In article , says...


Wayne.B wrote:

Getting insurance on older boats has been an issue for quite awhile
but now it is getting worse, a lot worse in places like Florida and
the Gulf Coast. It's not just boats either, houses also. Our home
insurance just doubled last week and we've had no claims.

Why is it that no one ever suggests that it's time to bring parasitic
entities such as "insurance companies" to heel? _Long_past_time_ for
public insurance I think. Something that meets the needs of the insured
rather than the greed of the stockholders of the insurance companies.

I could not agree with you more. But it's not going to happen. The totally
parasitic health insurance industry made a $130 billion profit last year
while rejecting one third of all claims. Too much of that money is goiung
to bribe Congress isntead of reducing costs and improving health care.

In article ,
says...


On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:53:44 -0400, prodigal1 said:

Why is it that no one ever suggests that it's time to bring parasitic
entities such as "insurance companies" to heel? _Long_past_time_ for
public insurance I think. Something that meets the needs of the insured
rather than the greed of the stockholders of the insurance companies.

Why is there always some genius in a group who seems to think that 1000
members of the govment employees' local union are going to do a better job
than people with a profit motive? Such economic ignorance never ceases to
astound me.

Have you checked out Medicare lately? You need to learn more about the
nature of bureaucracy and the efficiency of government provided services
compared to thos provided by so called free markets. To start with, the
head of Medicare is not being paid $100 million a year.

In article ,
says...


On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 20:09:32 -0400, prodigal1 said:

There are places in the world
where this works very well. People get the coverage they want, at rates
they find acceptable AND profits go toward public services like schools,
roads, hospitals... What's not to like?

Hey, I've got a bridge across the East River that would make a great
investment for you. Of course, you have to let the politicians set the
rates.

That strikes me as an unresponsive response.

The essence of insurance should be one risk pool, no cherry-picking. Only
government does that.

In article ,
jimh_osudad@yahooDOTcomREMOVETHIS says...



"prodigal1" wrote in message
news
On Tue, 11 Apr 2006 15:17:04 -0400, JimH wrote:

Public insurance translated means government run insurance.............no
thanks.

I'm presuming you're American (osudad) and have never had any experience
with public insurance, so I have to ask myself on what your rejection of
the idea is based.

I take it your not an American...........otherwise you would know that
whatever our Government touches turns corrupt or bloated with
beauracracy........and most inefficient. The one exception is the Post
Office.

A, The Post Office is a government corporation. It cannot cherry pick its
customers and must deliver everything to everywhere without profit incentive.
It is a service.

B. Social Security and Medicare are highly efficient. They are not bloated
bureaucracies. Indeed, most government is not bloated and inefficient.
Medicare's overhead is 2%. Private insurance companies have overhead of 15% to
20% while racking up huge profits for shareholders and obscene compensation
for officers while carefully picking their risks and then denying some 30& of
claims. Why do we owe the insurance companies a living?

C. To govern is to serve. Keep that in mind. Government is not a business and
cannot be run like a business. The business of business is profit, not the
well-being of the customers. That is the essential conflict of the insurance
business.

In article ,
jimh_osudad@yahooDOTcomREMOVETHIS says...



"prodigal1" wrote in message
news
On Wed, 12 Apr 2006 07:17:39 -0400, JimH wrote:

I take it your not an American...........otherwise you would know that
whatever our Government touches turns corrupt or bloated with
beauracracy........and most inefficient.

ahhh...if only life were so black and white...
no Jim, I'm not an American, and --apparently unlke you-- I have had
experience with both public and private insurance, and I can tell you from
experience that the private system is not to be preferred. You keep
paying your premiums and I'll continue looking for a better way.


Socialist? Me thinks so. ;-)


So what's wrong with that if it works?

"Gogarty" wrote in message

The essence of insurance should be one risk pool, no
cherry-picking. Only
government does that.

Really? You must be a high risk person.

As a low risk person I like being cherry picked. Much cheaper for
me . . .
--
JimB
http://www.jimbaerselman.f2s.com/
Describing some Greek and Spanish cruising areas

Dave wrote:

I guess news of Alaska's bridge to nowhere hasn't made it to Canada.


A former notoriously wasteful provincial gov't here once borrowed money
from oil rich Alberta do do just that.
The premier ended up being appointed to the Senate.

Dave wrote:
You really don't understand how shareholder meetings work, Doug.

Why yes, I'm sure.

Always a good way to make a point, insist the other guys
doesn't know what he's talking about. Especially when he was
there personally.


... Anyone who
goes to a shareholder meeting thinking that what is said there is likely to
affect the outcome of the vote is simply clueless. It's the fight for proxy
votes that precedes the meeting that is significant.

Correct. And in this case, the directors voted their proxies
against the expressed (in many cases written) intent of the
shareholders... in other words, they voted proxies that they
didn't really have.

