Asp, you have the analogy almost right. This is like your insurance company burning down your house, because while you didn't have fire insurance, you did have flood insurance, and its raining awfully hard.
Posted by Mucus (Member # 9735) on :
Both analogies are flawed since in both cases, the party in question has to act independently to burn down the house.
In the case of the first article, the creditors with insurance don't have to do anything to collect. In fact, they're being asked to act in order to avoid collecting.
So in the case of the first analogy, it would be more like "buy a house, buy insurance on it, sell the house to someone else, wait until it catches on fire, and then not help to put the fire out."
Posted by aspectre (Member # 2222) on :
The banks handing out bonuses didn't wait. They deliberately collapsed the bundled-mortgage prices by making a run against Bear-Stearns. And none of them would have made a profit without the insurance derived from the AIG bailout.
Posted by Kwea (Member # 2199) on :
Companies regularly take out life insurance policies on their employees, and increase the coverage when they find out an illness is terminal or serious. They name themselves the beneficiary and profit from it.
It's distasteful, but not even close to illegal.
Posted by Godric (Member # 4587) on :
quote:Originally posted by Kwea: Companies regularly take out life insurance policies on their employees, and increase the coverage when they find out an illness is terminal or serious. They name themselves the beneficiary and profit from it.
It's distasteful, but not even close to illegal.
Worse... Some of them claim this as a benefit to you!
![[Roll Eyes]](rolleyes.gif)