Friday, August 19, 2016

AMERICA'S RAW STORY

13th POST

ICELAND
EXEMPLARY NATION IN A TROUBLED WORLD

A small land situated between the North Atlantic and the Arctic Ocean, Iceland minds her own business and minds it very well. I was so impressed by what I saw and learned in a recent and first visit there with my family that I decided to write this short piece as a tribute to her people and their history and as a lesson that needs to be learned and practiced by the greatest troublemaking nation of all time during only 240 years of her existence, namely, America, a nation forever at odds with herself, constantly preparing for and engaging in war, and a nation that world opinion tells us is the greatest threat to peace in the world.

Iceland and America: Some Stark Differences

The two nations are mostly at the opposite ends of the important dimensions of life, Iceland at the positive end, America at the negative end.

In my book, America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying I coined the term “sadtistics” as a summary for America’s mostly negative standings on those dimensions.  For this article I am coining another term, “gladtistics,” as a summary of Iceland’s positive standings. What follows is a very brief side by side summary of the two nations’ standings.

Socioeconomics. Iceland stands very positively on income equality, employment, poverty level, and homelessness. America doesn’t.

Health and Health Care Services. Iceland has universal single payer health insurance. America doesn’t and, furthermore, has the most expensive health care system providing substandard health care. Icelanders live longer than Americans. Iceland’s infant mortality rate is much lower than America’s.  

Environmental. Iceland, thanks partly to its geothermal energy suppy is the least polluted of all nations. Not so, America. She caters to the fossil fuel industry and its captivated politicians.

Crime and Domestic Violence. America has the highest and Iceland among the lowest of nations in total crime rate per capita. America ranks high among nations in intentional homicides. Iceland ranks almost “dead” last. 

Law Enforcement. Iceland jails it scofflaw bankers. America bails them out. Iceland abolished capital punishment in 1928 but hasn’t executed anyone since 1830. America still uses capital punishment. Icelanders grieved after police shot and killed a suspect for the first time ever in 2014. It’s a common occurrence in America, where her police kill citizens over 70 times the rate of other first-world nations.

Military and Foreign Relations. Iceland has no standing army and her military budget is miniscule. America’s budget is larger than the next seven countries combined and has over one million uniformed personnel in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Air force. Other than the “cod wars” with the UK over fishing rights, Iceland has never been at real war in modern times. America was born in the womb of war and has been addicted to that habit ever since.

Happiness. This may just be the most important dimension of life. Who wants to be unhappy? Iceland is the second happiest nation in the world. Americans are much less happy.

Reasons Why

Those differences aren’t happenstance. There are reasons why they exist, and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know what they are.

In the Beginning. A good start, which Iceland had, is better than a bad start, which America had. Archeologists now think, contrary to the mythical Viking warrior landing on shore that Iceland was first inhabited between 770 and 880 AD as a temporary outpost from Scandinavia, Northern Europe or the British Isles, and used by the inhabitants to gather sea life resources. It was a peaceful beginning, in other words. America’s first inhabitants were peaceful Indians. They were soon slaughtered and their land confiscated by settlers from countries well accustomed to slaughtering and land grabbing.

The Place. People make the place, but it also makes the people. I’ll give you just three examples. Iceland is a small, un-crowded nation. America is large and crowded. Psychologists, like me, have shown that crowded rats in an experiment become aggressive and vicious. Secondly, malevolent leaders know how to keep a large crowd divided and conquered. Thirdly, America is a “sociopathic society” claims Charles Derber, a sociology professor at Boston College, not because of its people, he says, but because of America’s “values and rules of conduct.”  I would add that those rules and values were created by the corpocracy (see below) for its own benefit.

Form of Governing. Iceland is a democracy. America is a corpocracy, which I call the “Devil’s Marriage” between large corrupting corporations and corruptible politicians. I wrote a whole book explaining how her corpocracy is turning America into a “ruination.” Furthermore, the nature of American politics and her rigged elections have prevented the American people from electing presidents who aren't psychopathological (a condition confirmed by many experts on the subject).

