Does it make sense to play by the rules when the rules no longer apply? Well, when they only apply to you?
If you own a car, you are forced to “cover” it with an insurance policy that costs what you’d never freely pay – and what the insurance mafia could never get away with charging – if you were free to say no this “coverage.”
Many people do say no to it. They are too poor to afford it and just drive, sans the “coverage.”
And they “get away” with it.
Bully!
Nothing is done to them because they have nothing more for the government – which promulgates the rules – to take. Perhaps their car, but if they are poor (or smart) it is probably a beater and they can just go out and buy another car – with the money they didn’t spend on a piece of paper (i.e., the “policy”). 
Some aren’t here legally and have also said no to the driver’s license – the government ID card, really – that rule-abiders are also forced to get and carry (as well as pay for) according to the rules of the game.
The system doesn’t care much about such people because there is no money in them. It is rare for them to be kept in jail because that would be a liability rather than an asset. And the government – despite what is said about its book-keeping competence – knows all about profit and loss.
If the unlicensed, “undocumented” and uninsured driver doesn’t cause any harm then no one is harmed and there is no problem – or shouldn’t be. Well, morally. It is a strange thing indeed that some people have a problem with people who’ve not caused any harm and desire to harm them for it, legally.
Which brings us to the other side of this double-headed wooden nickel: 
It is the unappetizing fact that the licensed, documented and forcibly “covered” driver who causes no harm to anyone is harmed – by being made to pay for harms he hasn’t caused.
Over and over again. To the tune of many thousands of dollars. Money that could have been used to pay off the car or fix the car or buy a new car. Or buy food. Many things of tangible more value than a piece of paper (i.e., a “policy”).
The rule-abiding are made to pay for the harms they haven’t caused by people who cause immense harm to all, by threatening them with it, constantly. And applying it, frequently.
These people don’t play by the rules, themselves. They exempt themselves from their own rules, such as – most glaringly – their orders to us – the rule-abiders – to commit economic seppuku by “locking” ourselves “down” while declaring themselves and their economic well-being “essential.”
The playing board is tilted; the deck is stacked. The dice are loaded. The whole thing is a fantastic gyp – and only a mark plays by its rules.
Of course, it is difficult for us rule-abiders to stop playing by the rules when we know the rules can be applied . . . to us. It is risky to drive around without government ID – a “license” – and a piece of paper that shows you were a good obedient serf and paid for the “coverage” you would’t have bought – were you free not to buy it – when you have a job or car that’s worth anything or money they can seize, directly or indirectly (as via fines that can be turned over to a collections agency).
But the rules are on the verge of changing – because the wheels are on the verge of coming off. The system is rapidly losing – has arguably already lost – the moral authority necessary for general rule-abiding. Why should we play along when they do not?
Indeed.
The laws are arbitrary and selectively applied. Only a fool respects them when he doesn’t absolutely have to (as when there is am immediate threat of repercussions for not respecting them). As for example the various “mask” rules – which the “mask” rule orderers selectively obeyed, themselves.
Mock the “masks,” then. Many did. Wear sheer women’s panty hose, for instance. Or show the nose – to show contempt.
The first and arguable critical blow is to shatter respect for rules that are unjust, applied arbitrarily and enforced selectively. If it lands, such a blow can stagger the very foundation of not just a particular rule but the general class of unjust, arbitrary and selectively enforced rules.
Many of us do this already, every time we drive – by driving as fast as we can “get away” with, regardless of the rule that we drive this fast and no faster. We do so because we know the rule is arbitrary, selectively enforced and enforced by those who ignore the very rules they enforce – by driving faster than the rules say anyone may.
Except, of course, themselves.
Perhaps you notice a pattern . . .
Insurance isn’t a vile thing in its essence. But it becomes an evil thing when it is forcibly imposed. Because it is evil to harm people who’ve not harmed people – and that is the essence of what forcing people to pay for “coverage” (or anything else) is.
The evil compounds by dint of the forcing – because when you are forced to buy, the seller can charge what he likes.
And so, they do.
But how to “get away” with not playing by these rules? One way – a legal way – is to drive as value-less a car as you can get away with – and pay not a cent more than the rules say you must. Or get a scooter/moped – which in some areas you are not required to get a government ID card (“license”) to operate or “cover.”
Or – and the time is nigh – summon your inner Nancy Reagan and just say no.
Or rather, say nothing at all. Just kind of fade into the background. Stop playing the fixed game and adhering to rules that apply – hard – only to those foolish enough to still playing by them.
They can “get” some of us. But they can’t get all of us.
. . .
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You probably already read this, somewhere back down the line…from The Menace of the Herd or Procrustes at Large (Erik Ritter von Kuehnelt-Leddihn):
A two-column Chart:
The Herdist Instinct :: The Romantic Sentiment
The plain :: The mountains
The city, the megalopolis :: The village, chalet, rural community, peasant house
Equality :: Liberty
Identity :: Diversity & hierarchy
Democracy :: Monarchy or aristocracy
Determinism :: Free will
Security, safety :: Adventure
Nationalism, internationalism :: Supranationalism
The soldier, militarism :: The knight, the warrior
Industrialism :: Craftmanship
Individualism & collectivism :: Personalism
The apartment house, the hotel :: The castle, the farm, the hut
Anthropocentrism :: Theocentrism
Homogeneity of masses :: Mosaic of families
Monotony :: Harmony
Centralism :: Federalism (in the European sense)
Horizontal order :: Vertical order
Contractual society :: Service, patriarchal authority
Private or state capitalism :: Anticapitalism
Anonymity & impersonalism :: Personal responsibility
Subjection to the demands of time :: Timelessness, conservatism
Worship of the new fashion, worship of youth :: Worship of the old, of age
Feeling of the finite, fear of death :: sense of immortality
As a result of this last item:
Exaggerated worship of health :: Indifference to health
The “hectic life” :: The contemplative life
Doctor worship (“Men in White”) :: Worship of saints
Speed (auto as expression of our mortality) :: Slowness, procrastination
Cowardice :: Courage
Cautiousness :: Carelessness
Escapism :: Facing issues
“There is little doubt that atheism, agnosticism, & the denial of the other world are partially responsible for the rapid technical development which gave us, apart from exquisite instruments for mass destruction, various means to bridge time & space. We had the heading, “Speed,” in our chart of the herdist instinct & the romantic sentiment. Ortega y Gasset, in his Rebelion de las masas, points out very adroitly the fact that the automobile is the very expression of our present acute feeling of mortality. Endless progress in madly increased comforts & in technical developments is the goal of the age. On this basis, if we were bodily immortal we would feel no sch need for technical gadgets saving time by conquering space.
Yet the conquest of time & space is only partially a final aim & ultimate goal of a herdist society. Every ideology visualizes a certain end & ochlocrocy is no exception of the rule; the end is not as clearly formulated as in communism & one can say that it has been agreed upon by some sort of general consent. But even in spite of the fact that this ultimate aim is not of such a teleological nature as that of the proletarian Millennium or Karl Marx, it is nonetheless chiliastic; the democratic middle class of the 19th & 20th centuries always believed in some sort of “endless progress.” “Progress” is for the convinced ochlocrats a consoling Utopia of madly increased comfort & technicism. This charming but dull vision was always the pseudo-religious consolation of millions of ecstatic believers in ochlocracy & in the relative perfection & wisdom of Mr. & Mrs. Averageman. Utopias in general are surrogates for heaven; they give a meager solace to the individual that his sufferings & endeavors may enable future generations to enter the chiliastic paradise. Communism works in a similar way. Its millennium is almost the same as that of ochlocracy. The Millennium of Lenin, the Millennium of Bellamy, the Millennium as represented in H.G. Wells’s “Of Things to Come,” the Millennium of Adolph Hitler & Henry Ford – they are all basically the same; they often differ in their means to attain it but they all agree in the point of technical perfection & the classless or at least totally homogeneous society without grudge or envy. This identity of teleological outlooks explains the mutual admiration of certain deracine Americans & Soviet-Russians for their respective fatherlands.
There is little doubt that this millennium is one of civilization & not of culture because it is a millennium of comfort, free from effort & pain.*
*There seems to be, though, a conflict between the never completely extinguished thirst for adventure & the coming millennium of miraculous inventions (& comfort); one only has to study the comics displaying pictures of semiarmored Martians & half-naked inhabitants of Venus shooting each other with magic rays, to see the projection of a cocktail of death & refrigerators into a half-apocalyptic, half-millinarian future.”
What do you think of this symbology of the automobile?
Oregon illegal mode-buy cheap beater, don’t put it in your name (no title cost), don’t buy insurance, and when the head gasket or the timing belt goes leave it where it is and repeat the process.
I lived in CA in the mid 90’s and (couldn’t believe it then – nor now!) they had a rule that if you could bond on yourself some some sum (I forget the sum, but it was many 10’s, or even 100 of $k) and skip having insurance. (e.g. self-insure) Since I was so young at the time, I didn’t bother. I do remember some of the stipulations: You couldn’t use your house nor 401k plan assets. Since I am older and far more wealthy now, I would do that if it was available.
Insurance is not inherently unlibertarian. It is a voluntary contract that enables you to share risk with others.
Let’s say I sell you an insurance policy that says if X happens to you any time during the next year, then I will pay you $100.
Within the year covered by your policy, X happens to you. I pay you $100. That’s proper because that’s what we agreed to.
Within the year covered by your policy, Y happens to you. I don’t pay you $100. That’s proper because Y is not X, and I did not agree to pay you if Y happens to you.
Within the year covered by your policy, X happens to you. You demand that I pay you $200. I pay you only $100. That’s proper because $100 is what you agreed to.
A year passes and X hasn’t happened to you. You demand that I refund the premium that you paid because you haven’t received anything in return for it. I refuse. That’s proper because you did get something in return for your premium. You got insurance. I performed in accordance with our voluntary contract.
