What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

@old europe,

Please find who said this absurdity and quote him / her - I most certainly never did. If you're having such problems with elementary reading comprehension I rather doubt you're in any position to grasp actuarial calculations, though.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Cicerone - you can't go by what statements Old Europe, evidently undergoing an attack of collapsing mental acuity, imaginatively attributes to me. Refer to my own original statements - and note how carefully Old Europe avoids ever posting links to them <G>

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@georgeob1,

I think I addressed that proposal, George. If you insist on that as what you believe, then go ahead, and then it could be debated. My assessment of that however is that the two scales of authoritarian - democratic and socialist- capitalist do not operate independent of each other at all. I have explained it in different ways as to why I don't believe they are independent, but again, capitalism can only thrive in free market non-authoritarian environments, in my opinion. By contrast, socialism by definition requires a strong or very large central state to administer. I equate alot of correlation between size of state with authoritarianism of the state. I think our founders believed this as well.

But whether I disagree with your proposal to describe left vs right with two scales instead of one, if that is what you believe, go ahead and propose it and then you will have to defend it.

1 Reply

@High Seas,

High Seas wrote:

Please find who said this absurdity and quote him / her - I most certainly never said that.

Gladly.

My original question - which you quoted in your reply to that post - was:

old europe wrote:

But isn't that the very basic premise of any insurance company - trying to pay out less than what you're making in insurance premiums?

Here is your "absurd" (as you so aptly put it) answer to that question, from your initial post:

High Seas wrote:

The first part here, a question, can easily be shown to be answerable by "no"

In other words, if you are arguing that the basic premise of an insurance company is not trying to pay out less than what it is making in insurance premiums, you are asserting that an insurance company should pay out more money than it is taking in.

High Seas wrote:

If you have problems with elementary reading comprehension I rather doubt you're in any position to grasp actuarial calculations, though.

I don't think you're in any position to lecture other posters about elementary reading comprehension.

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@old europe,

oe, I'm with you! I believe my reading comprehension is above average too! LOL

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@old europe,

You have obviously understood nothing of the link I posted and neither of course has Cicerone.

Actuarial valuation models are intertemporal. INTERTEMPORAL, got that?

There's no such thing as a simple "addition" you have to calculate probabilities for EACH one of the multistate processes in the Markov chain.

This is as SIMPLE as it gets. Read the damn article I linked before coming back and making fools of yourselves yet again.

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@cicerone imposter,

YOU read AND understood the article I just linked?

If not WHAT reading comprehension are YOU referring to?

1 Reply

@High Seas,

I didn't bother reading the link you provided, because it defies logic to think that insurance companies exist to lose money.

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@cicerone imposter,

And that's NOT what I said, either, as I made it clear to that other dimwit here. If you and OE can't be bothered to read what I link, don't bother asking anyone who has the answers to your questions - instead talk to fools and fanatics, with whom we are overrun here. Goodbye, Cic, I have work to do and can't waste any more time explaining stuff you and OE seem wholly incapable of grasping.

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@old europe,

old europe wrote:

I'm afraid that doesn't explain your original assertion that an insurance company should pay out more money than it is taking in.

How in the world did you conclude that from anything that High Seas said or linked?

The original purpose of Social Security was to provide a small old age pension to supplement the financial resources of the elderly. It was intended to assess a very small cost to wage earners in return for an assured old age pension. Social Security anticipates payments of benefits, and the only thing that makes it substantially different from a 401K is that though the recipients contribute to both, the recipients don't own their social security benefits while 401K owners do.

The purpose of insurance is to eliminate or reduce unacceptable or unaffordable risk. The insurance company will not accept more risk than it expects to be able to afford, and the policy holder is relieved of disastrous consequences for certain kinds of losses. The hope of both the policyholder and the insurance company is that there will be no loss for which the insurance company is obligated to pay. The only way that the insurance company can offer the protection is offers is to judge the probable risk accurately enough that it will receive more in premiums than it pays out in losses over a period of time.

2 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

I think I addressed that proposal, George. If you insist on that as what you believe, then go ahead, and then it could be debated. My assessment of that however is that the two scales of authoritarian - democratic and socialist- capitalist do not operate independent of each other at all. I have explained it in different ways as to why I don't believe they are independent, but again, capitalism can only thrive in free market non-authoritarian environments, in my opinion. By contrast, socialism by definition requires a strong or very large central state to administer. I equate alot of correlation between size of state with authoritarianism of the state. I think our founders believed this as well.

But whether I disagree with your proposal to describe left vs right with two scales instead of one, if that is what you believe, go ahead and propose it and then you will have to defend it.

How do you account for (say) Denmark in your one dimensional scale ? Is that an exception to the rule?

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@georgeob1,

okie also misses the most important point; the American citizens still vote for our elective representatives. okie is part of the problem, because he votes! LOL

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@Foxfyre,

Foxfyre wrote:

old europe wrote:
I'm afraid that doesn't explain your original assertion that an insurance company should pay out more money than it is taking in.

How in the world did you conclude that from anything that High Seas said or linked?

Let me explain it again to you. My original question, which High Seas even quoted in her reply, was:

old europe wrote:

But isn't that the very basic premise of any insurance company - trying to pay out less than what you're making in insurance premiums?

Her answer to that question was "no" - or, in her words:

High Seas wrote:

The first part here, a question, can easily be shown to be answerable by "no"

In other words, if she is arguing that the basic premise of an insurance company is not trying to pay out less than what it is making in insurance premiums, she is asserting that an insurance company should pay out more money than it is taking in.

You're with me so far?

