how to eliminate damage from crime (and police)

[PattyLee loves dogs]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/guillory/guillory11.html

[Kat Kanning]

Wow!  That's really cool   I wonder how accurate his estimates are?

[PattyLee loves dogs]

I wonder how accurate his estimates are?

The compensation for rape seemed too low (of course, it was about $50,000 more than the current system pays). More property crimes would be reported if they were going to be compensated.

That said, the figures can't be that far off. The reason the police and courts cost so much is that they spend most of their time keeping the drug lords in business... it certainly isn't because they spend so much compensating us for losses 

[Kat Kanning]

Victims basically never get compensation in the current system.

[J’raxis 270145]

Since these figures would obviously vary depending on if you live in some rural middle-of-nowhere town, and say, Detroit, it would have helped if he actually specified what "specific location in the U.S." he was using.

[EJinCT]

How would having insurance eliminate the damage caused by "crime"? 

"Sorry; we were unable to stop your loved one from being murdered, but heres a million dollars...." 

Small consolation.


I would not trust a privatized policing force to protect me any more than the current method.

[J’raxis 270145]

How would having insurance eliminate the damage caused by "crime"? 

"Sorry; we were unable to stop your loved one from being murdered, but heres a million dollars...." 

Small consolation.

Nothing new about this—in fact it's an old idea which only went out of style with the introduction of Christianity into Europe.

[EJinCT]

Honestly I wish more effort was put into the prevention of crime and addressing the issues of why many crimes happen in the first place.

[mulp]

"To insure against the peril of murder, assuming each victim's estate would be given 1 million USD, it would cost about $8 a year per household."

So, basically, the way to get rich is to be black, live in a gang neighborhood with lots of violence, and have lots of kids, because in a few years, you will become a millionaire, and for less than $50.

If you say, "well, you need to also pay hundreds or thousands on providing community policing, education, job training and placement, good emergency medical care, etc.", then if you can afford that cost, then you can afford to move to the middle class suburbs with low crime rates.

Right?

The US spends more on healthcare per person than Canada, France, Germany, Britain, yet each year millions of US citizens are forced to endure complex paper work, rationing of care, long waiting times to get free sickcare, for conditions that are considered minor problems in those other nations that spend less on healthcare and are condemned for the rationing of care and long waiting times and the claim that because the care is free, they over use the medical system driving up costs.

I guess the reason that the US has so many sick people getting free sickcare is that when sickcare is free, people over use free sickcare, and the only way to prevent the people from over using free sickcare is to make sure they make use of healthcare.

Or eliminate free sickcare.  Yet I haven't heard a single Republican, conservative Republican, or conservative promise to make anyone who can't afford to pay for sickcare to just simple die on the street and lay there until someone picks them up as a public health hazard and incinerate the remains as medical waste.

[PattyLee loves dogs]

I would not trust a privatized policing force to protect me any more than the current method.

Please read the article. The idea is NOT a "privatized police force". The idea is that instead of being forced to pay a government monopoly to institutionalize various sorts of crime, you would purchase insurance from a private company. Their goal is to NOT pay you your claim, so they want very much to have you NOT be murdered. Thus they have the right incentives to provide the most cost-effective anti-crime services, whether those be patrol officers, Boba Fett's services, or wolf-poodle hybrids. (As opposed to the current method, where the governments get more money the more crime they create).

You would also have the right incentives, as these insurance policies would cost less if you reduced your risk factors (statistically, gun ownership helps; presumably alarms, locks, etc. help, but only competing insurance companies have the incentive to find out what works best).

And if you didn't like your company, you could switch. What is your option now if you don't like the police monopoly that "protects and serves" you up to the special interests? You have to abandon your home.

Honestly I wish more effort was put into the prevention of crime

The current system puts no effort into "prevention of crime"... it CREATES crime via Drug Prohibition, welfare, and inner-city skools. Insurance companies would have every incentive to prevent crime to prevent the payment of claims 

Nothing new about this—in fact it's an old idea which only went out of style with the introduction of Christianity into Europe.

Right... David Friedman has a chapter on it in Machinery of Freedom, about Iceland's 150-year period free of government and war (they had a few small crimes... just like the American West, they made sagas about them because they were rare).

[PattyLee loves dogs]

So, basically, the way to get rich is to be black, live in a gang neighborhood with lots of violence, and have lots of kids, because in a few years, you will become a millionaire, and for less than $50.

Right, because insurance companies like to give money away 

Again, they are going to sell policies, not operate a charity. If you insist on choosing a high-risk lifestyle, they are going to sell you a high-risk policy. Even then, policies won't cost that much... because the casualty rate in this country just isn't that high, even in DC and Detroit. Most people in "bad neighborhoods" don't die from violence or even drugs... they die from eating Twinkies and phosphoric-acid-laced sugar water. (Insuring against obesity... now THAT's expensive!)

[penguins4me]

How would having insurance eliminate the damage caused by "crime"? 
"Sorry; we were unable to stop your loved one from being murdered, but heres a million dollars...." 
Small consolation.
I would not trust a privatized policing force to protect me any more than the current method.

You might be under the misconception that the current method's purpose is to protect you. See "Castle Rock vs Warren" for just one example out of many which explictly state that "it is not the job of the police to protect you".

It is YOUR job to protect you [sic].

So, in other words, it wouldn't be "sorry; we were unable to stop your loved one from being murdered, but heres a million dollars...."; though what about "sorry for your loss; we put the murderer hard at work and here is the money from his labor to help compensate"? (Not sure what I think about an insurance policy, though I do like the idea better than the current system of caging the murderer at my own expense.)

[John Edward Mercier]

Wouldn't currently existing life,health, and property insurance cover most of this?
And the insurance company simply raises the rates for risk factors. Though I have seen some effort at risk avoidance, this is largely an effort either by the individual or legislation to force an individual to take less risk.

[PattyLee loves dogs]

Wouldn't currently existing life,health, and property insurance cover most of this?

Yes, that's where the numbers are coming from... existing insurance already shoulders the costs. Unfortunately they are blocked by various state laws from setting their prices in accordance with the real risk factors, and by other laws from taking over the protective functions that government LE pretends to do.

The problem is not "finding a way to pay for private LE", or finding ways to compensate victims (although of course it would be nice if all law was put on a compensation basis for all criminals able to pay restitution). The problem is getting the government to stop subsidizing crime.

[John Edward Mercier]

I don't try to find ways to pay for the LE... I try to find ways not to.
90% of the time I ignore government, the other 10% I try to avoid it.