One month passes and X hasn’t happened to you. You tell me that you want to cancel your policy. At that point you have used only one month’s worth of insurance, so I refund eleven-twelfths of the premium you initially paid. That’s proper because I have not “earned” the full annual premium yet. In my books I don’t even count “unearned premium” as income, even though I have received the money.
A year passes and X hasn’t happened to you. I send you a renewal notice but you ignore it. A month later X happens to you. I don’t pay you $100. That’s proper because we no longer have a contract.
Any time an article about insurance appears here, we seem to agree that the problem is government coercion, not insurance itself. But then inevitably come the complaints:
“Insurance is a scam.”
No it’s not. It is a vital part of a market economy. Without it, individuals would be reluctant to buy or build expensive things because the risk of loss would be too great for them to bear by themselves.
“I pay and pay and never have a claim. But they won’t give me a refund.”
You are not entitled to a refund. The insurance company has held up its end of the bargain. As long as you don’t suffer a loss, they owe you nothing. That’s what you agreed to.
“I pay and pay and then when I do have a claim they try to weasel out of it.”
An insurance policy only covers what the policy language says it covers. No policy can cover everything (unless, of course, it specifically says it covers everything). For example, most business interruption coverage specifically excludes losses caused by viruses and pandemics, yet lawsuits are flying now because policyholders are demanding that they be paid because covid. No. You have to read your policy, and if you don’t understand it, ask your agent to explain it. Policies have to be complex when the things they cover are complex.
Exactly, Roland. There’s nothing wrong per se with insurance- It can be a great thing when voluntarily engaged in, where the participants accept paying a modest fee to spread the cost of a potential risk among a large group in which only a few members will actually sustain damages from said risk.
They key is “voluntary” though. When insurance becomes mandatory….then the client base becomes a captive market and the whole market gets perverted, and it becomes unnecessarily expensive, and just another tax. Like with mandatory health insurance: There is no economy in spreading the risk over a large group, when 99.9% of the people in that group will have claims. It then becomes a case of those who use less subsidizing those who use more….and everyone having to pay more so that the ins. co. can pay for administration and also make a profit- which, after all, is their reason for existing.
Yes, of course Nunz. But I keep seeing comments here that accuse insurance of being a scam in its essence. That’s just not true.
There’s so much wrong with the Obamacare idiocy that you’d have to write a book, maybe several. One is the notion that checkups and prescription refills can be insured against. Those are not insurable events, because they are not random and unforeseeable. When an 80-year-old goes to the pharmacy to get his pills topped off, you knew what was coming. You can call it a contract or a pre-paid service, but you can’t call it insurance.
Dr. Michael Accad contends that no medical condition can be insurable simply because there is no objective way to verify that it has been fixed. It’s impossible to tell how the patient feels. With a repaired fender, on the other hand, if it looks like new and works like new, then a reasonable person would say it has been made whole again.
Yes, and yes.
No one would buy “food insurance,” because everyone needs food in order to live. The cost of a loaf of bread on a “food plan” would be whatever the grocery store charges, plus the cost to settle the claim. As the expense is routine and necessary, it would *not* be an insurable event, as you have pointed out, because it is neither rare, random, nor unforeseeable.
>You can call it a contract or a pre-paid service, but you can’t call it insurance.
*EXACTLY*
Not that there is anything inherently wrong with a prepaid service. Many auto leases include routine service (oil change, etc.) in the cost of the lease. Everyone benefits by this scheme. The lessee has costs controlled; the owner has some assurance of taking possession of a well maintained vehicle at lease termination.
The main problem, as I see it, with “Obamacare idiocy,” and “health” insurance in general, is a) lack of accountability and b) lack of transparency. This leads ,as you have pointed out, to the misuse of “insurance” (really just third party payment) for routine and necessary expenses.
As many people know, this nonsense got started during the Second World War,. due to wage and price controls. Henry Kaiser, smart businessman that he was, figured out that he could attract good workers to his shipyards and other enterprises by offering fringe benefits, specifically medical benefits, which were not subject to wage and price controls.
Kaiser shipyards, Kaiser steel and Kaiser motors are long gone. Kaiser aluminum still exists. But today most people would associate the name Kaiser with hospitals. Interesting.
My point, if there is one, is that most people employed today by “corporate America” expect their employer to “take care of them” by paying their medical expenses. Those of us who are self employed, or who run a small business, are acutely aware there is no Santa Claus.
If you are paying your own bills, you are damned sure going to challenge people on clearly unreasonable charges. However, if someone else is picking up the tab, why should you care?
Well said, turtle. While the wage controls of that period were indeed the start of the illogical linkage of medical insurance and employment (why shouldn’t an employer also pay for my homeowner’s insurance – or my drone insurance?), what kicked off government involvement in medical care generally were the Flexner Reforms of 1910:
“[Abraham] Flexner and leaders at the Carnegie Foundation were impressed with recent scientific and technological advances and wished to promote a philosophy of ‘scientific management’ of human and social affairs, a philosophy that characterizes the progressive era.”
Sounds eerily similar to the “Trust the science” of today, no? Flexner mania forced many medical schools to close because they were deemed substandard, leading to shortages of physicians. This is only a good thing if one believes that having no doctor is preferable to having a doctor who was trained in a school not approved by the government. And of course restricting the supply caused prices to rise far beyond what they would have been, especially after third-party payment became a thing.
https://thenewamerican.com/meddling-in-medicine-100-years-of-federal-healthcare-control/
Thanks, Roland.
I had not heard of Flexner.
Sounds to me like a “do-gooder” gone wrong.
The German word for this is:
Verschlimmbesserung
which means “worsening by improvement”
>restricting the supply caused prices to rise
Ya think?
When people howl at my suggestion that doctoring be deregulated, I like to ask them: If government regulations were abolished, and I hung a sign by my driveway that said “Heart Surgery – $500,” how many patients do you think I’d have the first week? The first year?
Hi Roland,
Licensing is always and everywhere a scam, masquerading as “consumer protection”. Calls for licensing originate in the industries to be regulated, not for the benefit of the consumer, but for the benefit of the established players in that industry. The purpose is to create barriers to entry which favor established and larger firms. Licensing laws stifle innovation and drive up prices, they do not guarantee quality or accountability. They also create misaligned incentives, the industries “capture” the regulators and write, or heavily influence, the regulations that purport to protect the consumer; the interests of industry and regulators align, for mutual benefit, at the expense of the consumer.
It is true that consumers need good information, and institutions that discourage malfeasance and foster honesty and quality. Such institutions, private accreditation companies, exist and should be the norm. In this private system of regulation, the interests of all parties (consumer, producer and accreditor) align. The only things of value that an accreditor can offer are honesty and expertise, to develop a reputation of accrediting any business, if the price is right, would destroy the only value they have to offer. Of course, fly by night operations will still pop up but, especially today, they will be quickly found out and fail. The producer has an incentive to engage a respected accreditation service, to do otherwise would damage their own credibility, and the consumer has an incentive to delegate the task of vouching for a producer by accepting the pronouncement of a credible accreditor. In this system of “regulation”, all interests align. In the current system of government licensing, the interests of the regulators and the producers align, at the expense of the consumer, and the consumer is disincentivized from practicing due diligence, falsely believing that a government license is a sufficient proxy for honesty and quality.
In your example, “Heart Surgery – $500”, you could either demonstrate to a credible accreditation service that you can provide that service, or you could eschew that. In the first case, you would have patients, in the second case you would not.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Yes, exactly, Jeremy. The point I try to make with my silly example is that absent the government’s illusion (and that’s all it is) of effective regulation, they would never let me cut on them without thoroughly checking me out, or finding a trusted certification firm to do it for them. Until I demonstrated that I had the necessary skills, knowledge, equipment, helpers, etc., I would have zero takers. Problem solved.
Hi Roland,
“Until I demonstrated (either directly or through a credible certification form) that I had the necessary skills, knowledge, equipment, helpers, etc., I would have zero takers. Problem solved”.
Yes, so simple, so elegant; a system of voluntary cooperation that aligns interests, to the benefit of all parties involved. Of course, such thinking must be quashed. After all, it may cause some to wonder why we need a parasitic class at all.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Government exploits human laziness. The idea of government regulation is so people can be lazy and not be bothered to understand who they are hiring.
Your example is one of an easy way to tell how to avoid but others will be more difficult to detect and avoid. Modern technology of course allows us to make that much easier of course. Instead of licensing for doctors there could be a simple database to look up any doctor’s history.
Amen, Roland!
Imagine using your car insurance to pay for an oil change. Imagine what your car insurance would cost then. Of course, then it would no longer be insurance… as you’ve noted!
Scam is probably the wrong word. Systemic racket is better, signifying the interconnection of insurers with lenders, bankers and other financials, who are either outright affiliated or cartel like operators who actually own the property being insured most of the time by the payment maker types derided so often on here. Insurance can and should be a voluntarily entered into contract. In my experience the bad vibes about insurance arise from it being a constant “requirement” (gov or lender mandate) of the system that destroys money, requires debt to live then charges a few types of vig (interest, insurance fees, etc.) for its cronies on top of it all as well.
I actually wouldn’t have a problem with a lender requiring me to carry homeowner’s insurance as a condition of getting a mortgage if banks were truly private businesses. It seems reasonable that they would want to be covered if the house burns to the ground and I am unable or unwilling to make the payments. If there were a free market in banking/lending, entrepreneurs might find other ways of handling this, and if they were successful others would follow.
Exactly, Roland. Anyone who lends money would be insane not to have their collateral insured. If someone’s borrowing money to buy something like a house or a car, it’s a pretty sure thing that if the collateral gets destroyed, they ain’t got the money to replace it nor pay you back.
I pay cash for all my vehicles, but I still carry comp and collision on the one that’s worth about $8-10K ’cause it seems like a good deal to pay c. $150 a year extra to insure that if it burns up or gets wrecked, I won’t have to eat it, regardless of whose fault it is.