Guns and Ammunition. Icelanders aren’t permitted to carry handguns. In America there are about as many guns as there are Americans thanks to the pressure from the gun and ammunition industries, their trade hawkers, the National Rifle Association and the captive US Supreme Court’s biased reading of the 2nd Amendment.

Accentuating the Positive, Eliminating the Negative

The nearly 324 million Americans aren’t all evil, just the 5000 some members of America’s power elite, made up of corporate, political, and military leaders, the unelected “shadow” government (e.g., the CIA), and their ideological advisors who preach America’s ”manifest destiny” as an excuse for ousting democratically elected leaders of other countries and for bombing countries that don’t yield.

The urgent question if we are to be good ancestors of the future is how to unite and mobilize millions upon millions of good Americans to establish a government for them, not for the power elite. Armed revolution is absolutely not the way to end malevolent regimes. They have the power to crush armed people. Moreover, the only good path to peace is peace itself.

In Closing

At the age of 81 I am doing what I can through my writings to urge America to change course before it’s too late.  After visiting Iceland, I ask Americans to follow her example. I wish Iceland continued well being and for America I wish all Americans well being in the future.

About the Author

Gary Brumback, PhD, is a retired organizational psychologist and elected Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. Since retirement he has studied and written about American history, current affairs and politics. His most popular books are The Devil’s Marriage: Break Up the Corocracy or Leave Democracy in thee Lurch; and America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying. He can be reached at democracypower@bellsouth.net. His blog post link is http://tinyurl.com/om7rxna.




Monday, August 1, 2016

AMERICA'S RAW STORY

12th Post
Spinning the Legacies of America’s Presidents

So far there have been 44 U.S. presidents, each with their own legacy. Two of these presidents were in office for only a month, so their legacies are short. Generally, the more malevolent a particular president was in office the more the legacy needs to be spun to flatter the subject and keep America’s powerless in the dark so as not to weaken the power elite of America’s corpocracy; namely, its corporate, political, and military leaders, along with the shadow government (e.g., the CIA director), and, in the inner circle, fanatical proponents of America’s manifest destiny to control the world’s resources.   

The 42 presidents all had in common two malevolent characteristics that needed the most spinning. One was their psychopathology, a condition of them all that has been substantiated by experts.1 The other is their unflinching willingness to authorize covert and overt wars that all told and so far have claimed and are continuing to claim countless millions of lives of civilians and those killed in combat.2 Currently, we are told that “the US is dropping bombs quicker than it can make them.”3 Before continuing reflect for a moment on what that quote really means. It means it’s just another sickening reminder of how heinous America’s power elite are in their endless effort to control the world’s resources.

The purpose of this article is threefold: to shed the slime light on the whitewashing by America’s corpocracy of five of our nation’s truly despicable yet revered presidents; to show how legacy spinning is but a microcosm of the power elites’ broader agenda; and to point out the overall implications of that agenda.

The Real Legacy of President George Washington

As the nation’s first president George Washington also became the nation’s first “warrior-in-chief.” He advocated a “regular and standing” army to “awe the Indians, protect our Trade, prevent the encroachment of our Neighbours of Canada and the Florida's---[and] establishing arsenals of all kinds of military stores.”4 He relied on that army in the Northwest Indian War that resulted in several thousand casualties and also in quelling the so-called “whiskey rebellion.”5 Why should any different behavior have been expected from a man who was an experienced warrior on numerous occasions even before the American Revolution?6

The Real Legacy of President Abraham Lincoln

“Honest Abe?” As a young man, legend says it’s so. As president, real legend says “absolutely not!” Ordinarily I don’t quote whole paragraphs from other sources, but I am making an exception here: “A president of the United States would never operate outside the law, ignore the U.S. Constitution and the courts, shut down the presses, imprison his domestic adversaries or turn his guns on his own people. Well, Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president did of all of that and, curiously, has been turned into a national hero for his troubles. Lincoln ignored his closest advisors and the temper of the times to engage in the bloodiest war in American history, a war that could easily have been avoided.” Thomas DiLorenzo, economics professor, historian, and prolific author, wrote that passage in his book about “The Real Lincoln.”7 One of his other books highlights the “dishonest Abe.”8 I have also written in two of my books about Lincoln and the Civil War, but I don’t have Professor DiLorenzo’s credentials.9 In doing the research to write the newer of those two books I read twice over Howard Zin’s enlightening book on American history, and learned that Lincoln was actually a racist.10 Perhaps more than any other president, Lincoln’s legacy is the most spun.

