Comments on: BREAKING NEWS: John McCain makes a true statement

By: TONY T

TONY T — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 05:01:43 +0000

thats exactly what mccain wants; either obama joins, which will give mccain the upper hand, OR obama rejects, standing strong to his campaign, and having the whole country turn on him because they all think he doesnt care about the financial crisis. Its like mccain has checkmate on obama. so either way mccain will come out looking like an angel. i hope the people of this country are not that gullible!!!!!! McCain should have left obama out of it! and if obama wanted to help out then he would have. NOT COOL MR MCCAIN!!!!!!!!!

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Sun, 21 Sep 2008 05:12:53 +0000

I don’t know why it is so expensive to send out a helicopter or ambulence to rescue people who are in the middle of nowhere, but maybe competition could drive down the cost of that. Perhaps people who do risky things or live in high risk zones ought to pay for “emergency rescue insurance”. Heck, there are a lot less people needing to be rescued than there are people who don’t need to be rescued, and I’ll bet that by making rescue insurance cheap for everybody (but the cost of the insurance goes up significantly for people who do get rescued), there would be profits in such a business.

By: BrianR

BrianR — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 16:55:37 +0000

so, someone has to purchase a certain company’s insurance or they are shit out of luck when something happens … if one company is there w/ their helicopters and rescuers, they’ll have to check the status of your policy before they save you

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 00:19:26 +0000

Back again…. okay, so the insurance companies would definantly have a vested interest in natural disaster prediction (especially if the odds change due to climate change). They could take their profits and definantly invest in research in that department. I know an El Nino type event would clearly change the flood odds (based on rain patterns) and people living in drought regions may actually need to buy 1000 year flood insurance as a result. The key to success would be in predicting how the weather would change, and that would entail many different competing insurance companies all doing their research and making predictions.

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:55:23 +0000

Not everybody who purchase disaster insurance actually experience a disaster. I could sell you asteroid and lightning insurance and your odds of getting hit by an asteroid or struck by lightning are miniscule. In fact, I could sell that to a thousand people and make a huge profit. Maybe one does get hit by an asteroid and maybe 2 get struck by lightning, okay, but still the amount of money that the 1000 people paid me dwarfs the amount of money that I award to the 2 or 3 people who got injured. Hence, you would want to invest in my company because I’m making huge profits. The principles are the same for most insurance companies. Or even better yet, if you could invest in casinoes or open a casinoe you’d be hugely rich too based on just playing the odds.

By: BrianR

BrianR — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:40:31 +0000

Re your insurance comment … I don’t get it.

If the private sector is studying hazards how do they create wealth? What is the business model? Where do the earnings come from? How do they make a profit?

By: BrianR

BrianR — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:38:00 +0000

qf says: “Is it a lie when McCain points out that studying bear populations by using hair follical DNA testing in Montana is a wasteful USGS project?”

I don’t know if it’s a lie, but sounds awfully irrelevant and insignificant to what we are talking about.

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:27:03 +0000

Insurance companies are in the business of probabilities. They make the bet that you will get a flood if you live below sea level in New Orleans and so the cost of flood insurance is huge there. Consumer beware in that case, but in higher ground the flood insurance is affordible. The few that can afford flood insurance living below sea level are repayed by the many that could afford flood insurance on higher grounds. Nobody should be allowed to build their home in a flood plain though, but apparently there is a market for that, so hey.

By: quantum_flux

quantum_flux — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:20:16 +0000

Is it a lie when McCain points out that studying bear populations by using hair follical DNA testing in Montana is a wasteful USGS project?

By: BrianR

BrianR — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 23:18:01 +0000

But, how would the private sector make money … they need to increase value to shareholders … how would they do that?