I thought you knew who runs the insurance racket connected to the inflation/usury racket. You do realize that you’ve been and are now paying insurance premiums (maybe small per year but cumulative over time) on paid off assets to protect against losses tied to inflationary nominal values.
I once knew an architect who cancelled his homeowners insurance shortly after he paid off his 30 year mortgage. The next winter was a wet one, and the saturated ground under his house failed.
The house ended up at the bottom of the hill. As he had no insurance, he and his wife lost everything.
Roland has disclosed his conflict of interest, that being he’s a director of a small mutual insurance company. What’s yours? You can’t simply be this big of an insurance fanboy.
I earn my living in the construction industry. Be glad to build you anything you like, provided you have the money.
Not interested in donating my time and expertise to “help” you if you imprudently cancelled your insurance before becoming the victim of a natural disaster.
That you would even assume that I would do so speaks volumes.
Re conflict, you are correct in more ways than you might have thought. We’re what our state calls a “Chapter 380” mutual, and the regulations require directors to be policyholders. I’ve always thought it odd that the state forces us to have a conflict of interest right off the bat.
What about sound money? Who has an interest in not that? Then you’re borrowing their money at interest to buy “your” house which you must insure via their affiliates or cronies. If people owned things outright, the insurance industry would be much smaller.
I’m all for sound money. Know where I can find some? 😉
I suppose your last statement might be true, although my wife and I have owned our home for a long time (if you ignore that the county would evict us and sell it on the courthouse steps the minute we refused to help finance crappy schools for other people’s kids), but I still prefer to pay a little each year to make sure we won’t lose a lot if we have a fire or tornado.
>It is a vital part of a market economy. Without it, individuals would be reluctant to buy or build expensive things
Agree.
Insurance, as you have said, is a contract to share a risk, by pooling resources.
Another, more cynical, way of looking at it is that insurance is a game of chance.
The policy is the bet. The insurance company is the bookmaker.
AFAIK, insurance, of all types, are the only games of chance in which the bettor (the insured) bets against himself, and hopes to lose the bet.
You: I bet I will die this year.
Insurance Co: We bet you wont. These are our odds. How much will you wager?
Etc.
Of course, you prefer not to die, not to wreck your car, not to have your house burn down, etc.
Insurance is a form of gambling, as are commodities futures.
I am in favor of keeping all such forms of gambling legal, as they serve a vital purpose in our economy.
BTW, burning down your own house to collect on the insurance is considered a crime.
It is called arson. 🙂
Maybe some life insurance policies exclude suicide – I really do not know.
I have not heard of anyone intentionally wrecking his own car in order to collect on collision insurance, although I would not rule out the possibility such individuals *could* exist, death wish included. Hey, a twofer. Watch this, ya’ll. Hold my beer.
Yeah, our small company routinely employs “cause and origin” experts to investigate total-loss fires. We had one couple who had three such fires in a row. Nothing fishy was found, so it was assumed to be just rotten luck, and we paid the claims promptly. But there comes a point when you can no longer afford to insure people who have rotten luck repeatedly. Fortunately, in our state we can’t be forced to renew a policy, and we can charge whatever premium we want. Theirs went up a ton, but they stuck with us because with their history they couldn’t find a better deal anywhere else.
Long ago, I was working as a carpenter on a small commercial project.
Framing phase was nearly complete.
Motored down the freeway Monday AM, only to find both buildings burned to the ground. Fire investigator showed up, and promptly identified the source of the fire. He pointed out the spalled concrete where an accelerant had been applied, in the plywood sheathed elevator shaft. Clearly a case of arson.
The owner was asked if he had any enemies. His reply: “Not that
I know of.” My cynical guess is that a professional arsonist did this as a demonstration project. Application for employment, so to speak.
Find Guido, find his “arson contractor.”
Bob Murphy: “People sometimes say, ‘When you buy fire insurance, you’re betting that your house will burn down and the insurance company is betting it won’t.’ But this totally misconstrues the nature of insurance.”
https://mises.org/library/social-function-insurance
Terminology, my man.
Insurance bookies are legal (as they should be, IMO).
Therefore they are not “bookies,” who are “shady” characters.
*WRONG*
They are still making book, and we willingly pay their price, because it is in our interest to do so.
Your premise is flawed, as it is flawed for every libertarian minded person such as yourself. Where you all go wrong is assuming others are like you, or would be if the could be. We don’t have that here.
Non insurance has a cost. You have to pay uninsured motorist on your policy. If you don’t, you’re nuts.
We had optional insurance in the past. In Virginia, where I grew up, it was $400. Well more than a simple liability/no insurance policy. And…you’d still be liable. Should I be able to imprison you if you’ve ruined my property or hurt me? Used to happen back in the day. But today? WTF is it worth ‘garnishing wages’ of a nob that has none or is cash only?
We need to institute massive penalties for screwing up. That’s how it’s handled in other first world countries.
It’s way harder to get a license.
It’s way harder to get a car.
You do something stupid – it’s way easy to lose the privilege for life.
Put negative incentives to screwing up, and you’ll find people are more responsible.
My kids have wrecked cars, I’ve wrecked cars. And if they are minor, in the past, the offended party is usually happy with you picking up the tab for repairs.
But today? It’s an f-ing payday.
So fight the man. Let insurance lapse.
See what happens.
I can tell you what will happen…
That poor devil can’t afford it, and besides, you’re a rich white guy and probably deserved it.
It’s not his fault. It’s yours.
Hi Techie,
You write: “Non insurance has a cost. You have to pay uninsured motorist on your policy. If you don’t, you’re nuts.”
Well, insurance has only cost me, so far. The total sum is probably in the tens of thousands by now. I’d rather choose the hypothetical cost you mention. Since there is a good chance I would never have to pay them. It’s possible, of course – but unlike being forced to pay for insurance, not certain. As far as “you’re nuts”: That’s your opinion and you’re entitled to it. I have a different one. I think we’re both entitled to them – and more, to act as we wish, based on them.
You suggest “massive penalties” for screwing up. Why? Why not simply hold them accountable for the harms they cause and leave it at that? Is there justice in making them pay more? How?
As far as letting the insurance lapse: The whole point of my article is that the system depends on a one-way street of compliance by the people who are not the problem. At some point, these people will – I hope – have had enough and stop being taken for suckers.
Yep.
techie dude pretty well nails it in his first paragraph; a free or even mostly Libertarian society ONLY works in a moral and homogenous setting; aint gonna fly here as things are.
If I back into techie dudes car, Im gonna take care of it. End of discussion. Now, given the costs these days of fixing things, I will voluntarily participate in risk sharing to mitigate my costs with others, i.e. insurance. Gladly.
Where things get sticky is, as our host says, being forced to do so. The only thing we are ‘forced’ to carry is liability coverage, i.e. coverage for other people. Sorry, but i dont see a problem given how irresponsible a significant segment of our population is. The problem is that nothing happens to those that ignore their responsibility… unless youre a White male, but thats a different issue. When you have a bunch of thirdworlders in the country, you get a thirdworld country…. Its a tough question, but i dont have a problem with ‘debtors prison’ where the inmates work off their debt – minus the cost of upkeep – quite frankly.
Driving is a huge responsibility – a right I would argue for the competent, but a responsibility also. One must consider that responsibility and prepare for it; accidents happen. If I dont worry about wadding up my own stuff , fine – I accept the financial consequences. My call. But I dont trust the majority of the populace any more to be responsible, hence, mandatory liability insurance. Enforce it and do something about it when the need arises. And yes, massive penalties serve as a detriment to aberrant behaviour that effects others well being.
Insurance only COST me also for many – nearly 35- years. Although I understood the whys and wherefores of insurance and spreading risk, I harboured a bit of our hosts resentment and indignity occasionally…until some celphone talking twit in a toyota ran into my wife. My carrier paid out more to us than I have paid in , and Im 60 and started riding motorcycles at 14….
Sorry, but irresponsibility, criminal behaviour and just plain accidents are a prt of life in this imperfect world and our VERY imperfect society. Im all for you dropping your liability insurance IF you post bond/whatever and can prove financial responsibility in case you injure me or my property. BUT… as always, yes the people that arent the problem pay the costs of those that are – the issue is to shift that burden to the idiots and deadbeats which, by nature of their nature, is never gonna happen. Liability insurance helops soften the blow.
[oh, and as far as massive cost goes, if we’d take Bill Shakespeares advice vis a vis lawyers, much improvement would be realised…]
Hi Luke,
The danger that inheres in your argument is that the same can be argued – and mandated – for (among many other examples) gun owners and such a thing has in fact been proposed. A gun is potentially dangerous. It might be used recklessly or criminally. Ergo, the owner must indemnify. Taken to its absurd – but logical – conclusion – a strong man who can throw a punch must also “cover” against the possibility that he might beat someone up.
And we live in absurd times, don’t forget.
I’d rather take the (small) risk of incurring a loss (and being held accountable for any losses I incur) than accept the certainty of being made to suffer serial losses on account of other people’s worry that I might incur a loss.
Jesus , that black belt in karate is gonna cost ya, under those circumstances.
And don’t forget, males, as a group, are stronger than females, so yes, of course, we intact males should pay higher premiums. It is only “fair.”
You could, of course, get yourself fixed, in order to lower the premium on your state mandated “male aggression insurance.”
Got to keep those snowflakes “safe,” y’know.
Don’t forget the opportunity cost of being shystered out of your money that could’ve been invested or spent in a way that would benefit you more than some hypothetical protection. Every dollar forced out of your pocket is the theft of a portion of your finite life. If you desire to have fancy shit worth protecting then insure it yourself. It’s not anybody else’s responsibility to protect your consumer grade trash.
Amen, Anon –
An example will illustrate the point: When I was young and just beginning my career, I was not compelled to buy health insurance, something a healthy 22-year-old needs like an Eskimo needs ice cubes. So instead of having several hundred bucks deducted from my paycheck each month to be “covered,” I had several hundred bucks to put aside. Plus the money I didn’t spend on “coverage” for my $700 ’74 Super Beetle. This enabled me to save up for the down payment on my first house. Which is why I own a house now.