The Real Legacy of President Thomas Jefferson

“The Monster of Monticello” is a most unflattering, nonfictional account of our third president as being “a creepy, brutal hypocrite.”11 He bought, kept, cruelly punished and sold his slaves (at least 85 slaves to pay for wine, art and other luxury goods) and “advocated harsh, almost barbaric, punishments for slaves and free blacks.”12 Even his own mistress remained a slave. He also excelled as a warrior-in-chief, presiding over battles with the Native Americans, the Barbary War, and in military battles against Spain

The Real Legacy of President Harry Truman

Not much more truth needs to be revealed about the first inhuman being in the world to order the unnecessary dropping of atomic bombs on two populous cities, killing and maiming millions. Here is one survivor’s account of what happened to some of her schoolmates not so lucky as her: “Some fell to the ground and their stomachs already expanded full, burst and organs fell out. Others had skin falling off them and others still were carrying limbs. And one in particular was carrying their eyeballs in their hand.”13 The bombs didn’t need to be dropped.14 Japan was prepared to surrender, but not on Truman’s unreasonable conditions. Six of America’s seven five star WWII admirals and generals said the atomic bombs were either militarily unnecessary or morally reprehensible or both.15 Unfortunately, they did not override their president. He fiendishly dropped the bombs to scare the Soviet Union which, as everyone ought to know, escalated into the military budget busting, nation wide scare (e.g. the mania for bomb shelters) and saber rattling Cold War. Not to be outdone by himself, he sent over 36,000 UA military to their graves during the Korean War.

The Real Legacy of President Dwight Eisenhower

Notable figures, including America’s presidents, begin to think about and start fashioning their legacies while they are still alive. In his farewell address to the Nation warning about its military/industrial complex, Ike masterfully implanted his legacy in the minds of the gullible and unthinking public. It is probably the most duplicitous, dishonest, disingenuous, hypocritical speech a national leader has ever made. Here, after all, was the very man who presided over that very complex. What else can we discredit him for as a warrior-in-chief? Ike rained havoc and death, with the goading of his sinister Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles, in Iran, Guatemala, Laos, and the Congo where, on Ike’s orders, the democratically elected governments of those sovereign countries were toppled by the CIA, countless lives were lost, and to this day bloodshed continues. And, along with Dulles, Ike introduced the world to the doctrine of massive retaliation, bringing America to the brink of nuclear war with China.16 To Ike’s credit, he was one of the generals objecting to the nuclear bombing.

There you have it. The spun legacies of five admired US presidents who were in reality five psychopathic, surrogate murderers (Einstein called war an act of murder). But not just five. The other 37 are simply replicas in their own time.

Beyond Spinning to National and International Control

Power can be thought of as the capacity to control natural resources such as people, oil, gold; and unnatural resources such as deadly weapons. Obviously, the power elite have the most of that capacity in America, if not also in the world. Less obvious, America’s presidents have constrained power. It is not constrained as it should be by the Constitution and the American people but by the rest of the power elite and not in a positive way.

It is deliberate not ironic that so much spinning is done on the presidents’ legacies when the rest of the power elite are probably as much to blame for America’s imperialistic and deadly behavior past and present. I made that perfectly clear in one of my books.17

But façade maintenance, or spinning, is hardly the only means for the power elite to maintain control over 325 million powerless Americans and to progress further toward the elite’s overall goal of controlling resources everywhere. The later form of control is the sine qua non of American imperialism, which has motivated her power elite ever since the birth of our nation.18

There are at least six ways in which the corpocracy’s power elite maintain control over America’s powerless and, through the sixth way to varying degrees of success over foreign nations where their rulers, ousted by U.S. conniving and military might, had opposed American hegemony. Let’s briefly review those ways. Note that only a few include the spinning of presidential legacies.

