We’ve officially gotten way off track (due in large part to me), but you can’t self insure if you finance. Generally, one of the requirements for a mortgage is property insurance for the house itself – what is the point of having a secured obligation if the collateral is uninsured and can be destroyed.
It was about replacing items. Apology accepted.
You wrote:
“Oh, and the contents (purchased from the glittering shops along Rodeo Drive) are replaced, as well.”
I wrote:
“They must own nothing of consequence, like family photos and baby’s first shoes.”
When lost, they cannot be replaced from the glittering shops along Rodeo Drive. (If this point had to be explained, then you are reading far too carelessly.)
After the tenth reading I got what you were after. :smack:
No prob… I enjoy a sometimes heated exchange of opinion, as long as I’m learning something. That’s how this forum was “sold” to me - a place to express your opinion and arrive at new ones. So far, it has more than lived up to its billing.
As for the repetitive redundancy, I understood what you meant and read right through it, sorta kinda.
I came across pretty harsh there. I did not say people should not be responsible. I was trying to say that not all contingencies can be covered. There are workplace injuries, catastrophic illness, unexpected birthing problems, high cost of medication, all sorts of things that can go wrong, even if you do whatever you can to be prepared. Insurance companies will try to get out of paying. They will say something is not covered or is an “elective” if they can. I will try to come up with a better argument, but will have to do the necessary research and thought to give you a decent answer that goes beyond anecdotes and “gut feeling”.
Once again, you’re right - we have drifted and I was a willing accomplice. I also would have to say, upon re-consideration, that my suggesting self-insurance for anyone who would build “on a known, active earthquake fault” was a bit Draconian. Insurance companies are, after all, in the business of insuring.
I get the impression that folks like sleesteak would just as soon get rid of Chapter 7 entirely, is that correct? I wonder how much experience such folks have with those who seek protection under the Bankruptcy Code, the circumstance they are in, etc. Chapter 7 is not something most enter into lightly. Repeat filings of Chapter 13’s are were the abuse lies. It’s been my experience that in most cases, people who filed 13 would have been better off giving up the car and/or house and going into a 7. Existing law already prohibit sheltering assets in 7, now we have these means tests that throw folks into 13’s when there’s no reason for them to be there.
You’re to be commended for acknowledging the emotional nature of the topic. We’ve all been touched in some way by unforseen tragedy. But I think that it is important for people to understand that law, property constructed, will prohibit insurance companies (and anyone else) from breaching a contract, abrogating an agreement, or misrepresenting a policy. But if it goes beyond that, it will make the market artificial, and those who suffer least will be those who contribute most to the campaigns of the lawmakers. Meanwhile, I hope that anyone who experiences a genuine problem with claim denial, will find this page and the pages it links to helpful:
Now I see your point, and I may indeed have given up trying to figure it out too quickly. It’s earlier here, you know, and still rather murky.
Weak excuses aside, I was not minimizing legitimate loss, only emphasizing what I felt was the disproportionate spread between what is paid in premiums and actual replacement costs. As you may have read above, I’ve since modified my objection.
It is emotional. Maybe for me, the main reason was that I at one time had to file, thanks to a clerical screw-up (to put it diplomatically). Here I was, I had moved lock stock and barrel, and had a written “guarantee” that I would be reimbursed promptly. To borrow a phrase, they lied. So, I filed bankruptcy since there was no way to pay the fees, interest, set up house in anew city, etc etc etc. This was me, with a decent job and a decent income, and with no previous debts at all. So I tend to be more sympathetic to anyone in the same boat. However, my attitude changes if it is someone who spends like a maniac and uses bankruptcy to get over. That’s a whole 'nother story.
I did bookmark the link you gave us, just in case though 
Wrong.
Unbridled Capitalism is the reason for a true GOVERNMENT (not a puppet of lobbyists) to step in and “legislate” to protect the public from criminal corporations and scam artists such as the capitalist WorldCons. Are you blind, XT, unable to see the lines of bankruptcy applicants directly affected by the capitalist financial institutions that woo the people at 7% interest rate , and then turn around and stick them with 35% interest rate and $75 penalty for late payment? And if you haven’t yet read Ayn Rand’s “Capitalism – The Unknown Ideal”, then I suggest you first spend $8.09 here and read it, then take the book and your jack shit snobbish comments, and pack them firmly up your ass.
In response to your spouting-off bullshit, “a federal law, legislated by the government”, such as enforcing anti-trust laws, is necessary to protect the public against crimes such as usury by a bunch of loan sharks dressed-up as respectable banks and financial institutions, exploiting the poor and the sick under the name of “free market capitalism”. You said that you sleep better grinding the poor and the disabled into dirt before laying down. Go ahead, XT, make my day. By admitting that, you just proved that a “True Capitalist” is nothing but a selfish bastard – a follower of Randist philosophy.
