Privatize All that Risk

Ma Nature dealt the USA another blow when hurricane Harvey, first of all smacked into Texas and lingered there to flood out the city of Houston.  How fortunate, then, that the State of Texas had been considering some amendment to insurance claims legislation and just so happened to have a law going into effect on the coming first of September.  It didn't take long for people to see rising water and recall that legislation,  before the social media lit-up with warnings that people were about to get screwed.

In order to qualify for damage during the current situation the claim has to be filed in writing, by Friday, specifying exactly what damages were being claimed.  After that no claims for current damage were to be accepted.

National Flood Insurance    A government program that lets people build on a flood plain.

America has had some notable devastations in its history and it has grown up a healthy insurance industry to ameliorate the damage from those things.  Generally,  the insurance industry thrives, most often paying out far less than it takes in, adding investment value to its holdings and sharing some profit with investors. Everything usually goes just great,  unless there is a 'run on the corporation ' in terms of claims. The last significant hurricane, Katrina, did exactly that and the damage from that is far from being repaired - but the insurance industry survived.

The Dirty Dems will screw thinks up (hopefully)  It took three years to get legislation passed to assist the New Jersey clean-up - Republicans didn't go for the idea.

Some of the industry 'biggies' were almost 'taken under' by damage claims and the industry by and large reacted badly to its long-term customers. The Gulf oil spill added more claims the industry didn't want to pay. So where there's a tragedy - there is charity and the public purse - if insurance is involved there are higher rates, across the board,  to cover the "loss".

 When such things happen the insurance industry goes into 'self-protection' mode scouring the files for defaulted policy holders, examining claims in such a way that damages could be ascribed to non-covered causes, or by joining in the great calls for charity to help ordinary people rebuild.  It is far easier for insurance corporations to toss all the damage to the public purse and private charity.  In the meantime premiums for everybody take an up-tick (that will never actually go down again) . Texas if the focus for another 'fleecing of the suckers'. Let's see what happens with flood and hurricane damage  insurance.

That clean-up's gonna cost ya extra. There's a law requiring that inflated wage rates be applied to government funding in emergency situations. But apparently there may not be enough construction workers .


Not to be outdone,  valiant little EUkrainia, or at least the Ukrainian 'cowboys' of Texas,  are helping get some millionaires' dumps back into full service. Head's up Mr. Trump. We are still needing better weapons to kill the russians.  Please help us help you?

Oligarch helps Harvey clean up