Dumbing Down, Entertaining and Deceiving the Powerless

Journalist Charles Pierce calls us an “idiot America” where stupidity or ignorance is glorified.19 The power elite can’t risk a smarter America so they dumb her down.20 They started this process by launching public education not to educate but to standardize human robots for the Industrial Revolution and later to help America get ready for WW1.21 The spin masters took a page from religion, the standard for filling young, formative minds with doctrines, leaving little room left for critical reasoning to question those doctrines, including learning how to discover and distinguish real knowledge from beliefs, myths and propaganda.

The entertainment and mass media branches of the corpocracy are a perfect source for dumbing down the powerless. Hollywood, for instance, has had a “reel” interest in Washington’s wars and foreign policy affairs ever since it made training and propaganda films for President Woodrow Wilson’s administration in support of WWI and has typically portrayed U.S. Presidents idealistically.22 Needless to say, mass media coupled with government mouthpieces are even more influential because of their propagandized treatment of America’s past and present and, because the powerless, being much less knowledgeable, are easily deceived.23

Keeping the Powerless Impoverished

Curiosity, or the need to know, as in the need to know the truth about America’s presidents, is one of the human needs at the top rung of the late psychologist Abraham Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs, a level the powerless rarely reach, and the powerful are determined to keep it that way.24 Struggling to reach or stay on top of the poverty level, a level that about 50 million Americans are below, the impoverished don’t have the time or even the energy to be curious about real history or even current events for that matter.25

Giving the Powerless Simulacrums, Holidays and Patriotic Props

Presidential images on money; presidential statues; presidential monuments; presidential  names for States, cities, streets, and airports; and presidential holidays are all comparable ways of ensuring that the powerless remember and honor their past presidents, not dishonor them. Over the years, for example, millions of visitors have visited and been in awe over the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and Mt. Rushmore.

Flag waving, flag day, National Anthem, Pledge of Allegiance, honor guards, are all props of the power elite to ensure a sufficient level of patriotic obedience. The operative word there is obedience. True patriotism means declaring “my country, do right and no wrong.” Obedient, or jingoistic patriotism, on the other hand means “my country right or wrong.”

Giving the Powerless Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning is a trick of the trade for psychologists who started it and for the power elite who have borrowed it. It involves continuously pairing something that is liked with something that is otherwise ignored or perhaps disliked so that the latter becomes liked also or at least tolerated. This trick comes in very handy for the power elite, making the spinning of legacies and the perpetuation of warriors-in-chiefs and their endless wars much easier. Think, for example, of the flyover of Air Force jets during a national holiday televised sporting event. 

Terrorizing and Spying on the Powerless

The few thousand power elite know only too well that their privileged status would end if the majority of Americans decided in unity to end that status. The power elite have most of the wealth, perks and might of the land and thus the most to lose in any confrontation with the determined will of the people. In its self defense, we might say, the power elite resort to all sorts of tactics to terrorize and spy on America’s law abiding citizens. The following are just some of the tactics in use: militarization of local police; arrests of peaceful protestors; monitoring of millions of Americans; warrantless searches; and detention without trial. We live in the land of the fearful and subjugated, not the ballyhooed “land of the free.”  

Waging Endless Covert and Overt Wars

America’s power elite were born in the womb of war and have been addicted to it ever since as the most expedient means to acquire more territory, to acquire more wealth, to change other nations’ regimes to more subservient ones, and simply to remain the most powerful, uncontested nation the world has ever known and will ever see. Dropping bombs quicker than can be made says it all about the power elites’ posture toward the rest of the world.   

Implications: The Tale of Ovid

America’s power elite remind me of the Greek poet’s tale about Erisychthon, a mythological character who, because he was so greedy, was cursed to eat everything in sight including him self after all else had been consumed.26 He symbolizes for me America’s power elite and raises the question, “when will they consume themselves and the rest of the world with them”?

There is, however, a far more pressing question, “what must be done to make America the land for the common good and a peaceful global neighbor and to stave off doomsday?” The literature, including my own works is replete with answers. None has worked so far. It is obviously imperative that the right answer be found before it’s too late.