FYI, a true Government has two basic instruments available to tame capitalism: the power to raise revenues for social purposes and the power to regulate. In civilized countries, these have served to temper, stabilize, and even energize capitalism. What you fail to realize XT, is that Laisser Faire capitalism, as you’d like to promote, is a fucking pipe dream. It has never worked, and it will never work. Alan Greenspan, a life-long proponent of Laisser Faire capitalism, has even admitted that this system is not possible. It and communism goes against human nature. Laisser Faire capitalism is incapable of regulating itself. Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, Arthur Anderson and the S&L bailout are recent and classic examples of how self-regulating capitalism has failed. The deregulation of the energy industry in California is another example of how self-regulating capitalism has failed. And now we have the corrupt capitalist Citi Bank, lobbying/using the corrupt US government to pass stupid laws that cause the people line up to declare bankruptcy. So, XT, WTF irony are you talking about? Your narrow-minded tunnel vision is exploding my tolerance meter of ignorance. No wonder this message board has been fighting against it since 1973.
Everyone knows that a true Government is one that does not put sugar on its porridge.
“Laissez faire does not mean: Let soulless mechanical forces operate. It means: Let each individual choose how he wants to cooperate in the social division of labor; let the consumers determine what the entrepreneurs should produce. Planning means: Let the government alone choose and enforce its rulings by the apparatus of coercion and compulsion… Laissez faire means: Let the common man choose and act; do not force him to yield to a dictator.”
Ludwig von Mises, Human Action, pp. 731-732
Yeah. And let each individual Hamburger Flipper (constituting a lot of US employment figures) know by themselves how to invest “their savings” in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, without needing Merrill Lynch to “help them” under privatization of Social Security – making sure they have “severance pay parachutes” upon promotion to retirement.
As Barbara Bush said to Louisiana people: Let them eat cake!!
I think we all may have been misunderstanding what “credit counseling” is. After watching a piece on the New Hour about this legislation, I think what it means is having a proffessional look at whether or not your debt can be restructured and if a payment schedule can be worked out with your creditors. I don’t think it means going to classes about how better to handle your finances.
Wakeup Call: Can you calm down for a minute or two and post something coherent on this subject? I can’t figure out what your point is. You seem to be suggesting that bankruptcy laws have either been eliminated (they haven’t) or newly created (that isn’t true either). The law has changed. Tell us specifically what is wrong about the new rules, and why the old ones are better. The lines that you are ranting about are just people who want to file under the old rules. This happens all the time when laws change. Are we to infer that change is bad? Any change?
Waitamininute.
I would have thought that bankruptcy law would be anathema to one holding your world view. After all, bankruptcy law allows a debtor to avoid paying the full amount of his obligations to his creditors. Isn’t that an “initiation of force” against the creditor?
I would have thought this new law, which makes bankruptcy filings more difficult, would have been right up your alley, since it makes it more difficult to use the law to avoid one’s contractual obligations.
I guess what I’m asking is this: in a libertarian society such as the one you espouse (absence of government in the traditional sense, replaced by freely-contracted-for services) is there an equivelant to bankruptcy? If so, how so?
In the interest of promoting a true free market, let’s STOP bailing out companies. Let’s tell them that they can sink or swim, just like consumers now will have to. No bailouts, bankruptcies or “reorganizational bankruptcies” for banks, lenders, airlines, or any other businesses. They can get the same deal as the little guys. Tit for tat.They can send their CEO’s to credit counsellling and then pay off their debts. Anything less would be just as wrong as giving Joe Average a way out. People tend to say (about others) well you chose to live someplace where “weather happens” so you should just suck it up. Or they say well you chose to blah blah blah and if it goes wrong just suck it up. Using the same argument, if a bank or credit card company extends credit or loans to people who can’t or won’t pay back, they can just suck it up and take the losses to. Nobody forced them to make the loan.
As for California, I was here for the rate hikes and “rolling blackouts”. It was bullshit. It was phony and it was a rip-off. We have a ballot up now (ballot 80) which some people call the “stop ENRON” ballot. It will bring back state regulation. I plan to vote for it, given the way we were all treated during the de-regulation era. Self regulation does not work.
One more time… These laws still allow bankruptcy. The rules are slightly different, but no one has to “sink or swim”. The biggest difference is that many people (those with higher incomes) will have to file Chapter 13 instead of Chapter 7.
Good point and I agree…still, I have to agree with SteveG1’s point: ‘In the interest of promoting a true free market, let’s STOP bailing out companies.’ Of course, the irony is that he probably thinks that its the free trader types who WANT the gubberment to bail out businesses and such.
-XT