Foxfyre wrote:

The purpose of insurance is to eliminate or reduce unacceptable or unaffordable risk. The insurance company will not accept more risk than it expects to be able to afford, and the policy holder is relieved of disastrous consequences for certain kinds of losses. The hope of both the policyholder and the insurance company is that there will be no loss for which the insurance company is obligated to pay. The only way that the insurance company can offer the protection is offers is to judge the probable risk accurately enough that it will receive more in premiums than it pays out in losses over a period of time.

We are in agreement. This is exactly my point. Now, I'm assuming that this is the point High Seas was trying to make when she brought up the subject of modelling future risk (and, hence, cost to an insurance company) using Markov chains, but it's the opposite of what her original post suggested. I'm further assuming that her initial, contradictory answer was prompted by her propensity towards knee-jerk replies and belittling posters who don't share her political values.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

oe, I'm with you! I believe my reading comprehension is above average too! LOL

You might well laugh ci. If I was oe I would feel grossly insulted. Above what average? I don't consider you literate don't you know?

Just like the scientists, I should think pro UHCers would rather have you on the other side. I mean pro UHCers who have read CHAPTER XXXVII. WHAT REDBURN SAW IN LAUNCELOTT'S-HEY in Melville's Redburn. From which welfare reform may have partially sprung. Dickens can't touch that.

You only ever think about UHC in terms of what's in it for you. At least the anti-UHCers are honest about it.

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@georgeob1,

No, I would not consider Denmark an exception. I just would not consider Denmark anywhere near the left terminus of the scale, perhaps it would be to the left of center but probably not very far. It is socialistic in terms of many aspects to life there but not communistic, and there are freedoms and private companies that operate there, I think. Take Vestas, the wind turbine company that is doing business here in the United States. I think a country needs to go quite a bit futher to the left than Denmark to provide optimum conditions for larger and more authoritarian government.

I realize that my one scale is not entirely perfect, but if you want to break it down in two scales, I do not think the scales are at 90 degrees from each other, perhaps they are not perfectly parallel, but they would not be too far from parallel in my opinion. I think authoritarian would be more leftward, with democratic more toward the right. Also, when you say democratic, this would only apply to the functions in which the people have a say, or would have a say by more local jurisdictions, and this may be more restricted in Denmark, there are probably more aspects of life controlled by the central government there than they are here in this country. So I would also characterize the degree of democratization to be partly typified by what local government is allowed to decide vs the central government of that country. I hope that makes sense the way I am explaining it. In summary, a less democratic form of government would have more decision making done nationally as opposed to more local government decision making, by democratically elected officials making policy. So in that respect, I believe Denmark is probably less democratic than we are, and they are also more socialistic. However, we will not need to move a great deal more leftward to rival Denmark, and that is what I am opposed to.

To say another way, a democratically formed central government that makes most of the decisions, that would be less democratic in my view than a country that had more democratically controlled local governments making their decisions than a democratically formed central government. Local governments are closer to the people and thus more representative of the citizens living there.

1 Reply

@cicerone imposter,

Quote:

I didn't bother reading the link you provided, because it defies logic to think that insurance companies exist to lose money.

I don't suppose you would have batted an eyelid writing that about banks three years ago.

Insurance companies are not the pinnacle of the tree to which evolution has brought perfected mankind.

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@old europe,

There is one additional component, however, that must be considered.

Most, maybe all, insurance companies for years intentionally accepted more risk than was anticipated in collected premiums and this resulted in lowered cost of premiums charged to the policy holder. Why would they do this? Because it made them more competitive and generated more revenues while they made their profits lending and investing the premiums they collected. It worked beautifully for both the insurance companies and the policy holder until the market bubble burst.

This truth has to be included in a comprehensive debate.

2 Replies

@okie,

okie wrote:

No, I would not consider Denmark an exception. I just would not consider Denmark anywhere near the left terminus of the scale, perhaps it would be to the left of center but probably not very far. It is socialistic in terms of many aspects to life there but not communistic, and there are freedoms and private companies that operate there, I think.

Seems, YOU are now confused with some terms, again: the Danish government is a coalition government bythe Liberal Party (Venstre) and Conservative Peoples' Party (Det Konservative Folkeparti).

Now, 'Liberal' here doesn't mean the same as you use that term.
Besides that, the Danish Liberals are ... , well certainly right of the centre.
The Danish conservatives are more centre than right, certainly left of the Liberals.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

I'm sure that in a hypothetical, completely unregulated market you could come up with numerous examples of how an insurance company would be able to routinely pay out more money in order to fulfil its obligations towards policy holders than it would make from selling those policies and still be able to stay in business. In order to cut this debate (in which we are basically in agreement) short, I'll only point out that I prefaced my initial statement by saying that it was "the very basic premise" to receive more in premiums than to pay out in losses.

1 Reply

@Foxfyre,

Quote:

I'm afraid that doesn't explain your original assertion that an insurance company should pay out more money than it is taking in.

You can't explain that without explaining about the economic cycle and investments made by insurance companies. There are bound to be periods when insurance companies pay out more than they take in. A two hurricane year say. Don't they bundle the policies and sell them on like was done with mortgages. And trade in them. What is a health insurance company? It deals in income from securities and "overheads".

If ever bailing them out became necessary I do believe they would have a higher priority than the banks have had. Assuming the banks didn't empty the pot.

One might argue in favour of UHC by saying that if bailing out health insurance ever came to pass it would be to arrive at UHC in a disorderly manner and that it makes sense to organise properly as insurance against the possibility and which many say is a probability and a few nutters say is a certainty.

That is a political argument rather than the sort of plaintive yelpings one might hear when a kitten has got its head stuck in a baked beans can trying to lick the tomato sauce off the bottom by shoving up against a cupboard. Which I have witnessed although we did release the little love before it started yelping but not after it had backed all round the place a few times.

If the government is already holding up the edifice shouldn't it have the say-so on how that's done?

1 Reply

What produces RUTHLESS DICTATORS?

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