We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Thursday, July 14, 2016

Soaking the Public: The Insurance Industry and Captive Government

Click here to access article by Gary Brumback from Uncommon Thought Journal.
My motivation to write this article was heightened by my longstanding conceptual and experiential distaste for the industry. Conceptually, it is like a large casino that bets I am a low risk to it and will nevertheless extort me while I, on the contrary, am betting heavily and acting like I am a high risk to it. Experientially, I am a low risk policy holder (no claims ever), but I pay high risk premiums for auto and homeowners’ insurance policies. My premiums are always rising. My auto insurance company makes me share the costs of large claims (sometimes overloaded with law suits) from other policy holders....
The author focuses our attention on one major capitalist industry to provide us with details on how this one sector simultaneously exploits us and corrupts government. The only criticism I have of the article is that it should have provided links, such as to Glen Greenwald and the "article in the U.S. Constitution that forbids forcing individuals to enter into contracts against their will...."

 The insurance industry as a whole forces us to provide cash to capitalists so that they can at the Wall Street casino.
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