Notes

1. Apparently the psychopathology of U.S. presidents is “normal” if we can believe the findings from a study that relied on some 100 historical experts’ analyses of data on all U.S. presidents. The researchers say they found this personality trait in every U.S. president. See, Howard, J. Psychopathic Personality Traits Linked With U.S. Presidential Success, Psychologists Suggest. The Huffington Post, September 13, 2012. And noted psychoanalyst Dr. Justin Frank seems to have found it also when analyzing the backgrounds and behavior of Bush and Obama. See, Frank, J. Bush on the Couch. Harper Perennial, 2005. Obama on the Couch. Free Press, 2012.
2. See, e.g., Brumback, GB. America’s Oldest Professions: Warring and Spying. Create Space Independent Publishing Platform, 2015, pp. 46-47.
3. Snyder, S.  The U.S. is Dropping Bombs Quicker Than It Can Make Them. PRITheWorld, April 10, 2016.
4. Wikipedia. George Washington. See also; George Washington, Sentiments on a Peace Establishment. May 2, 1783.
5. Wikipedia. Shay’s Rebellion.
6. Wikipedia. Military Career of George Washington.
7. DiLorenzo, T. The Real Lincoln: A New Look at Abraham Lincoln, His Agenda, and an Unnecessary War. Crown Forum, 2009.
8. DiLorenzo, T. Lincoln Unmasked: What You're Not Supposed to Know About Dishonest Abe. Crown Forum, 2009.
9.  Brumback, GB. The Devil’s Marriage: Break Up the Corpocracy or Leave Democracy in the Lurch. Author House, 2011, p. 38; see also, Brumback, 2015, p. 255.
10.  Zinn, H.  A People’s History of the United States. Harper Perrenial, 2005, p. 188.
11. Finkelman, P. The Monster of Monticello. New York Times, November 30, 2012.
12. Finkelman, P. ibid.
13. Todhunter, C. Power and the Nuclear Bomb: Conducting Foreign Policy with the Threat of Mass Murder. Global Research, July 21, 2016.
14. Alperwitz, G. We Didn’t Need to Drop the Bomb-and Even Our WWII Military Icons Knew It. Salon, May 11, 2016. See also; Stone, O. & Kuznik, P. The Untold History of the United States. Gallery Books, 2012.
15. Alperwitz, ibid.
16. Chuckman, J. Some Rarely Discussed Truths Shaping Contemporary American Democracy: The CIA and America’s Presidents. Counterpunch, March 13-15, 2015. See also; Davies, NJS. America’s Coup Machine: Destroying Democracy Since 1953. Alternet, April 8, 2014; and Blum, W. Killing Hope: U.S. Military Interventions Since WWII. Common Courage Press, 1995.
17. Brumback, op cit., 2015, pp. 73-90.
18. Brumback, op. cit., 2015, pp. 32-36.
19. Pierce, CP. Idiot America: How Stupidity Became a Virtue in the Land of the Free.  Doubleday, 2009.
20. Iserbyt, CT. The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. Conscience Press, Revised & Enlarged Edition, 2011.
21. Brumback, op. cit., 2015, p. 143.
22. Brumback, op. cit., 2015, pp. 158-160. See also; Morgan, I. Reel Presidents: Hollywood Depictions of U.S. Presidents. E-International Relations, October 24, 2013.
23. Brumback, op cit., 2015, pp. 151-156.
24. Maslow, A. Motivation and Personality. NY: Harper and Row Publishers, 1970. See also, Maslow, A. Toward a Psychology of Being. Hoboken, NJ: Wiley and Sons, 1999.
25. Clyne, M. Americans Living Below Poverty Level Line Hits Record Under Obama. Newsmax, July 29, 2016.
26. Zohar, D. & Marshall, I. Spiritual Capital: Wealth We Can Live By. Berrett-Koehler, 2004.



AMERICA'S RAW STORY

11th Post

Soaking the Public: The Insurance Industry and Captive Government


This is another occasional article in my crusade to put venal corporate America and its pawn, corrupted, captive government, in their well deserved slime light, one that can’t be missed by anyone who is observant and not fooled. Nevertheless, this article may shed some further slime light.