Today’s 22-year-old is “covered” – and broke. He lives at home, probably. And may never not live at home.
You would need a debtors prison to deal with non compliance.
we’ve been there.
Hi Techie,
In principle, I have no objection to debtors’ prison. People are sent to prison for theft. What is it, if not theft, to cause damage to another’s property and then refusing to make the damaged party whole?
So, what good does it do to put him in prison?
First, he causes you financial, if not physical, injury.
Next, the State, *not* you, decrees you must pay for his upkeep through taxation, which you, and others, never tire of telling us, you regard as theft.
Which means you, the law abiding citizen, get the shaft twice. First from the criminal, second from the State.
A rational person might conclude it is better to be a criminal, unless you can steal enough via dubious business practices to call yourself a “philanthropist,” and live a privileged life “above it all.”
But, perhaps that is just another symptom of a decadent and dying society, (which is what I think).
Eric,
So it’s ok to kidnap a thief by force at the point of a gun because he caused some property loss ?
Which is the greater crime….. theft or kidnapping by AGW at gunpoint?
No freedom and liberty if rules are broken ?
The same people that want everyone driving electric cars because it’s “good for the environment” oppose Bitcoin because it’s….wait for it….bad for the environment:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/elizabeth-warren-bashed-cryptocurrencies-environmental-impact-said-big-tech-firms-should-be-broken-up-and-called-for-a-wealth-tax-in-a-new-interview-here-are-the-8-best-quotes/ar-BB1gqVoy
Environmentalism is the hammer. You are the nail.
About 15 years ago I was hit by a gal who had no license, no insurance, and it wasn’t her car. She didn’t give the first rat’s ass. The state police gave her a ticket which I have no doubt was never paid.
It cost me my deductible plus the hassle of going to a body shop several times over. The door she hit hasn’t been right since.
State Farm called several years later saying they gave up trying to collect from her; my response was the only way they’d get their money back is to put the young trashy girl on hooker hill & make her turn tricks.
Hi Mike,
This is the nut of the problem. Responsible people are held accountable for harms they haven’t caused while the irresponsible are not held accountable for the harms they actually cause. We don’t pay for insurance – and get caught – and we are socked with gigantic fines we must pay because if we don’t, they’ll just increase them and eventually seize the money from us (or our car). But the person who hits us – and has no insurance and also no money and nothing of worth to seize – walks away, scot free.
Mein Fuhrer, I have a plan!
A person without the means to pay for the damage they actually cause should be made to work it off – a kind of indenture. It could be a month of picking up garbage by the side of the road. Or some other such thing. The culprit does the work – and the government pays the victim a sum equivalent to the value of the work performed.
I’m serious – in terms of the general principle.
Those who damage property/cause harm are morally obliged to cover the cost. If they have insurance coverage, great. If they can pay out of pocket, also great. If they have no insurance and no ability to pay, then they have an obligation to work until they have paid.
Simple, elegant – and moral.
I am sorry – did I see the word “government” in your post? 😉
No, government involved. Knowing them they would expect a portion of the cut. I believe something like this can be worked out by the individuals. The individual who caused the damage (if tangible) could work it off as the individual who suffered the damage saw fit (within legal bounds or mutually consented). After the debt has been cleared a PAID IN FULL could be produced releasing the damager from any further liability.
Of course, if the damage is intangible or irreplaceable (e.g. maiming or death) I don’t believe a cost value could be added or determined.
In terms of holding people responsible for their driving, here in a city with some of the worst known traffic in the country, I believe that anyone who causes an “accident” during rush hours on an interstate highway should be made to go in front of a LED billboard on the side of the highway and apologize to everyone for causing last week’s pile-up that added 1.5 hours of delay for commuters. Let everyone else let them know with gestures, etc. how happy they were with their driving last week. Maybe a little shame or threat of being shamed will wake some motorists up.
You would need a debtors prison to deal with non compliance.
we’ve been there.
Hi Eric,
“ The culprit does the work – and the government pays the victim a sum equivalent to the value of the work performed.”
I agree the culprit should be responsible for making restitution — but where would the government get the money to reimburse the victim? They could tax or print money — but it seems that would only perpetuate the “innocent” paying for the “guilty” — taxation through forced payments and redistribution; printing money through inflation which would raises prices for everyone.
How would you get around these problems?
The government *could* rent out (a.k.a. “pimp”) the prisoners to private industry.
I understand such a program worked quite well in the Third German Reich, at least until the regime collapsed. From what I have read, I.G. Farben did quite well, at least initially.
Agreed, Chris –
I should not have used “government” in that way. If government has a role, it is to arbitrate such disputes/protect property rights. The culprit owes; that fact having been established, he may pay in any way he is able to, whether via insurance or out of pocket or via a payment plan of some kind.
So long as he pays.
That’s the nut of it, I think.
And I think it’s why so many people support mandatory insurance; the “free rider” problem. But in doing so, they make themselves pay rather than the free rider. And that is the problem in need of fixing.
2.2 million peonites imprisoned in the US incarceration system, somebody driving around with no insurance, no license, no money, won’t be in the hoosegow all that long. Feed and house somebody for ninety days, confiscate their car, sell it at a police auction, you’re losing your ass. Your sorry worthless hide will be worth squat.
Sounds like Dr. Fauci might have his ass in a sling, so there is room for him in a padded cell.
I was driving along at 55 mph one day when the speed limit was 55, it was during winter, the road was dry, all of a sudden there was a patch of ice so slick it sent the car into self-driving mode, no matter how I would have had control, the veer took place instantly and had no time to react, I was in the ditch. Had I tried to avoid the uncontrolled direction, it might have been worse.
It was a Volvo, so it was a tank, didn’t get hurt, insurance paid for the damages to the vehicle, drove it again.
Circumstances beyond your control can happen.
Dumphish,
Gotta love those old Volvos. But that sounds to have been full coverage, and that is beyond what is mandated by the state.
And I hope the hammer falls hard on Fauci. It’s all coming to surface now. Will the MSM be able to silence it all is the question…
Work your fingers to the bone
What do you get?
Bony fingers – Hoyt Axton
The truth be told, I stuffed a few cans of full and empty beers in around the impact area, the ditch was snow-filled. I wasn’t drunk, it was a ride back home from a work site, had a few beers to take with me. I didn’t want the beers to be a part of the accident scene, although the sheriff would have decided what to do about it had he discovered the hidden cans of beer stuffed into the snow.
Wise move, weedhopper.
What the sheriff didn’t know didn’t hurt him.
To be brutally frank, I was skeered, thought I might be busted.
Auto insurance is a bargain, I’ve been paying through the nose for decades at a rate of 2500 USD per year. 20 years of 2500 dollar yearly premiums amounts to 50 thousand dollars, when you buy insurance, it had better pay out claims.
The insurance agency has to have some. Residuals.
You can see why there is insurance fraud. Insurance adjusters can inflate a claim price.
I’ve had an insurance adjuster seek my whereabouts to obtain an estimate on a project that I knew would never win the bid, it was a payout to the the person filing the claim.
Never heard a word about it ever again.
It’s a funny old ride.
**”, somebody driving around with no insurance, no license, no money, won’t be in the hoosegow all that long. “**
Oh yeah? I was watching this video a while back about this woman in a small town, caught driving her old beater back and forth a few miles to work with no insurance. I forget all the details, but the fines ended up multiplying, and she couldn’t pay them; car was impounded on a subsequent ‘offense’…had no way to get to work…more fines..court costs, license suspended, interest. Ended up in the hoosegow for TWO YEARS (and counting) on a work release, where she was let out during the day to work, and instead of the proceeds of labor going to pay the fines etc. most was going to pay her incarceration costs/ She had become a literal slave, despite having harmed no one- and there are thousands more like that- They are cash cows in small towns where the jails are rarely full. Just like Uncle never has room for murderers and rapists…but always manages to make space for those who refuse to be mulcted by the IRS..often for 45 years or more…..
Nunz,
Yep, that scenario is all-too-common in the indigent populations. It begins small and sometimes snowballs into you being a felon for simply trying to continue to live your life and go to work.
I have a scenario for you: True Story.
Four months ago a licensed (but not insured) driver hit my business’s fence, my business’s utility poll, and my business’s mailbox. The driver told the officers that he had insurance although no proof of insurance was given. When I contacted his insurance company no such individual existed in their system. Guess who got to eat the cost (yours truly). I actually did a background check on the individual thinking that some of the monies could be recouped in court. The guy had zero assets and was in debt up to his arse. Also, just recently out of the state pen for attempted murder (wish I was joking when I state that). I would have spent more money on lawyers to get crumbs at the end of the day. Fortunately, I came out only a few thousand less, I guarantee the electric company ended up at least $15-20K in the hole for the mess, which then is passed on to the rest of us in higher utility bills.
I don’t believe insurance should be a requirement, but one needs to take personal responsibility for the damage they cause. In this day and age that is rare. Most people walk away without batting a eye. I once hit a person’s mailbox when I was 28. I wasn’t paying attention and the road curved. I was on an old country road with no one around. Could I have left the half dangling mailbox there? Yes, but I also have to look in the mirror every morning and that wasn’t going to sit well with my conscience. I left a note with my name and phone number stating that I would return the next day with a new mailbox for them. I purchased a new post and mailbox of similar size and grabbed hubby who installed it for me. It cost me $49 and a thank you dinner for my helper, but I felt better because I didn’t leave somebody else holding the bag through no fault of their own.
The problem is the police, the courts, and the lawyers do not enforce personal responsibility. Even sadder the average person’s integrity is about zero. I have very little faith in humanity the older I get.
