On 18/07/2009, at 1:55 PM, Warren Ockrassa wrote:
On Jul 17, 2009, at 8:07 PM, dsummersmi...@comcast.net wrote:
There are arguements for the free market. My Congressman wants a free
market solution, and I respect him because he doesn't pretend facts
don't
exist.
But we have free market solutions. We've had them for decades. And
for many, those solutions don't work.
The idea of insurance is that a large number of people pool their
resources together to lighten the burden of loss for a few. (This
is, in essence, socialism.) Many of us will never need intervention
for catastrophic events; some will. By putting our strengths into a
pool, we're all able to float when we need to. (This is hardly a new
idea. It originated with none other than Benjamin Franklin.
It originated a long time before Benjy. Traders in the Mediterranean
used a form of insurance to indemnify the trader against loss if the
cargo was stolen, and mutualised risk was used by Chinese traders (who
would spread their cargos across many vessels to lower the total
risk). The Greeks and Romans had "benevolent societies" which are
similar to modern mutuals.
Franklin founded the first one in the States, arguably the first of
the modern mutuals. But he didn't invent shared or mutualised risk.
Charlie.
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