Because it is not a monopoly – and no one is forced to pay for it. Implicit (in a free society scenario) is that there would be alternatives; therefore, free choice. And where you have free choice you have… freedom.
Is it utopia? Of course not. There would still be problems. Just less authoritarianism; more liberty.
PS: Removing a trespasser is a legitimate use of defensive force because the trespasser has committed aggression by violating your private property.
Japan Measures Millions of Waists Under Nat’l Health Law
Published: June 13, 2008
AMAGASAKI, Japan — Japan, a country not known for its overweight people, has issued one of the most draconian fatwas ever by a nation to force a slim down by its citizenry.
Ko Sasaki for The New York Times
A poster at a public health clinic in Japan reads, “Goodbye, metabo,” a word associated with being overweight. The Japanese government is mounting an ambitious weight-loss campaign. (name based on metabolic syndrome)
Summoned by the city of Amagasaki one recent morning, Minoru Nogiri, 45, a flower shop owner, found himself lining up to have his waistline measured. With no visible paunch, he seemed to run little risk of being classified as overweight, or metabo, the preferred word in Japan these days.
But because the new state-prescribed limit for male waistlines is a strict 33.5 inches, he had anxiously measured himself at home a couple of days earlier. “I’m on the border,” he said.
Under a national law that came into effect two months ago, companies and local governments must now measure the waistlines of Japanese people between the ages of 40 and 74 as part of their annual checkups.
That represents more than 56 million waistlines, or about 44 percent of the entire population.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/asia/13fat.html?_r=0
Goodbye, Metabo
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/06/13/world/metabo.01.190h.jpg
Japan’s Fat Tax
http://www.overcomingbias.com/2011/11/japans-fat-tax.html
Insurance has become government mandated gambling. As usual, the left hand of government does not know what the right hand is doing. I often wonder if those hands are aware of the other’s existence.
I used to live just north of Detroit, and as I was just about to turn into my drive, another driver ran a red light and I t-boned him, hitting his passenger.
His license was suspended.
He didn’t have a license plate nor registration (not uncommon in Detroit)
He didn’t have insurance (very common).
He “disappeared” into Detroit but owes nearly $20K from being at fault.
Worse, his passenger sued me (and not him – of course he doesn’t have anything).
Insurance only compels the law-abiding. It only occasionally inconveniences the scofflaws. Are any of the Clovers going to go out and get the $20 back? How? If laws meant anything, why isn’t he in prison (I won’t bother about fines because he couldn’t pay them).
This is something like “gun control”, but in this case the poor can’t afford it so just don’t pay, but still drive.
If they hit you, you’re out of luck.
If you hit them, cha-ching! for them.
And what of uninsured illegal immigrants? Hey they have an economic advantage since they can just ignore the regulations too!
First rewind to Drivers’ “Licenses” – you would need to get rid of them (and I’d agree to that), but if there is a purpose, then insurance, or an equivalent bond might be demanded or some other showing that you are capable of paying for damage you cause. The at-fault person should pay, and in some ways it is like a “line of credit” – if you are poor and irresponsible, and cause lots of damage, you aren’t going to be able to pay for them, but someone will.
Throwing them in jail doesn’t repair anything. You can get a judgment, but they won’t have the ability to pay. What do you do, particularly when the problem of scofflaws is widespread.
Eric,
I am surprise people are not required to purchase “Murder insurance”, “Obesity insurance”, or any of a litany of possible items that people could be forced (Under threat of violence) to buy in the name of “protection” from something negative that might happen.
You should pay me protection money, because it would be terrible if “something bad” would happen to you or something you care about and you did not have “protection”.
Sounds very similar to a line from an old Gangster film. Only difference is this is under the color of law.
Hi Mith,
Obesity insurance is – effectively – already here! Obamacare. Its premise is that (among other things) obese people impose costs on society; therefore, the obese – actual as well as potential – must buy insurance to cover these costs, whether they (as individuals) are actually fat (or have not actually imposed any costs) being irrelevant.
How long before we’re all required to stand in front of the Telescreen every day and do calisthenics?
Sadly enough, only negative seven years is required, if you’re Japanese and at least 40 years old. (Metabo rules have been national law since 2008.)
For men and women who fail the employer or local govt test and exceed the maximum allowed waist length of 33.5 and 35.4 inches, they are required to attend a combination of counseling sessions, monitoring through phone and email correspondence, and motivational support.
I personally would tell any government imposing such “requirements” to go pound sand.
I think you can ignore them, but you’ll be assessed the penalties, and face a fairly formidable bill collector who’ll escalate the consequences for the rest of your life.
Unlike here, you’re somewhat dealing with a centrally imposed “breed” of humanity. Official numbers aren’t verified,but here they are:
Ethnic Japanese make up 98.5% of the total population, then Koreans are 0.5%, Chinese are 0.4%, and all other are 0.6%.
Japan Has Cut Obesity to 3.5% in a Controversial Way That Wouldn’t Fly in America*
http://mic.com/articles/84521/japan-has-cut-obesity-to-3-5-in-a-controversial-way-that-wouldn-t-fly-in-america
*BS flattery. They’ll make whatever fly they want, and we’ll have a hell of a time stopping anything.
Dubai pays people to lose weight.
New Zealand, where one in four adults are obese, bars overweight immigrants from obtaining a visa.
China has used acupuncture to treat obesity for centuries.
NEC, Japan’s largest maker of personal computers, says it’s possible to incur as much as $19 million in penalties for failing to meet targets.
Matsushita, which makes Panasonic products, has to measure the waistlines of at least 80% of its employees, along with their families and retirees. The company distributes “metabo check” towels that double as tape measures to employees to ensure adherence to the waistline limits come time for employees’ annual checkups.
Critics say the government’s real goal is to shift health care costs onto the private sector.
The ad absurdum notion of everything being done with guns to the head (or at least your wallet) seems to be in full swing.
List of Japanese Political Parties
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_political_parties_in_Japan#Major_parties
1 Liberal Democratic Party (populists, conservatives, nationalists)
2 Democratic Party (Social liberals & centrists)
3 Innovation (nationalist, neocon, economic liberalism)
4 Clean Assembly (Buddhist & Sōka Gakkai.)
5 Communist-Socialist Party
Oops, my response wound up at the top of the page! I love this site but not being able to go back and edit, even for a limited period of time, sometimes is a PITA.
Hi Jason,
I know… The Plan is to get custom software and eliminate all those problems. But that takes money. As I posted earlier, the traffic is extremely encouraging; we’re at a quarter-million a month. Money shouldn’t be an issue – but it still is. A big one.
I am trying to sort it out.