Sorry, RG, that sucks. Consider my commentary below. Also, some vacuous woman hit my GF’s Ranger (technically mine) a couple weeks ago, and now she just won’t answer the insurance company’s calls. The bitch also took advantage of my GF’s good nature, and she let her go without calling the AGWs. Which I can understand, but I think that her grifty story about having cancer and being on her way to get an MRI was likely just some BS, and the damage was significant.
These grifters are often so very successful, like any parasite, until of course, someone they shafted finds them…
Hi BaDnOn,
Sorry to hear about your truck. People seem to have no problem lying if it will get them out of a bind (that they themselves caused). I am not a religious person, but I do believe in karma. Everybody gets theirs, even if feels like an eternity of waiting.
That sucks, BaDnOn – my sympathies to you both. It’s unfortunate that so many people can’t be trusted to behave honorably; it’s the hair in the soup for everyone else.
>In this day and age that is rare
My sister tells me that is endemic in the young people she hires. They just *refuse* to take responsibility for their own actions, and believe there should be zero consequence for not doing so.
That is totally incomprehensible, as well as totally unacceptable, to those of us brought up in a different time. To me, it has become, not just a different time, but a different country altogether, and one, of whose inhabitants I have a low opinion, and, needless to say, do not like very much.
I hasten to add that there are still very many people, of all ages, who do *not* fit that description.
Just sad there are so many who do.
Hi turtle,
I agree there are good, honest people out there from every walk of life (it isn’t just generational), but where many of us grew up with consequences for the actions that we took, in this day and age, there seems to be no repercussions.
The court system is a joke. Everybody gets a slap on the wrist. I was caught once or twice telling a fib to my parents. The flyswatter on my backside both times made me realize maybe that wasn’t a good idea. Integrity, honesty, and character start at home. Unfortunately, it is becoming harder for parents to discipline their own children without a call from the school system or a potential visit from CPS. I remember my sister telling us once that when my nephew (around 9 years of age at the time) came home from school to my BIL and her stating that they could not spank him, because he would tell his teacher and they would be arrested. How does one fight that except pulling the child from the indoctrination. It is a mad, mad, mad, world.
Amen to everything you said, RG.
All we can do is live according to our own principles & consciences, and hope that karma will catch up to those who appear to have neither.
“because he would tell his teacher and they would be arrested”
LOL – some of us have also had the same exchange with our kids…and a quick observation that that would mean they go into the foster care system straightened them up pretty quickly!
Turtle, you are so right. It’s true everywhere these days….but it’s even worse in places like NYC (and has been so much longer)- which, apart from the tyranny, is why I hate places like that so much! Everyone’s just looking to get over on the next guy….evade responsibility, grub, rob, steal, cheat- it’s all about money…and anything they can do to keep what they have and get some of yours.
THAT above all else signals the end of society, because when it marks the end of civility and morality. And now, thanks to media and edumacation, which are now more centralized and more unified than ever before, the young are like this everywhere now! *And even not so young!)
(0:11 sec.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZwKXYjqCPY
>THAT above all else signals the end of society, because when it marks the end of civility and morality.
Exactly.
Sad, but true.
Hi RG,
Your story reminds me of one of my own – from a long time ago. It was the last time I (cue Roscoe P. Coltrane voice) scuffed a vehicle. My own – using someone else’s fence, which I took out when I downshifted on a wet road on bald tires in my ’78 Camaro. I was 21. Came back the next day and knocked on the door of the house by the wrecked fence and ‘fessed up. The guy was really nice and said so long as I repaired it to as it was, he was not worried about it. And so I did.
But – as others have already mentioned – I (and you and others here) were raised in a different America and taught to not leave others holding the wet paper bag full of kaka for what we did ….
Eric and RG,
There is this, certainly. Little accountability, and a reward of a frictionless life if one can dodge what accountability there might be.
On the other side of things, there is also a tendency towards a lack of forgiveness, vengeance and opportunism, meaning those with the courage to own their actions sometimes take all of the flack built up from those who don’t.
For examplke, I’ve heard numerous stories of those who return to a store to pay for something they mistakenly “stole”, end up with shoplifting charges or more, just because they decided to try and make right their actions.
Though I agree that people should be more honest and responsible, mandatory insurance only leads to more expensive insurance. It also leads to more irrisponsible people because “it’s insured” after all. If you have property you wish to protect then buy coverage for it. It’s that simple. If the insurance companies offered a good honest service it wouldn’t need to be mandated and enforced at gunpoint. Just look at new hampshire. No auto insurance mandate. No seatbelt or helmet laws. Lowest rates in the country. Somehow automotive anarchy hasn’t ensued.
You can’t bleed a stone.
Hi Anonymous,
I don’t believe any of us are requiring a mandating of insurance, I am sure not. I am advocating repercussions for those that do the crime, but not the time. Why is it my responsibility to cover someone else’s follies or mishaps? I have to pay for insurance, because someone “may” hit my property. How is that fair to me or any other individual? Why do I have to pay higher rates when they get off scot fee? A claim still have to be filed, which means my rates still go up for something that is not my fault. I am tired of bailing out other people. If it is my fault then I need to pay for it or fix it.
I don’t have health insurance (by choice). If I break my leg and an ambulance comes and picks me up and a doctor sees me I am personally responsible to pay the ambulance, hospital, and doctor that saw to my needs. I can negotiate, we can come to an agreement, and I may even have to setup a payment plan depending the amount owed, but it is not the rest of society that should be obligated to bail my ass out. They system (insurance) doesn’t work, because it takes advantage of the accountable and mandates them to cover for the unaccountable.
Hi Anon,
We agree!
I’m not opposed to insurance as such any more than I am opposed to electric cars, as such. In both cases, it’s the mandating I oppose – both in principle as well as for practical reasons. In principle, because it’s immoral to use force or its threat against people who’ve harmed no one because they might. And if that becomes the accepted basis for making people pay for harms they haven’t imposed, as it has, then it will be applied generally. As it has been. It is only a matter of time before we’re forced to buy life insurance and home insurance (on paid-off homes). Why not? It’s the same principle.
Then there is the practical objection – which is that when people must buy insurance it costs more because people tend to be more careless; after all, they are covered, right?
The ultimate cost of mandated insurance is the state kills you if you don’t comply. That threat is the only reason the state can even exist. Voluntary insurance has only monetary cost. And gives a lot of flexibility. Would give even more if the state regulation of insurance, largely on behalf of insurance maintaining its monopolies, were severely reduced or eliminated. There’s a lot about car insurance I simply don’t understand. Why is it I have to buy liability insurance on every single vehicle I drive. The car isn’t liable, I am. I understand that some vehicles are more susceptible to higher liability costs, like a full size pick up, bur so what? let the insurance company pick the highest risk vehicle I own, and bill me for liability for myself accordingly, not each of my vehicles.
Amen, John –
I’m forced to “cover” five vehicles – my truck and four motorcycles, none of which I can drive/ride at the same time. The bikes mostly sit and aren’t used at all for five months of the year (winter) yet I am dunned for the full year.
All of this, of course, is meant to keep us on the treadmill. To arrange it such that we have to work – until we are too old to work. At which point we are no longer of much use to the system.
Note in this regard that historically, membership in the aristocracy was defined by having leisure; by not having to work for someone else – who thereby owned you.
One solution I never see pondered is the idea of the post-accident loan company.
Why must we pay if we’ve never committed the crime (causing an accident)?
So, once you get your due process and are found guilty of causing the accident, why not your sentence be compensatory payment? THEN you are forced to pay, legally! Since you might not have the tens-of-thousands necessary, don’t worry, you’re in luck!
There will be predatory loan companies there to serve you! Now, they won’t be any more predatory than mandatory insurance, and in your lifetime, you’ll end up paying much less for your automotive misdeeds, barring your wrecking a Lamborghini or something.
The rest of us, who do not cause crashes?.. We don’t have to pay!
Innocent until proven guilty, get it?
Exactly, BadOnE!
Or simply reinstate involuntary servitude for liabilities…which would force people to consider their choices very soberly; drive very carefully; buy insurance; take a loan; or not drive….and the choice would be entirely our own, based on our own circumstances and tolerances for risk…and if and when we did actually cause any harm, the victim would still ultimately be made whol;e. This is how a free society would work- indeed, used to work…before Uncle effed it all up.
Sounds good, Nunz, especially applied to the schmuck who hit Raider Girl’s business, above. No one would much argue against making that SOB rebuild her fence and mailbox, or, perhaps, if he got electrocuted repairing the utility pole… Though he could probably just dig holes for the utility company for a while.
But will the AGWs go after him? Probably not. They probably consider him dangerous, and would rather pull over and dick with us for NOT hitting businesses.
Heh, yeah, Bad… The pigs only seem to care when there’s money to be pinched for their sire, or when there’s evidence, like drugs or cash….to get “lost”.
Nunzio
Really ?
Involuntary servitude in a free country ?
You aren’t a very good libertarian if you actually believe that !!!
Not really involuntary servitude. Closer to indentured service, where both parties agree to the terms. You owe me money you can’t pay. I’m entitled to the product of your work until it is. You essentially agreed to that arrangement when you got behind the wheel of your car.
Amen.
You are entitled to be made whole.
No John….He used the phrase ” involuntary servitude”.
No one is entitled to the fruit of anothers’ work.
We call that slavery.
No, Hank. If someone steals from you- whether intentionally by outright theft, or by negligence(causing an accident) etc. they have indebted themself to you by taking/destroying what is yours- a violation of YOUR right, until and if they remedy the situation by making you whole again.
If they do not voluntarily do what is required to make you whole, thjen to say that you do not have the right to force them to- ultimately by requiring that they perform labor which value can be exchanged for money to repay their debt to you,- is akin to saying then that they have the right to rob you.
Freedom and liberty is not just about us- it also applies to the other guy- and thus behooves us to practice responsibility if we desire freedom, otherwise we infringe on the freedom of others.
Really Hank? If someone destroys your property and or causes you physical harm/disability and does not have the wherewithal to recompense you, you think they should just be able to walk away and say “Too bad, so sad!”?
