My solution to class warfare / wealth redistribution.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

 [Before you tare apart my post, please try to do so constructively. I am new in the insurance industry but not new to sales. I sold my first policy on 11-28-12! My Agency is bound to Farmers Insurance Exchange but I paid for this franchise so, keep in mind my heart and soul is in what I do, it feeds my family. With that said I am looking for ways to do things that will help people and make a better America. My agency is involved in a lot of local charities and events. We've raised money for the March of Dimes as well as bought a booth at their charity walks and gave away free digital photo ID software to the parents.]

One of the major goals of our government is to help the poor. This is an admirable goal and as nation we’ve spent $15 Trillion dollars on the War on Poverty.  We are a very giving nation and we do a lot for the poor but a lot of what we do is spent on making their lives comfortable not helping them get out of poverty.
All of the welath we've redistributed and we haven't even made a dent in poverty. In fact, welfare has grown 19% under President Obama, that’s two and a half times greater than any other welfare increase in the history of the country.  
One of the problems with our effort to help the poor is that we aren’t giving them help that will get them out of their situation only help that will keep them comfortable  (relatively speaking) than we do on actually helping them get out of their situation.
I do not consider this the fault of our government though, they simply aren’t equipment with a means for wealth redistribution that would we be fair and equitable to all. However I think there might be a simple pro-capitalism solution to poverty: Term Life Insurance.

The rates for term life insurance has fallen by 50 percent.

If the poor carried term life insurance policies what would that mean?

On average that would mean $250,000 paid to their family and/or a charity (charities) of their choice. This may not seem like a lot of money when you consider the value of a life but also consider what a large lump sum of money could do to help their families:
·         Purchase a home outright. – One of the biggest expenses  we all have is rent/mortgage if you as a poor person could leave enough money to pay for your family’s home you could dramatically improve their lives.  Home ownership would give them collateral, security and improve the neighborhoods the poor live in because people take better care of their home if they own rather than rent.
·         Pay for a child or grand child’s college education.  This would allow more poor to get into college by having the capital to pay for universities extortionists rates.
·         Pay for their transportation – there are a lot of hidden and not so hidden costs with making care payments
1.    Full coverage insurance. When you are making payments on your car most lenders require that you pay for comprehensive and collision coverage
2.    Interest rates on car loans tend to be high.
3.    If you lose your job you risk losing your car if you don’t own it outright.
·         Charities –  Many of my clients like to put between $10,000 - $50,000 set aside on their life insurance policies to be donated to a charity of their choice. This is a great way for the poor to help support charities they are passionate about. We can’t all be Bill and Melinda Gates but we all can make significant finical contributions to important charities through our life insurance policies. This is a good reason for single individuals to have a term policy.
·         The poor do not have the saving habits or means of those more affluent.  This would give them the opportunity to make big purchases.
·         Start a business without a loan or more easily acquire a loan because banks love giving money to people who have money (learned this the hard way.)

Some may argue that I’m inviting the poor to prey on their dead. No, I’m inviting them to capitalize on their own low life expectancy and bilk the rich! This is the perfect less crappy a more fair redistribution of wealth and the best part is the rich will do it willingly!
Since we've invested $15 Trillion and it hasn't drastically changed the situation of the poor, I feel that we need to try something different. Changing the culture to be one of strongly encouraging those who struggle the most financially to carry a term life insurance policy could be that change.
. Nationally, the CDC found, homicide killed black males age 12-19 at a rate of 39 per 100,000 during the years 1999 through 2006
·  White female high school drop-outs lived to 78.5 years in 1990, 73.5 years in 2008
·  Females who finished college lived for 83.9 years, males for 80.4
·  White males who didn't finish high school reached 70.5 years in 1990 and 67.5 2008
The average life expectancy of an active gang member is:  20 years, 5 months
http://police.conroeisd.net/docs/mastergang.pdf

[One last sidebar, I've sold 2 Life Policies to young people who are donating the majority of that policy to charity. These are young people who have no children or spouse yet. Both individuals were from opposite sides of the political spectrum. This is something I'm curious to see who'll invest more to charity driven policies; Liberals or Conservatives.]

Comments

Not in Good Hands.

[rick-day.livejournal.com]

If more people buy Term Life, the price will increase, putting it out of reach. Agents reap millions in commissions, as most parasites do.

Supply and demand, etc.

Then there are those pesky people with diseases and injuries that would preclude them from life insurance. I reckon we can leave them to the buzzards.

Can I interest you in an unread copy of Atlas Shrugged?

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Insurance is not a 'basic' supply and demand product though....

Insurance is for managing risk. The more people you can group together in a risk category the more the rate drop because it becomes more manageable.

I didn't say it was the single solution, there will be those who are not qualified for life insurance yes. However there are 10 million working poor in America. Most of them are young and healthy if they buy in now, while they are young and healthy, they can be guaranteed protection for when they are no longer eligible due to disease or injury.

Like our President did with Healthcare. If you can get the young to buy in while young and healthy, it spreads the cost over lots of people thereby making it affordable for all.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Agents reap millions in commissions, as most parasites do.

Thanks....

Sales is not a parasitic relationship it is a symbiotic one. You don't have clients if you aren't helping them by providing better service. Maybe your'e smarter than most people and can just buy yours online....good luck with that.

Can I interest you in an unread copy of Atlas Shrugged?

I've read Atlas Shrugged. I see that your copy must be unread if you see a correlation between term life insurance and Laissez-faire unregulated capitalism.

