Insurance

[TOC: all blog posts]

When I buy an appliance or tool or electronic gizmo, the cashier often asks if I want insurance. I say no. If I've done my homework, I assume that my purchase is reasonably reliable. I may end up with a lemon, and then I'll need to repurchase, provided I still want the thing. But I assume the company offering insurance has done their homework, and so, odds are, I won't need it. I self insure.

With a car, the risk is higher. If I own a car, I'm required to have liability insurance. This makes sense. It would not be feasible for the state to assess each purchaser to determine whether they have (or will have) enough assets to cover the considerable cost for ruining someone else's life with a car, which is rare but happens. Collision and comprehensive insurance are optional. I may accept the same odds as an insurance company and cover repairs or replacement of my car if the need arises. The more valuable the car, the more likely I'll insure it. 

Most of us have home insurance. Mortgage companies require it, for one thing. If the house is fully paid for, we typically still don't want to risk having to replace or renovate a home. Fire, bad weather, or plumbing failures can do more damage than we can afford pay for. Or, maybe we can afford it, but we put our life savings at risk and would rather not. Only the very wealthy can afford not to insure their homes. (Maybe they got rich selling insurance to those of us who can't.)

When it comes to shared properties, insurance decisions are more complex. One owner may have higher, or lower, need for insurance than others. Not all may agree on what needs to be insured or to what level. One investor may be willing to gamble on the odds of never needing insurance. Another investor might be more conservative.

A lot of us, being conservative I suppose, want to insure our greatest shared asset. Others do not.

Climate change threatens catastrophic consequences to this planet we share. Some say the risk is overstated. Some say we should do something about it, even if the risk is low. Others insist we must do nothing; insurance is just too costly.

Especially to them. They have oil to sell.

A Broader Base

Before the recall vote in California even started, Larry Elder was crying foul. But he conceded and hushed up when election results showed the recall had failed substantially. Perhaps he was advised by those in his party who still want to promote another election as fraudulent. If everyone in the party cries wolf, even some of the base might tire of it.

I think there is a lesson here: with enough pressure from reality, even the most deluded may revert to acting reasonably. Some will continue to believe all the lies along with the big one that all the smaller ones were leading up to. But gradually more and more people are becoming skeptical and disgusted. And, in California at least, enough took the time and effort to vote to make a difference. Had it been closer, the Republicans might still be contesting.

Some Democrats advocate for using Republican tactics to beat them at their own game. But some of us prefer not to play dirty. We just need to show up. And we need to invite others to join us.

Many Republicans accept that Biden won the election and are (almost) as appalled as the rest of us that his opponent thought he could and should get away with overturning the will of the people. Republicans like Adam Kinzinger and Ed McBroom may be an often-despised minority among Republicans who prefer power to responsibility, but they have not disappeared.

In a choice between our country's two parties, where is a decent conservative to turn?

Kinzinger has consistently said and demonstrated that his integrity is more important to him than his job. But if he loses his next primary, who will he vote for? Who will his supporters vote for?

A traditional conservative has a hard time voting for many of the policies promoted by Democrats. But the conservative tradition also did not peddle in the lies, cheating, and bullying that have become the trademarks of the dramatically changed Republican party. Anyone with moderate political views is no longer welcome in the Republican party unless they pretend otherwise. The definition of a Republican is not what it was.

The Democrat party has problems of its own. Some members are distinctively progressive. Others represent the majority of moderates still left in Congress. On many issues, the two ends of the party continuum don't see eye to eye. Again, some Democrats want us to be more like the Republicans, with almost no one breaking ranks on a rigid set of views.

But, for now at least, the Democratic party has a bigger role. It needs to embrace a larger constituency. It needs to allow for the differences of perspective among all who have been expelled from the Republican personality cult. And we need to provide those voters caught between with a reason to vote for Democratic candidates.

I understand and share frustration with Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinnema. But if we demonize them, we are saying there is no room for debate. We are likely turning away a bloc of voters who are wondering if they can comfortably vote for a Democrat, perhaps for the first time in their lives.

If Democrats cannot find a way to tolerate the views of the center left—and now the center right—and to embrace the ensuing debates, we are unlikely to make the gains needed to undo voter suppression and gerrymandering that are already leaching votes from our base. Without a firm majority we will not address health care, immigration, climate change, and other issues of our time. And we won't gain that majority without making it clear that our party is willing to welcome and respect a broader base.

True, there's too little time to deal with rising temperatures, and we need to listen to the voices of those telling us to hurry. But if we rush without bringing enough people with us, we will fail even faster.