The other side of the liberty coin is personal responsibility/liability. You can’t have one without the other. If someone becomes your debtor, whether voluntarily, or as a consequence of their actions or negligence, etc. you essentially “own” a part of them until such debt is satisfied.
Here and now, such things are handled entirely financially, with the state perverting the relationship by giving certain classes artificial rights and privileges which exempt them from liability or even cause liability for the innocent (jails, which we all are mulcted to pay for, and schemes like requiring everyone to carry insurance).
Letting debtors off scot-free is an assault on liberty.
Hell, I’ve witnessed it. My late idiot sister spent a good part of her life scheming and scamming and stealing, and racking-up credit which she’d never repay, because having no assets, and with the state guaranteeing that she could never be forced into indentiture to pay for her misdeeds…and knowing she’d never face any jail time for low-level credit crimes, there is no reason for a morally bankrupt person not to do such things.
Amen, Nunz!
Your point re all debtors being indentured already is apt because it is so. If you owe, they own a part of you until you no longer owe. Why should say a credit card company or other lien holder have superior collection rights over you or I?
Eric,
So let me see if I understand you.
Property rights are the apex rights and all other rights are subordinate to to property rights.
Such rights such as freedom and liberty don’t apply if they infringe on property rights.
Hank,
There can be no freedom nor liberty apart from property rights, since we are physical creatures who occupy space and require sustenance and shelter and food, etc. to exist.
Without property rights, you have nothing to call your own, and conversely can just take what belongs to someone else.
Basically, everything in life comes down to property rights. There could be no freedom or liberty without property rights, because whether it’s your body, your children, your home, your food, your labor, your money. and your right to do with them as you see fit, without property rights, you have no greater claim to anything than anyone else…and anyone else would have claim over what is yours. -Communism. You get to exist only by decree of someone else who has power over you and your property, and who can divvy it up or dictate how and by whom it used at their own discretion.
This is why communists seek to abolish private property, and why slaves could not own property.
Hi Hank,
Property rights are foundational; without them, there are no rights worth discussing. I own me; you own you. I also own that which I earn or possess and if you steal or damage what I have earned or possess then you have taken a portion of me – and I am entitled to insist you return it. If you have a “right” to keep it – or to not compensate me for it – then you have literally stolen a piece of me. And no one has the right to do that.
Exactly, Eric!
When we indebt ourselves, whether voluntarily (as via a credit card or mortgage, etc.) we are voluntarily trading away some portion of our rights to the creditor, who now has a legitimate claim against those rights.
It is the same when we become liable to someone through our own negligence or other actions which infringe upon their rights by damaging their property or their ability to work, or causing them to incur expenses, such as medical bills- and if we fail to make them whole from the damage we have caused, it is no different than if we were to outright steal from them.
It is no different if I steal your car…or if I destroy it in an accident due to my own negligence or mistake. Either way, you have a legitimate claim over me for the value of one car. (Although, with actual intentional theft, there should be punitive damages- else there would be no deterent to crime, if the thief upon being caught merely had to repay what he stole).
Such was until more recently part of the common culture of Western civilization as it was founded upon Biblical law, and reiterated in English Common Law. Such is true equity. Now…pfffft! Such sense and sanity is being wholesale rejected, and it’s perversion and very antithesis is now called “equity”.
> with actual intentional theft, there should be punitive damages-
So, are you saying this should be strictly a civil proceeding?
I would be in favor of that.
Eliminate criminal penalties for theft, and institute punitive damages for depriving someone of his property.
Also provide that damages must be “worked off” via personal servitude, in case the loser in a civil proceeding lacks the means to pay money damages.
Discharge of obligation via “bankruptcy” would be prohibited.
JMO.
Here at my house we have a saying that we refer to quite often.
“You can’t loose at your own game” 😎
And this covers a lot of territory in modern life.
The average mouth-breather out there has been trained to believe that automobile crashes are an unmanageable risk (like the ‘rona) and that they are somehow safer if every other driver around them has “coverage.” This is wrong on many levels.
First, if you are a careful driver, you have the ability to avoid most crashes by anticipating what other drivers are doing around you, and by being predictable to others as you drive.
Second, just because there is an insurance company out there to indemnify the driver that caused the crash, it in no way means you will be safe. Insurance coverage does not lessen the physical impact of the crashing car. It just compensates you for your money damages. In fact, having insurance is likely a source of moral hazard which lessens the individual consequences of bad driving. If one is concerned that a crash could drain his bank account, he’s likely to drive more carefully.
Mandatory insurance coverage is virtually the same as the Corona hysteria. The mouth-breathers’ fear is whipped up by the bought-and-paid-for media whores (who sell ad space to Geico, Allstate, Progressive and other members of the insurance mafia cartel). They, in turn, demand that everybody around them must take efforts to minimize their perceived risk by paying for an insurance policy (no different from “I’m scared of the ‘rona so you need to wear YOUR mask and get YOUR vaccine”).
If one is concerned about the risk of getting injured or damaged by an uninsured driver, the problem is completely solved by purchasing a policy to cover damage caused by an uninsured driver. Such a policy is cheap. This is never discussed though because it does not maximize the income of the insurance mafia and does not support the goddamn trial lawyers who feed off the system.
Indeed, Mister!
As it happens, I have a (true) story. Yesterday, I was lead car at a red light, preparing to make a left turn – when the light changed – across the opposing two-lane road. The light changed and I began to roll – and thank god I always look as I do (as opposed to just looking at the green light) because a woman in a new BMW blew right through the red light. Had I not been looking – had I not anticipated the need to brake, now – I’d have been T-boned and it would have been a total loss (for Mazda, I was driving their CX-30).
I have pilot friends, including one military. They all affirm that there is almost no such thing as an “accident” – i.e., a random act of god. Almost all “accidents” are the result of human error – and human error can be largely avoided by prudence, skill and situational awareness.
Riding a motorcycle most certainly sharpens your situational awareness. It definitely makes you a better driver of a car.
It’s only called an accident to distinguish it from an on-purpose.
But I wasn’t trying to. Yeah but you weren’t trying NOT to either.
I’ve heard it said that the best insurance policy is a giant metal spike on the center of the steering column. Would certainly enhance situational awareness, if nothing else.
That only works for us straight guys though; queers tend to drive vehicles so equipped by kneeling backwards on the seat…can’t see where they’re going.
If you have enough cash in the bank you can avoid insurance. There’s still a “management fee” but it is usually much less than a regular policy.
https://www.caranddriver.com/car-insurance/a36421647/self-insurance-car/
States that Allow Self Insurance (From TFA):
Alaska
Georgia
Indiana
New Mexico
Pennsylvania
Connecticut
Hawaii
Maryland
North Dakota
Vermont
It might be useful to see if there’s a really high deductible option too. Some states will let you register your vehicle even if you’re not a full-time resident. Probably more trouble than it’s worth though.
Hi RK,
It’s better – slightly – but amounts to the same thing, based on the same evil premise; i.e., that you must “insure” against the chance you might cause harm. I say it is evil because it applies – or could – to almost any conceivable human action or even to human existence, itself. One obvious example is the current push to compel those who own guns to carry insurance – on the same basis as that used to force drivers to carry insurance. You might cause harm with your gun/car. Well, how about my fists? I might lose control of myself and punch “someone” in the face. Who will paaaaaaaaaaaaaay for the medical care needed?
Answer: The person who might – but didn’t – punch “someone” in the face.
It doesn’t seem to matter that I haven’t punched anyone in the face. Nor shot anyone. Nor caused any harm with my car, either.
I tire of being made to pay for these harms I have not caused.
Oh I understand your post isn’t really a complaint about cost, but for ethical and moral reasons. But there is an option. And if there’s a hard price necessary for self-insurance (such as $20K) it might be possible thanks to the Fed’s printing press to bring that level down to a price that everyone can afford, at least until the legislature gets wind of the “scam” and fixes the glitch.
Working in the loss prevention department must be horrible. Everywhere you look you find thieves, decay and destruction. Everyone is guilty of hastening the ruin of society, or at least affecting the bottom line. If only everyone would wear the proper PPE, not eat fatty foods (but HFCS is OK because of the revenue it generates) and always do their not-yet-required 30 minutes of exercise in front of the telescreen every morning (look at Peloton and Apple’s Fitness+ for a real taste of Orwellian dystopia come to life) the world would be perfect.
RK,
I believe you can add Arizona to that list. The minimum bank account is $20k or $25k, I think. That’s right, YOU TOO could be exempt from the extortion, if only you were only rich enough. And perhaps I would be, if I didn’t have to pay for insurance, even just through my 20s.
Dunno if it’s still the case (but think it is) NY can be on that list too- but ironically, NOT the freer state where I now live- KY. (Not that I’d do it anyway…rather pay the $300/yr than have to fight to keep my money if wrongly sued…or pay it and likely much more if I became actually liable).
Apparently the required deposit or surety bond in Arizona is now $40,000 … about average for the 32 states that permit it, according to this source:
https://www.autoinsuresavings.org/surety-bonds-auto-insurance/
Believe it or not, the lowest figure cited is $10,000 in rich, liberal Taxachusetts. Putting up a deposit or a surety bond (to avoid tying up cash) would almost surely cost less than insurance.
But in Taxachusetts, you’re required to carry health ‘insurance,’ Obamacare style. That law went into effect even before Obamacare. And you’re de facto required to join the Democrat party, or else keep quiet about your deviant, gun-hugging (another ‘permit’) political leanings.
Meanwhile in Utah, an extortionate $160,000 deposit makes the deposit option theoretically possible but practically useless. And that’s on top of the tithe …
>or else keep quiet about your deviant, gun-hugging (another ‘permit’) political leanings.
No doubt true in metropolitan Boston, and especially Cambridge and all the other “college towns,” of which there are many, throughout New England.
