Dead peasant insurance

18 comments on “Dead peasant insurance ”

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1. Ianmac 1

   10 October 2009 at 3:48 pm

   Hey! Nick Smith could get hold of this and with the death of a few hundred workers he could balance the ACC Books and Paula could call it Welfare Protection. Problems solved!
2. Marty G 2

   10 October 2009 at 3:55 pm

   I love the title of the clip ‘are dead peasant life insurance policies fair?’

   it’s like ‘lynching: reasonable response?’
   • Ianmac 2.1

     10 October 2009 at 4:10 pm

     or ” is smacking kids reasonable form of discipline?”
3. Westminster 3

   10 October 2009 at 4:32 pm

   Insurance is a service industry, I guess. But Jesus what a bunch of heartless vampires. Most of the people I have met associated with the insurance industry have been capricious, cold-hearted money grubbing arseholes. I’d like to think that, as an industry, it’s not really systematically evil. But then I meet all these vampires and wonder whether the industry has any redeeming features. BTW: where’s Adolf to defend this?
   • Zorr 3.1

     10 October 2009 at 5:23 pm

     You, sir, fail @ Godwins.
     • Westminster 3.1.1

       10 October 2009 at 7:08 pm

       Ummm….I meant Adolf Fiinkenstein or however he spells his handle. He’s arsehole extraordinaire from the pig pen known as No Minister, a lurker on Kiwiblog and unapologetic insurance salesman.
       • Zorr 3.1.1.1

         11 October 2009 at 11:53 am

         Ah, my apologies in that case.
4. nic 4

   10 October 2009 at 6:36 pm

   Is there actual any practical harms to workers to this practice? As far as I can see, it’s merely a tax loophole, and so the only people being harmed are the American taxpayers.
   • Bill 4.1

     10 October 2009 at 6:42 pm

     As long as all US workers are employed under the table, there’s no problem then….
   • Westminster 4.2

     10 October 2009 at 7:16 pm

     nic, I guess it’s harmless. Oh, and I’ve entered your details in a “dead pool”. I am betting on you dying a particularly horrible form of syphilis or being run over by a bus in the next three years. You die, I get real rich. You don’t die…pah, I enjoyed the bet. No real harm in it, ay? If you do kark it horribly, I’ll make sure your family know how well I did out of the dead pool. I am sure they’ll be thrilled by my success. I’ll find them clustered around a coffin crying and wailing for you…but I’ll cheer them up with tales of my new suit and car purchased on your untimely demise. My radiant smile and obvious smugness will no doubt be of great succour to them.
5. TightyRighty 5

   10 October 2009 at 6:37 pm

   remarkable that you used that quote from reagan. it pretty succinctly explains how labour made it back in to power in 2002 and 2005. thank god the second part didn’t come true, though we pretty much had a dictator 1999-2008.
   • BLiP 5.1

     10 October 2009 at 6:59 pm

     So your definition of “dictator” is a person who wins government via free elections every three years? You must be inventing a new language based on the use of antonyms, in which case you are a “genius”.
   • Armchair Critic 5.2

     10 October 2009 at 8:51 pm

     The second part sounds like National’s promised looting of the treasury (sorry, tax cuts) at the 2005 and 2008 elections. Which eventually got them voted in.
     The last year has seemed a lot more authoritarian to me than the preceding nine. I’m not loving the ban on pseudoephedrine, being told what to wear, the “kill the trees and set loose the dogs” policies, censoring the judiciary, mining conservation land and the de-democratisation of Auckland. Yes, good on National, they seem to be trying to fulfill both aspects of the second part of the quote in one term of government. Morons.
     antispam “todays” and would be better as “toadys” – no disrespect intended, toad.
6. Hilary 6

   10 October 2009 at 8:41 pm

   Another reason to go to Capitalism: A Love Story when it gets here next month.
7. Bill 7

   11 October 2009 at 9:23 am

   Somebody ought to try taking insurance out on their senator or whoever under the pretext they are employees by dint of the fact they are public servants and being paid from the public purse.
8. Bill 8

   11 October 2009 at 9:48 am

   If only a scheme could be hatched whereby victims of natural disasters were insured by a third party altruistic enough to donate a proportion of the policy payout back to the governments of surviving family members.

   That way the emergency aid and reconstruction is covered; ordinary people kept dis-empowered and the governments of other countries off the hook in terms of aid. Not enough policy cover? Tough! Wonder how the risk analysis on that would pan out long term?

   Or maybe governments could privately insure it’s own public servants and move all government offices to the lowest lying coastal areas… or the dodgiest…such as Wellington ?

   Now if only the insurance industry can be persuaded to dump it’s ‘acts of god’ caveats we, or they, or someone will be in the money. All good.
9. Ianmac 9

   11 October 2009 at 10:10 am

   When taking out life insurance the person insured has to make many binding declarations. If you insured people anonymously, how could those declarations be made to make the insurance valid?
10. Samuel Konkin 10

    11 October 2009 at 1:17 pm

    This is such a nonsense.

    It cannot possibly be an investment scheme – after all, if it were, then the insurance company would be losing money. It is clearly just that the companies are risk averse and seeking protection from the loss of important employees.

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