Especially now, as we approach the 2022 mid-term elections, there is too much at stake to vilify good people whose support we want and need. We need solid margins to quiet radical Republicans who are eager to cry foul at fair balls.

Nothing

A series of German video ads, recalling heroes in the fight against the corona virus, have gone viral. Before I spoil them for you, check them out

• here,
• here,
• and here.

There is a worldwide emergency, and all we are being asked to do is nichts. Nothing.

You might think we could handle that. Doing nothing is an American specialty. In response to other emergencies, it has so often been our response.

• Rooms full of schoolchildren are murdered in cold blood. What should we do? Nothing.
• Church members at a prayer meeting are murdered for the color of their skin. What should we do? Nothing.
• 460 people are shot at a concert. What should we do? Nothing.
• Millions have no health insurance. Some of them have big medical bills after being shot while attending a concert. What should we do? Nothing.
• Worldwide, millions of refugees seek safety, some at our borders. What should we do? Nothing.
• Climate change threatens the globe in innumerable ways. What should we do? Nothing.

Now a pandemic is killing hundreds of thousands of our citizens. What should we do? Just what we are good at: Nothing.

Instead, we:

• Declare it's not happening
• Protest restrictions
• Visit friends
• Go out to eat
• Mock people wearing masks
• Have parties
• "Rise up" against governors who are trying to save lives
• Spread the disease

Sometimes I'm not so proud of my country, not nearly as proud as I'd like to be. But sometimes, if you ask me what's the matter, I just say, "Nothing."

Bad Judgment

General consensus has been that Amy Coney Barrett is well-qualified. It's only the the process and the rank hypocrisy of Mitch McConnell (and herself) that's all wrong. I am among the radicals who disagree.

During hearings for her confirmation Senator Kamala Harris asked Barrett's opinion on climate change. She replied that it was disputed.

If you feel weak and are losing weight and suffering chronic pain, you might (if you can afford it) go see a doctor. Let's say the doctor says you have cancer; you would be reasonable to want a second opinion. The second opinion might be the same, so you try again. Let's say you belong to the wealthy class of Americans who can afford to get the opinions of 50 doctors. One of those doctors tells you that everything is fine and you should go home, get some rest, and quit worrying. The other 49 agree that you have cancer, even though some disagree on the specific type or cause.

If you stop seeking medical advice or treatment based on the opinion of the one doctor with good news, you could be accused of terrible judgment. If you decide that the cancer diagnosis is disputed, you might be technically correct, but if you choose to do nothing more, you'd still have terrible judgment. If it were one of your seven children suffering the symptoms and you chose not to care, you would be a negligent parent who deserves to have her children taken away by Child Protective Services.

If a concerned friend researches the optimistic doctor and finds that his practice was flawed, but you refuse to listen, I would challenge any sane person to vouch for your judgment.

Some of Barrett's fellow Catholics have said this is worse than bad judgment, it is moral relativism. Ms Barrett knows better, but it is pragmatic to pretend that there is no problem. Caring would be counter-productive. Better to risk widespread human catastrophe than jeopardize a dream job where she can promote the interests of the organizations that have promoted her career.

Supreme Court justices have sometimes surprised us. I see no likely surprises here. Just bad judgment.

A Green Deal

I like to think I'm a conservationist. We recycle and go weeks before we have to put our trash can at the curb. Our 1930s-era house is well insulated; the gas company tells us that we are doing 20% better than comparable energy-efficient houses in our area.

But given a chance to visit our grandsons, we jump in the car and drive 2½ hours to see them, and then drive back, twice a month or so. At 25 mpg, that's about 12 gallons of fossil fuel per trip. So it can feel hypocritical if I get on some bandwagon about green energy.

Most of us compromise our ideals. But I don't think that means we shouldn't have any. And it doesn't mean we shouldn't think about them. At the very least, let's take climate scientist Katherine Hayhoe's advice and talk about climate change.

I support green energy. I believe the climate scientists when they say we are facing problems that we ought to do something about. Solar and wind energy keep getting better and cheaper and we ought to be investing in them. I think coal should be relegated to nostalgic fireplaces and a few other specialized uses.

I also think the proper distance between my home and a nuclear power plant is 93 million miles. But nuclear power is carbon-free, so I might agree to a reactor closer to home than the sun. Sometimes we compromise when we opt for the lesser of two evils.