But, in the more rural areas, I suspect* you may encounter fewer tree huggers and more deer hunters, so to speak. New England was the cradle of the U.S .small arms industry, after all. Say their names…
*Correction. I *know* you will encounter such people, because I have, and you won’t have to drive to New Hampshire, Vermont, or Connecticut
to find them.
They also can’t take what isn’t in “The System”. Physical cash, buried pm’s, etc…. Lower your visible net worth whenever possible. A few 100k liquid is always a good idea imo….
No way to hide your home/land/vehicles….
Also, what happens when you legitimately are liable? Make a mistake and total someone’s car? Maybe you can pay the $10K. But what if there’s $100K in medical bills? (As Turtle describes, below, could easily be the case even when there is no injury!).
I want to be able to pay for any liabilities which I may legitimately incur…and preferably without having to sell everything I own…
Hi Nunz,
And you should be free to do so. Therein lies the rub! We’re not free to do so. We are ordered to pay for “coverage” – and the ordering has made it obnoxiously expensive for responsible people who present a very small risk of ever causing serious harm to anyone. I haven’t had a claim filed against me nor filed one yet I pay and pay and pay. And I pay probably two or three times as much as I ought to pay, based on the facts pertaining to my history of no claims filed.
I’d freely pay say $100 annually for a basic, liability-only policy that covered the hypothetical “other guy’s” losses, should I incur such. But I deeply resent being forced to pay 3-4 times that sum solely because the insurance mafia can compel me (and you) to pay, thus making us all pay much more than we otherwise would.
Also: I think all bets are off – or soon will be. Three years ago, I’d have agreed with you as regards risk-reward. But now? That $300 you waste on “coverage” could buy a lot of food. Or ammo. Or firewood… gnomesayin’?
Hey…that IS what I pay (for my Excursion, with comp & collision)- $300/yr! Had I mentioned it before…or are you good at this stuff? LOL!
I agree with ya, of course… Mandatory anything is bad…and of course results in higher costs and injustice. And it’s just morally wrong…as is also relieving those who do cause harm of their liabilities.
It’s like this Obozocare BS: First they decree that hospitals MUST treat anyone regardless of ability to pay…then they use that to declare that I am irresponsible if I don’t carry ‘health insurance’ because if I ‘get sick’ I will force others to foot my bill! (Oh really? Would I go to a hospital? Would I refuse to pay/be unable to pay/have no assets to attach if I did partake of their services and didn’t pay?)
Their sick, perverted Hegelian evils know no bounds!
Car insurance
Health insurance
Flood insurance
Homeowner’s insurance
Gun insurance
Trip insurance
Disability insurance…
What’s next, boxer insurance, in case you shart your shorts? And then these people wonder why they arfe always broke- paying perpetuity for harm they haven’t caused or tragedies they haven’t suffered….
Howzabout “stupid” insurance?
A.k.a. “Darwin Award” insurance.
You hit the “jackpot” if you manage to off yourself by being stupid, with special bonuses for being “creatively* stupid. 🙂
Double indemnity if the casualty occurs just after saying “Hold my beer and watch this”! (The double part is that the wife croaks too!)
Curios how you can buy life insurance, and at a certain point in time that policy is paid up. Not so with car or health insurance. The entire insurance industry is a big scam, and the State regulators are in on it. I was a licensed agent at one time, and my ethical standards caused be to quite, rather quickly.
Indeed, John!
And how about refunds? Many of us pay for years and never cost the company a cent. They’ve been able to take our money and make money using it. Principal plus investment income. We get “coverage.”
No, thanks. If I could say no, thanks!
I’ve argued for years that forced insurance has impoverished people as much as government (taxes). Health insurance now costs many people as much per month as a car payment on a fancy car – one you never ever pay off.
Once you have paid in premiums the total amount stated on your policy of maximum payout for liability, plus a nominal handling fee, say 5%, why do you owe them any more money? They’ve made their profit by investing your premium. Same for collision, etc. It may be true that you might never reach that target, but it isn’t even offered.
Nunz,
I think my liability insurance only covers $25k in bodily damages anyway, so I’d be $75k short. Maybe he can go to a hospital in Mexico, where the bill will only be $10k.
Heh…only accident I was ever in- 30 years ago (A Polack pulled out of a stop sign right in front of me..he thought it was a 4-way stop…duh!) luckily, I was perfectly conscious, so could refuse treatment. Only had a scratch from where my head broke the driver’s side window. Luckily, us Dagos have hard heads! The ONE time in my life I was driving a small vehicle- an S-10 pick-up -which folded faster than Superman on laundry day.
>No way to hide your home/land/vehicles….
You do *not* have to hide.
But, you *do* need to protect your assets.
If you have not done so, I strongly urge you to consult an attorney who specializes in asset protection. IANAL. However, it appears the key is to not own, but still have control of, your assets. There are various legal vehicles, one or more of which will no doubt be appropriate to your own situation. In my case, the primary legal construct established by my attorney is an inter vivos (“living”) trust, which owns everything of any value which once belonged to me.
A trust is a three party instrument: trustor(s), trustee(s), and beneficiary(ies). The trustor establishes the trust and assigns assets to it. The trustee controls the assets for the benefit of the beneficiary. The beneficiary enjoys the benefits stipulated by the terms of the trust. Guess what. One person may assume all three roles, without putting the trust assets at risk of lawsuit for acts committed by the beneficiary.
Once again, IANAL. I urge you to consult an attorney who specializes in asset protection, who can best advise you what is appropriate for your own situation.
Whoa, whoa, whoa! Sheesh…I live in a singlewide in an old cow pasture- LOL- I’ll just pay the $300/yr. insurance…that’s about as much protection as I’m likely to need (My 27+ acres isn’t worth much…but I don’t want to lose it, justly or unjustly).
Your choice. 🙂
OT but Fraudci’s new defense of “I am the science” sounds an awful lot like “I am Landru.”
So your saying he reads the articles on this site.
It would be great if he did and deigned to comment under an identifiable handle and Eric posted the dancing green guy with the tiny hat next to his comments. Or maybe the pic of diapered scared lady. I’m certain the AI is reading all of this stuff, though… it wouldn’t… nah…
‘The playing board is tilted; the deck is stacked. The dice are loaded.’ — EP
Meanwhile, the cheap multi-colored Parker Brothers Monopoly money, which Big Gov has adopted by fiat (har har), is itself fading and shredding in our hands.
Today’s CPI reading popped five (5) percent from 12 months ago. In the words of Big Gov itself:
‘The index for used cars and trucks continued to rise sharply, increasing 7.3 percent in May. This increase accounted for about one-third of the seasonally adjusted all items increase.’
https://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Yet, incredibly, John Law Powell carries on debasing the dollar to the reckless tune of $120 billion a month, as an anencephalic Klowngress spends trillions of worthless scrip (or its electronic facsimile) that don’t even exist yet.
Not a problem for Them. Older readers will remember when George H W Bush was astounded at bar code readers in a supermarket. Why would his royal personage ever venture into such a plebeian hall of commerce? His gourmet meals were fixed by the White House chef, or catered at state dinners.
Likewise did Louis XVI and his lovely wife, Marie Antoinette, live in cosseted unconcern … till one day they didn’t. 🙁
‘The index for used cars and trucks continued to rise sharply, increasing 7.3 percent in May. This increase accounted for about one-third of the seasonally adjusted all items increase.’
Our 2015 base model Nissan Versa with high miles (we have driven it everywhere) just INCREASED in value from February to May, according to the book guides, from about $3850 trade-in to around $4225 trade-in. I hold no illusions; it’s still depreciating–it’s just that the dollar is depreciating faster.
The other side of this coin: [I am NOT advocating for mandatory insurance- it is evil!)
Some welfare queen, crack-head, entitlement-tourist (“illegal”) etc. plows into you and has no insurance and no assets….you are SOL. They get off scot-free…maybe pay a small fine to their master, the state (not to the victim!) and go on their merry way…and you are SOL.
Obviously ‘mandatory insurance’ is not the answer- as we have that and it doesn’t remedy the above situation, but only punishes the innocent. Unfortunately, Uncle has created yet another situation in which he limits the liability of the guilty by out-lawing our ability to demand satisfaction of what is rightly owed us by those who have become liable to us.
Nunzio – I do wonder how its possible for Uncle to consistently fuck up everything he touches…..
Easy. They’re all sociopaths that care not one wit about your welfare unless it coincides with theirs.
If one is concerned about the risk of being damaged by somebody that has no assets and is uninsured, one is always free to obtain an insurance policy to cover uninsured drivers. This type of insurance policy is very cheap. Problem solved.
Having to foot the bill because those who may do you harm are not held accountable is as bad as/the same thing as mandatory insurance. “uninsured” coverage is NOT what most people think it is; You want to protect your property from those who are not held accountable, you need comp and collision…and that IS expensive.
Your comments are based on your perceived risk that those “may” do you harm. If you’re concerned about a perceived risk when engaging in an activity, it’s up to you to deal with it. Don’t drive, drive less, drive a big heavy beater, take public transport, walk, get more things delivered to your home, accept your perceived risk, get an insurance policy to cover that perceived risk, etc.
The difference between voluntary and mandatory is only everything. I work to earn a wage so I can pay for shelter, food etc. I’d rather not work, but I decide it’s worth it to survive. On the other hand, it’s mandatory for a slave to work, but they of course get their food, shelter and certain other needs “covered.” The end result may be the same under these circumstances, but they are very different because one is voluntary and the other isn’t.
I’m NOT advocating mandatory insurance- but rather the elimination of unjust laws which result in people being able to evade personal liability.
Much like robbery: If a robber is not held accountable for his actions [NOT potential actions] and robs you, but you are told that you are SOL because the robber has nothing to take, and Uncle has decreed that you can not attach his labor/life….and Uncle will not even give him a “time out” at the barred hotel…saying “You should get robbery insurance if you’re worried about being robbed” is not a remedy. A free society where strict liability can be exacted is. Letting robbers go scot-free only makes robbery become ubiquitous, and forces the potential victims (Who are exposed to greater risks if robbers are protected from the consequences of their actions) -i.e. the innocent to bear the cost which swhould be born by those who actually do the harm.