[oportet.livejournal.com]

Is this replacing, or in addition to continuous support? Or is there still continuous support until a beneficierys benefactor kicks the bucket?

The conservatives will complain that your idea cost too much, the liberals will complain about what's a poor person to do when they blow through their 250k. There's no pleasing everyone, your idea isn't bad though.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

No of course we can't replace our current mixed economy with this. This is simple one more tool in our tool belt to help the poor. This allows some (Not everyone is going to be paid out) to have a large resources distributed to them to help change their life and economic situation.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Are you making these assertions on the assumption that the insured will, in fact, die during the term of his or her policy?

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Social Security Insurance was founded on the idea that not everyone would be paid out and its worked since 1935. For those that do keep their policies in force it will allow their families an opportunity to have a large amount of wealth redistributed to them quickly to do things that would cahnge their economic situation like pay for a child's higher education.

[fizzyland.livejournal.com]

You want to spend money to actually get people out of poverty? Education is the most effective way to do that.

[whoasksfinds.livejournal.com]

so why hasn't it worked?

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

No, I want people to spend their own money. Then when their life insurance policy pays out their children spend that money on higher education thus breaking the poverty cycle.

Thoughts? what am I missing here I wasn't expecting such a negative response.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

.

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I agree with this guy.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Insurance is based on the law of large numbers. Not on the idea that people wont collect. That would be setting yourself up for failure as an industry because what happens when a disaster occurs?

Consider this argument please:

We have 10 million working poor in America. In 2008 there were 10,434,000 deaths. That's everyone not just the poor (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/cats/international_statistics.html)

Lets says that everyone buys a term at $25 a month. That would mean everyone would still paid out at my number of $250,000 and the company would still make a billion in profit.

This doesn't replace welfare, foodstamps or other social programs we are invested in. This simply allows the poor to have a large sum of money redistributedto them to help get them out of their situation.

(frozen) (no subject)

[404.livejournal.com]

...I can only conclude you're a lying piece of shit.

I'm confused why you are free to be so vulgar in your personal attack on another LJ user without a mod intervening, especially when there are multiple mods.

(frozen) (no subject)

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

I can only conclude you're a lying piece of shit.

That's absolutely not the behavior one would expect from someone who has proclaimed himself to be so experienced in the world of law, is it.

There can be no justification whatsoever for the language you've used. If you can't restrain yourself and respect the laws (yes, laws) of this community, then you're in trouble. So this:



And don't tell me you didn't earn it.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

In fact, welfare has grown 19% under President Obama, that’s two and a half times greater than any other welfare increase in the history of the country.

And they never mean "corporate welfare" or "Military Welfare" etc. But yeah, dollar values spiked during that recession, no doubt.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

No, because corporations and the military aren't the poor. My objective in this OP was to help the poor. The big corporations and the military get enough money. Plus I dont' see how a corporation can buy life insurance. Stick with me here... I'm on to something!

[root-fu.livejournal.com]

Maybe if you better explained how life insurance works, people would have better grounds to gauge its effectiveness.

Statistically, most will fail to implement proper retirement plans.

If they were unable to plan for their time when they were alive, why would they succeed in planning for a time after their death?

[anfalicious.livejournal.com]

I too am a salesman, would you like to try my product?

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Do you feel that the Affordable Care Act is a snake oil product? I don't. I think it has sound principles. If we can get the young and healthy to buy into Heath Insurance there will be a pool of resources available so all can afford it.

What is the difference between my argument and that?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

It turns out that reptilian lipids can have an excellent placebo effect.

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

Back when I lived in New England I interviewed for a job at a major insurance carrier. The executive who interviewed me admitted that insurance firms continue to collude in fixing rates above a market rate despite anti-trust intervention on the part of the Federal government. It did not engender a lot of confidence in the industry.

That being said, it is good to see that someone is helping families by getting them the software they need in order to manufacture fake identification cards.

My own experience with Great Society programs is rather positive. Without government support I doubt that I would have had the opportunities that I had to work overseas. The amount of wealth that I created during my industrial career far exceeded the amount of money that the government paid to support my education. I would not want future policy to be based on my case alone. After all I can think of a number of people who would not have become serial murderers without government support.

[farmerz-agent.livejournal.com]

Insurance, as an industry, is regulated by the States and not as much by the Federal government.

They aren't fake ID cards per se. They are digital information cards in conjunction with the Amber Alert system. They help parents remember to keep current photos on file, as well as vital information like height, weight, hair and eye color. You'd be surprised how many parents don't know that information but not surprised at how hard it is for anyone to think of those details when they are dealing with the terrifying loss of a child.

I think the government does a lot of good with its social welfare but I think the private sector could truly help more people get out of poverty. You were able to get an education through the government's support but a lot of others aren't. This would be one way they could.

[meus-ovatio.livejournal.com]

I would suggest you start over. First, you need to understand that poverty is not a bug in a capitalist system, it is a feature. Poverty is generated and maintained by capitalist economies to sustain a malleable and enforceable working class without any other realistic options, in order to leverage capital power to its greatest possible extent. So I don't know why you're talking about "fixing" a problem that doesn't exist. Poverty is required and promoted within our system. Mostly as a fusion of faux-morality/social religion.

Second, safety nets are generally enacted as grudging acknowledgment of the fact that full employment is antithetical to capitalist economices. The markets exist to produce products and services with the least amount of labor input possible. There is no point to full employment. All full employment does is take away from capital accumulation and power.

I think you should just stop fooling yourself about capitalism and realize there is no "fixing" a system that is working exactly as intended and designed.