George "Eeyore" Will opposed electric cars in part because "electric vehicles will be powered mostly by fossil-fuel-generated electricity." Now he apparently opposes efforts to power them in other ways. If you start by saying a thing can't be done, you won't try. Eeyore advises us not to try.

Why not try? The Green New Deal is ambitious and probably somewhat less than realistic. But I love the enthusiasm behind it for addressing a serious challenge. I love that it takes a serious problem seriously. I love the optimism for fixing the problem.

My car is 20 years old, so it will probably be replaced in 10 years, and I may get an electric car. But if it were only 5 years old, I would be looking at hanging on to it for another 10 to 15 years. Plus, I like road trips, and an electric car is not (yet) ideal for long drives on blue highways. Will my ideals trump my personal preferences? Hard to say.

It's also hard to say how global warming will affect us. The seas will rise slowly, so if we spend a lot of money we may be able to build dikes around our low areas. Maybe the refugees from lands lost to the sea will go to some country that will welcome them, unlike ours. Maybe not as many species will go extinct as expected. Maybe we'll come up with a technological cure. Maybe it's too late, and the best we can hope for is palliative care.

One thing I am certain of is that we could do better. We could do better at taking climate change seriously. And we could do better at reducing our carbon output. But it's difficult when the administration ridicules and the utilities obstruct.

Utilities do talk about green energy, but most want to control it rather than support it. They ask us to pay a premium for green energy, but if my church wants to put up solar panels on its well-placed south-facing roof we must limit the array to no more than would be needed to power the church building. Why? Because the utilities lobbied for a law that allows them to make this restriction. I do wish Consumer's Energy and DTE Energy would take lessons for Green Mountain Energy on how to encourage rather than discourage solar investment and how to leverage the grid to their—and our—advantage. We need, and need to encourage, solar farms and other large-scale solar power plants, but we also need a million home-owners willing to invest their own money in a solar rooftop.

In Michigan, the naysayers say there are too many clouds for solar energy. I say solar panels won't work if they are covered with a wet blanket. Germany, farther north and with a climate as cloudy as Michigan's, gets significantly more power from the sun than we do in the US. When is the heaviest load for the electric utilities? In the summer on hot days, mid-afternoon, when all the air conditioners are going. So put solar panels on west-facing roofs and have the power when you need it.

Some may find solar panels too boring (they just sit there) and wind energy too breezy. They prefer a grand scheme for global rescue of carbon sequestering. While I support research into this (potentially partial) solution, I don't have a lot of hope for it. The idea works something like this:

1. Use energy and water to extract carbon in stable liquid form from the ground.
2. Use energy to refine it.
3. Burn it to create energy, releasing carbon into the atmosphere.
4. Expend more energy capturing carbon from the air.
5. Use even more energy to convert it into a stable form so it doesn't escape back into the atmosphere.
6. Bury the carbon.
7. Hope it stays put.

Not to get overly practical here, but why not just leave the raw carbon in the ground in the first place? If you have that option. (We do.)

But green technology requires rare earth metals, right? Wind generators need magnets, and these typically require neodymium, which is called a rare earth metal but is no more rare than copper or nickel. Most of this now comes from China, but the US also has sizable reserves. Would we need to increase mining? Probably. Drat, another compromise.

So who loses if we buy insurance, however inadequate at this point, by doing as much as possible to reduce carbon output? Jobs in oil, gas, and coal would be, are already being, offset by green energy. There are already more solar than coal-mining jobs in the US.

There will be a few losers. These are the owners of companies that invest millions of dollars to influence our politicians and convince you and me that solar and wind are for wusses.

Those losing out have had it pretty good for a pretty long while. They have gotten government subsidies, they have tapped our public lands, they have made billions, and they haven't had to pay for the damage done to our atmosphere. We didn't know about that damage, but now we do. And I can't say I'd feel too bad if they didn't get to lead the energy parade in the next go-round.

Maple leaves

For years we could count on the maple leaves emerging within a few days of April 20. It was so consistent that I wondered whether the trees were motivated by hours of daylight rather than by temperature (which has never seemed very consistent in West Michigan).

Last year we had an exceptionally long and cold Spring. The leaves came out a full two weeks later than normal. Today, just the 3rd day of Spring and the 4th in a row above 80 degrees, the Maple leaves are showing themselves.

There is talk of climate change. Might be something to it.
- - - - - - - -
This was written in March of 2012. The early heat that year was hard on apple trees—and the growers. This year (2018) has been another unusually late year for spring. Today is Tuesday, May 8, and only this past weekend did the leaves come out on the maple trees. I hope it's a good year for apples.