Limiting liabilty…AND mandatory insurance thus both have the same effects.
I might add that theft is far underrated. The law treats it as an inconvenience. How do most of us acquire property? By investing our time. So when a thief takes your property, they have stolen part of your life. A partial murder. Which is why certain thievery once warranted the death penalty. Horses and cows for example. Which at the time were means to acquire one’s livelihood. Like your car or your truck may be now.
Except in new jersistan, where its required by executive and legislative fiat so uninsured motorist insurance is a big factor in the high price of auto insurance here. And why wouldn’t it be, you can’t opt out of it if you get a policy so they can charge pretty much whatever they want.
My views have changed so much in the last 10 or so years since ive been here. Always tried to do stuff to the letter – but now realise that these rules are only for us – those who are in the middle, who bother to follow. Those above us dont follow (watch you’re dear leader and his buddies go around the UK spreading his wisdom today), while the rest of the plebs are required to quarantine at home for 14 days and have numerous tests. On the other hand – those below, who couldn’t be bothered are also not hassled, and get on with things as they come. At the end of the day – who is smarter….. well i dont know but im really re-assessing….
Another scam we’re forced to pay for is the National Flood Insurance Program. It started in 1968 when politicians promised to make flood insurance “affordable.” Now there are millions of structures that probably never would have been built if the owners had to pay actuarially-sound rates for flood coverage. There is no way to fix this without causing massive suffering. Leaving rates as they are guarantees more red ink. Raising them sufficiently to cover losses would mean many owners would not be able to pay – and would not be able to sell either once prospective buyers realized what flood coverage would cost. The latest “overhaul” tweaks rates so the poor pay a little less and the not-poor pay a little more. But it will continue to lose money, and we will pay, through taxes and inflation. Everything the government touches turns to crap.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/poor-homeowners-will-pay-less-after-flood-insurance-overhaul/
Roland, you’re right about flood insurance being a scam. One of the biggest parts of the scam however is the disproportionate rates as they are spread evenly across uneven risk areas.
My property is two hundred feet from a peaceful creek that at times has become a raging river. The valley where it sits hasn’t been flooded out in over a hundred years. Back in the early 90s there were a few houses that were damaged when the creek crested its banks. Most damage occurred from the amount of rain/wind causing giant trees to be uprooted falling on houses. Many people filed claims and got paid that weren’t flooded.
The biggest problem I have with this scam besides being mandatory is the houses in Fla, coastal Texas and the Carolinas pay about the same premiums as we do in the desert. In ten years our premiums for the most minimal policy went from 600 a year to over 1500. And that is a grandfathered rate. I’m told new policies cost orders of magnitude more. All to pay for hurricanes that repeatedly hit the same areas year after year.
Fema is just like any other .Gov slush fund propped up by fake money. We get what we deserve as a society, although I don’t remember signing up for this. A society force fed fake news, stuffed to the gills with fake food, Shot full of fake vaccines. What could possibly go wrong?
Hope everyone here is standing where they want to be when the music stops. The wailing and gnashing of teeth ought to be epic.
Did your premium jump up around 2012? That’s when the Biggert-Waters Act was passed in an attempt to get rates more in line with risk. There were horror stories of premiums rising tenfold or more. So then, “Because of concerns about rising premiums from constituents in multiple communities, Congress passed the Homeowner Flood Insurance Affordability Act of 2014, which rolled back some of the changes implemented under [Biggert-Waters].”
This would be hilarious to watch – like monkeys trying to screw a football – if you could ignore the financial misery they have caused and will continue to cause as they try to fix the unfixable.
2012 is when we started the policy. It went up a hundred or so bucks a year since. We sold the house last year and are left with the back four acres free and clear, we are in the process of building now and hope to do it without a note. They are insisting we build it off the ground which is fine. It will be more defensible against the needled zombies and have a nicer view. If the .Guv ever tries to tell me I need insurance for a free and clear house it will just be another line in the sand.
It will be hilarious to watch, I probably need more popcorn though.
I would agree that subsidized flood insurance has caused moral hazard and has incentivized the building of very expensive homes in flood-prone area. Such structures would otherwise not have been built. Evidence of this is the Florida coast which has very expensive new homes vs. say old northeast beach cottages (the Jersey shore comes to mind).
Keep in mind though, one is only “required” to have flood insurance by a mortgage lender. If you do not have a mortgage, you can go without flood insurance.
Indeed. The Seminoles did not live on the coast. Because hurricanes. They may have visited the coast but didn’t live there.
I hear that the Semicolons had some timeshares with the Cherokees…until someone drove the Cherokee away.
Mister,
The original Jersey shore houses were small cheap bungalows that if a major storm came through they could be easily rebuilt and relatively cheaply. Then after the “saftey” of flood insurance coupled by a number of years on no major storms you had larger, more expensive houses being built righr up against the Atlantic. Then hurricane sandy hit and the damage was catastrophic.
Ironically, they used to have colonies of little beach bungalows in the Rockaways and Coney Island in NY- many years ago. The lower working class could afford them. They survived the hurricans (even the big one of ’38) but they couldn’t survive government. The city condemned ’em all and tore ’em all down by the late 60’s…and most of the prime beachfront land they were sitting on is still empty till this very day.
Got to love that government “efficiency.”
Here where I live (Corona, CA), the City , many years ago, tore down the Carnegie library and sold the land to a developer to put up a fast food fried chicken joint, which somehow never got built.
The land sat vacant for many years, which was a sore spot for some people…
Sea level rise will lead to beachfront property disappearing. Who owns all the beach front property? Seems to me a few degrees increase will lower my winter heating costs while not really affecting my summer cooling costs. But no ocean at my altitude.
Sea level rise will lead to *old* beachfront property disappearing, and *new* beachfront property appearing, to take its place.
The Permian Basin was once underwater.
Humans did not cause that. There were no humans in those days.
There *were* marine organisms.
Next time you are in Albuquerque, take the tram to the top of Sandia Peak, just over 10,000 feet above sea level. The Sandias are a block faulted mountain range, with pink granite visible on the western slopes. You can hike La Luz Trail, and traverse a rockslide which is entirely pink granite.
But at the peak, you will find limestone which contains marine fossils such as ammonites, extinct marine creatures which lived at the bottom of the sea which covered this location many millions of years ago.
Humans did not cause the mountains to rise, the sea level to fall, nor the sea creatures to go extinct. Just sayin’…
Indeed, Roland –
And the common denominator is government coercion. This sort of thing can’t fester and metastasize the way you’ve (rightly) described in a free market, where prices are set according to free exchange according to the values of the parties to the exchange. You want to build on the shore, in an area where hurricanes are regular occurrences? That’s fine, you have every right. Want to be “covered” against a possible loss? That’s fine, too – and here’s what it will cost you. Now decide whether it’s worth it build on the shore….
Yep. If you can forget the picking of your pocket for a moment, it’s hilarious to watch the clowns in D.C. talk about reforming NFIP by charging rates that make sense actuarially. They were already yapping about this when I was elected to the board of a small farm mutual insurance company more than 20 years ago.
Setting sound rates is exactly what for-profit insurance companies do every day – and would have been doing all along in the flood market if the do-gooders hadn’t interfered.
When your agent quotes you an annual flood premium of $400,000 on your planned $450,000 house, the market is trying to tell you something: “It’s too risky to build here.”
“Just say NO”, reminded me of an article I just read ….
Forgotten moments from the history of vaccines; yes, history matters
https://blog.nomorefakenews.com/2021/06/09/forgotten-moments-from-the-history-of-vaccines-history-matters/
I read this as well, though I have long been aware that the currently quite visible fraud in vaccines isn’t new. Just another in the long line of reasons that the Medical Industrial Complex gets far more respect than it deserves. Every year in the US about 225,000 die from medical error. The third leading cause of death, which will NEVER appear on a death certificate. Doctors are pretty good carpenters, fixing broken bones, and fair plumbers, fixing circulatory problems, and passable electricians, fixing nerve problems, and piss poor chemists. Not through any particular fault of their own, other than their gullibility believing Pharma has answers. Every illness is a drug deficiency.
How to live like an illegal alien, that is the question.
Hmmm… You’re starting to describe how I live now. I drive an 11-year-old, beat-up car. I make almost no money (well, a couple hundred a week, tops) delivering groceries for Instacart. And I could drain my bank accounts very quickly. What do they have to take from me? Nothing, really.
Of course, I do like flying below the radar, so I try not to make waves or shove it in their faces.
A method also quite effective dealing with taxes. Called “judgement proof”. If you have nothing to take, they can’t take it from you.
I don’t know the source, and its been almost 50 years since I heard it.
“One who has nothing, and wants nothing, has every thing.”
A complaint I heard from a number of my early employers. If they pushed me too hard, or the wrong way, I would present them with their options. Cut it out, or I’m gone. I would hear things like “why don’t you get married, have some kids, and go in debt?” Meanwhile, one summer I lived in a tent, from early May until early October. In Missouri. They had a hard time abiding the fact they needed me more than I needed them.
I heard a good’un T’other day: “The less you need, the more you have”. I don’t need much. Time is the most valuable commodity- I need lots of that. “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of possessions” -Jesus.
The more you have, the more time- mentally and physically- you fritter away using it, caring for it, acquiring it, etc. The basic life is the most fulfilling. Covetousness and debt are literal slavery…and not fulfilling, but lead to emptiness.
Indeed, I’m saving money while living on SS as my sole source of income. And living quite well by my standards.
Yeah, I barely do a cumulative day’s work in the course of a week- I’m “below the poverty line”…LOL….it sure seems nice to me! I know a guy who’s worth a few mil…he envies me… That says it all.