384 Socialized Liability

[DBTrek]

That's how insurance works. If you want to operate a chemical factory, your premium into the insurance pool is going to be higher. If you run a greeting card shop in the mall, not so much.

Wait ... I thought this wasn't insurance.

And the way aggregate risk insurance works is the safe subsidize the risky. Car insurance fees can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within the same city. But government insurance is one-size-fits-all, meaning almost everyone gets to pay higher amounts because the highest risks are lumped into the pool with everyone else.

[Speaker to Animals]

That's how insurance works. If you want to operate a chemical factory, your premium into the insurance pool is going to be higher. If you run a greeting card shop in the mall, not so much.

Wait ... I thought this wasn't insurance.

And the way aggregate risk insurance works is the safe subsidize the risky. Car insurance fees can vary from neighborhood to neighborhood within the same city. But government insurance is one-size-fits-all, meaning almost everyone gets to pay higher amounts because the highest risks are lumped into the pool with everyone else.

Liability insurance that is socialized. That is basically what he described here.

Right now, lots of professions have to pay high costs for private liability insurance. He's saying just nationalize the whole fucking thing and deal with liability in a single framework that is independent of whether the person who causes the accident has money to take.

You tried to compare it to something like flood or fire insurance which is not liability insurance at all. Nobody is to blame if your house got washed away by a hurricane, and fuck people who build on the beach anyway. I would cancel their flood insurance this instant if I could.

[DBTrek]

Well, Fife already linked moral hazard, which is one variable working against it. The idea of the police taking on a whole new role as "public risk assessors" is straight up chilling. And all so we can collectively pay for the handful of folk injured by people without assets (minus the cost of the government bureaucracy administering this program, of course)?

Not liking it.

[brewster]

I can't understand it for you all; I certainly can't read it to you as a bedtime story, unless you invite me over. I can post simple introductory wiki links, but I'm not sure what else I can do, given my limited time and very limited amount of GAF.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crowding_out_(economics)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_hazard

Neither idea has obvious relevance to what I said, unless by moral hazard you're referring to corps being unafraid of prosecution for malfeasance, but enjoy your chuckle, busy man.

[DBTrek]

Someone has to subsidize the gang-bangers that get shot by other, non-asset holding, gang-bangers.

And if you haven't figured out who "someone" is yet . . . I've got bad news.

[brewster]

Someone has to subsidize the gang-bangers that get shot by other, non-asset holding, gang-bangers.

And if you haven't figured out who "someone" is yet . . . I've got bad news.

News flash: we already are, the urban hospitals are their MASH unit.

[Speaker to Animals]

Something like this would also provide a means to actually place the costs of negative externalities on companies (especially sites like coalfire plants who pay almost none of the costs of the damage to human health they inflict, currently).

[brewster]

Something like this would also provide a means to actually place the costs of negative externalities on companies (especially sites like coalfire plants who pay almost none of the costs of the damage to human health they inflict, currently).

This circles back to my post that fife mocked, we don't do a good job currently of protecting the public from corporate externalities. What would be different? This is a basic problem with libertarian ideas too. If you can buy enough lawyers and politicians you can do whatever you want.

[Fife]

Nobody mocked you, snowflake.

State your position, and we'll discuss it.

[brewster]

Nobody mocked you, snowflake. State your position, and we'll discuss it.

That's pretty funny. I didn't say you mocked me, just the post, with laughing gifs no less! Yet it was you that made no point. Mine was perfectly clear in what you quoted: "we don't do so well prosecuting big corporations, they have deeper pockets and can outgun any government legal team."