Owners of common stock *do* have the right to vote their
shares. I don't understand the court case or what "facts"
were found to support the directors, but the intent of the
majority of shareholders was quite clear.

And oddly enough, the shareholders were right. HP took a
nosedive right off a cliff.

There are a few other cases I can point to, for example the
Coca-Cola CEO and CFO $100 mil+ stock awards of a few years
ago... voted down by the shareholders, passed by the directors.



.... (I know. I've
been an inspector of elections at meetings of a large public company.)

In other words, you know how to circumvent the process?

... Votes
cast at the meeting represent just a small adjustment to the totals.

Sure. In many cases, perhaps most, the Board of Directos
hold a majority of common stock among themselves. In that
case, the public (individual & institutional) shareholders
are just along for the ride. Some surprisingly large
corporations are this way.


... The
people who you see showing up are the ones who want to put on a show, not
the ones who hold the large share positions.


Uh huh.

When the reps of American Funds, Putnam, and Vanguard all
show up and say publicly that they are NOT granting the
usual proxies to the directors on shares held by their
funds, that's a rather different scenario... there was a big
insurance company that chimed in, don't remember which one.

The HP fight was a clear example of a BS decision IMHO. You
can talk about how it was legal, and maybe it was. That
doesn't make it right.


The one exception I've seen is Carl Icahn, who both has financial clout and
shows up at meetings.

Never met him, he seems like a bit of a predator to me.

Anyway, the real issue is that the top echelon corporate
officers are kleptocrats. They rake in huge amounts of money
whether their business decisions are good or bad. So what's
the motivation to produce? Isn't that supposed to be the
strong point of market capitalism?

Regards
Doug King

Correct. And in this case, the directors voted their proxies
against the expressed (in many cases written) intent of the
shareholders... in other words, they voted proxies that they
didn't really have.


Dave wrote:
Doug, having been involved for some 35 plus years in shareholder meetings of
public companies I simply can't credit what you're saying here. If that were
true, the dissidents would have won in the DE court. They didn't.

Perhaps I should have said that they voted proxies that they
*shouldn't* have really had.

... So either
you're talking through you hat or you have some secret knowledge that nobody
bothered to pass along to the Chancellor. I regard this last possibility as
remote.


Agreed. However, this is what I mean... and you will
undoubtedly know a heck of a lot more about it than I...
stock voting proxies are very commonly granted and the
directors vote them as though they held the stock. But the
owner of that stock retains the right to vote it. Now, are
there all kinds of nit-picky details about the process? I
bet so. Are there enough little tiny-print unknown rules
about the grant of proxies that the directors can vote
proxied against the wishes of the owner, and make it stand
up in court?

Yes, obviously.



First understand that the intent of the _majority of shareholders_ is
irrelevant. It's the intent of _holders of a majority of shares_ that
counts.

Correct. And I thought I made this clear in my earlier post.

... Most of those shareholders don't show up at the meeting. You are
apparently basing your conclusions on what shareholders said at the meeting.

No, I'm apparently basing my conclusion on the tally of
shares voted by their owners at that meeting, which did in
fact constitute a majority of shares ooutstanding at the
time. Whether the directors got around this with some kind
of proxy trickery, or simply issuing themselves more stock
to gain a majority, or just bribing the court, I don't know
and don't care. It was a BS decision.

Ever see the movie "Animal House?"

Anyway, I voted with my dollars and am well out of it. But
it is a situation that bothers me a lot as it is repeated
over and over, on a smaller scale, in almost every company
I've ever held stock in. And it is usually harmful to the
company and to the economy.

That's the problem with democray, isn't it... the darn
people just won't vote the right way!

DSK

Now, are
there all kinds of nit-picky details about the process? I
bet so. Are there enough little tiny-print unknown rules
about the grant of proxies that the directors can vote
proxied against the wishes of the owner, and make it stand
up in court?

Yes, obviously.


Dave wrote:
Not at all "obviously." Not true in fact.

Well, here's where we part ways.

While it is not capable of being proven (and certainly
*never* to your satisfaction) that the holders of majority
shares of HP did not want the Compaq buy-out, it was made
obvious in several venues. The directors circumvented the
will of the stockholders. Whatever method of trickery they
employed is not important, nor does the courts sanction make
it right... that only makes it legal.

It is self-evident that a majority of Hewlett-Packard stock
holders did *not* want to buy Compaq, because shortly after
it happened, the ratio of HP stock for sale to HP stock buy
orders plummeted. Coincidentally, so did the value of the
stock... funny how that works. Even after a few years of
"recovery" it's still less than half what it was.

So, when you're saying that it's impossible that the
majority shareholders voted against... or would have voted
against, had their votes been actually counted... the Compaq
buy-out, you're saying that the laws of supply & demand has
been temporarily suspended in this instance. Maybe the court
approved that too? I mean, doesn't water flow up hill if
your ideology demands that it do so?

DSK