Industry Overview

The industry evolved from the public’s and various organizations’ and enterprises’ needs to be protected at a cost less than being unprotected from the risks that might occur from various mishaps such as those associated with property damage, death, automobile accidents, health care; etc. The earliest instances of transferring or distributing risk date back 5,000 years to Chinese and Babylonian traders. In the U.S. today the industry is a booming trillion dollar annual business comprising over 6,000 companies and employing over two and one-half million people.

There are nearly 30 different kinds of insurance offered by the industry. There are even “back-up” reinsurance companies to insure the up-front insurance companies. No company offers all of the different kinds of insurance. Most insurance companies specialize in only one or a few of the different kinds.

Overview of the Regulators

Because the insurance industry can affect the public in bad ways there are various State and Federal regulatory entities with the purported purpose of implementing and enforcing laws designed to protect the public from wrongdoing by the protectors. Initially, insurance companies were regulated solely by the States where the companies operated, but a US Supreme Court self-reversing decision in the early 19th century led to some Federal laws and implementing regulations such as in cases of price fixing. Not that it mattered though as we shall see.

Capture of the Regulators by the Regulated

There probably isn’t any industry operating intra and inter-state in America that has not “captured” their regulators, making them protectors of the regulated and leaving the public unprotected. That is simply the way America’s corpocracy operates; namely, Government America’s acquiescence to Corporate America. The insurance industry, of course is no exception. Regulators become the protectors of unscrupulous protectors, so to speak.

There are several ways in which the insurance industry has captured State and Federal regulators; by financing political campaigns; by lobbying; by ghost writing lax and loophole regulations; and by skirting accountability or by minimizing fines for malfeasance. These modalities, of course, are not peculiar to the insurance industry.

Greasing Politicians’ Palms Campaign donations are simply bribes in disguise since corporations expect returns from their donations. The insurance industry is a major donor, giving in the 2012 election cycle nearly $55 million to parties and candidates.

Lobbying and Ghost Writing. In 2015 the industry spent over $150 million to lobby politicians to favor the industry. This amount triples the financing contributions, which tells us that some candidates who won weren’t the most favored ones so lobbying becomes much more important and expensive. A lobbyist’s penultimate achievements I should think are being allowed to ghost write favorable regulations and to thwart the passage of unfavorable legislation and ensuing unfavorable implementing regulations.

Revolving Door   Public officials with responsibilities for governing the insurance industry leave government and join the industry or vice versa. The revolving door is a proven way to keep influence peddling by the industry moving along and the soaking of the public unabated.

Never Get In Jail and Wrist Slapping  Because government, rather than being public controlled, is corporate controlled, that very same government will bend over backwards to be ignorant of or lenient with corporate wrongdoing. The insurance industry, like the other industries, benefits from government’s cover. When was the last time you read about an insurance executive going to jail or an insurance company given more than a slap on the wrist for legal wrongdoing?

Three Examples of the Industry’s Malfeasance and Government Complicity

I have searched for examples of legal and/or unethical industry malfeasance and government complicity in three of the larger and more familiar sectors; namely, health insurance, auto insurance, and home owners’ insurance.

Health Care Insurance The primary interest of the largest health insurance companies, being publicly traded on Wall Street, is to satisfy it and shareholders of huge financial investment firms. America’s health is incidental. And, according to the activist group, Americans for Health Care Now, the business practices of these companies “have become the model for the nonprofit insurance companies with which they compete.”

The model is more of wrong than right doing. Insurers confuse policyholders about their benefits’ forms; unduly deny coverage; constantly raise deductibles while shrinking coverage; and give stratospheric compensation to their CEOs for benefitting shareholders, not policy holders who continually get soaked by the CEOs’ decisions; and establish mergers that drive up the cost of premiums. And as is the case with the entire industry, its sophisticated and computerized technology helps the industry stay a step ahead of the regulators. Maybe the insured should unite and demand that NASA take over the oversight role! Just kidding. 

The most egregious case of government collusion in this sector occurred when Obamacare was being drafted. Drafted by whom, you might ask? By revolving door people, of course. Here’s the low (and it’s very low on the ethics scale) down.

In this case the revolving door phenomenon created a health insurance system without a public option that has been a bonanza for health insurance companies while thoroughly soaking the public. As reporter Glen Greenwald explains, the main character in this nefarious plot was the chief health policy counsel in Congress who drafted Obamacare. She was previously a VP at the nation's largest health insurance provider; before that was on the staff of the same Senator’s office; and, after doing her drafting work, left for the pharmaceutical industry, a sleazy compatriot of the health insurance predators. Greenwald concluded that “it would be difficult to find someone who embodies the sleazy, anti-democratic, corporatist revolving door that greases Washington as shamelessly and purely as” that counsel. Glen, keep digging and you will surely find other equivalent cases.

If this true story were not enough “soak the public” nausea, the “gang of six” (i.e., the cabal within Congress that prevented single payer legislation), even proposed fining people who refused to buy health insurance. Now that’s trying to add a ton of salt to a very sore wound. 

Auto Insurance Auto insurers gripe about spending money to defend against purported false claims and sometimes losing or missing the claims altogether. Tit for tat, I say. You don’t hear auto insurers brag about really achieving any meaningful self reform, do you?  Here are some of their unreformed practices: coercing car repair shops to use cheap parts and sometimes dangerous practices (e.g., “headlights held together by glue, dented rims and a new hood that's already coming apart”); disputing in court and finally settling personal injury claims; overcharging policy holders; requiring, at least in some areas, unlimited personal injury protection and no-fault coverage; hem hawing in honoring claims; and short changing legitimate claims.

I will tell you an anecdote close to home, literally, since it involves a nearby neighbor of mine. Their vehicle, occupied by a family of four, two adults and their two teenage children, was sideswiped by another vehicle and went tumbling off the highway. The family was helicoptered to the nearest hospital with serious, but not fatal injuries. After a long period of medical care and spiraling medical bills the family recovered to a normal life again. Their insurance company, one of the industry’s largest and ranked by knowledgeable people as the worst, refused to pay all of the bills. The couple went to court but their lawyers bungled the case.

The most egregious collusion between this sector and government along with its laxity in enforcing the law is the government’s requirement that all auto drivers be insured. This mandate is obviously not only a bonanza but a life saver for auto insurers. The public not only gets soaked by this mandate but it also creates the so-called “moral hazard” among drivers, providing them with less of a disincentive to drive safely. The mandate is also prohibited by an article in the U.S. Constitution that forbids forcing individuals to enter into contracts against their will. When I told my neighbor about this illegal mandate her immediate response was that of comparing her experience with a totally uninsured experience, proving once again the “moral bind” “that you can’t live with insurance and you can’t live without it.” 

Home Owners’ Insurance   Fewer people own homes than own autos but enough do to make the home insurance industry a huge one.  Needless to say, owning a home is a major investment. Risks to it obviously need to be shielded by insurance. The insurers, though, according to some reporters seem more interested in soaking than shielding policy holders by using various tactics “to reduce, avoid, or stall claims in an effort to boost their own earnings;” “routinely refuse to pay market prices for homes and replacement contents; use computer programs to cut payouts; change policy coverage with no clear explanation; ignore or alter engineering reports; sometimes ask their adjusters to lie to customers; and to “overestimate their losses and vastly overprice premiums.”

In General Throughout the Industry

As I was searching the web for the three sectors I would occasionally run into relevant items. For instance, a few cases of insurers being fined were found in my search, but the fines seem paltry compared to the overall profits of the insurers. No jail sentences were found for any company executives, but four State Insurance Commissioners have been sent to prison since 1991. All told, though, government sanctions for the industry’s malfeasance are rare and immaterial.

As for the industry’s campaign financing of candidates for State Insurance Commissioners, three-fourths of those positions are appointive rather than elective. No aggregate data were found in a cursory search for the industry’s financing of gubernatorial candidates or for candidates for the few elective positions. And no data was found showing how much the insurance industry lobbies governors and State Insurance Commissioners.  

In Closing

No significant industry reforms seem to be in sight, so we can expect to keep being soaked by it.

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; and a former homeowners’ insurance company-“you are in good hands with them”- washed their hands of all Florida policy holders even though my home is in a locality that has escaped a major hurricane in over 75 years.


To summarize my own reactions to the insurance industry; it is a necessary evil.