Posted on 09/09/2005 8:21:41 AM PDT by Pessimist
My Life as a Welfare Queen
In 1980 I built a wonderful beach house. Four bedrooms -- every room with a view of the Atlantic Ocean.
It was an absurd place to build, right on the edge of the ocean. All that stood between my house and ruin was a hundred feet of sand. My father told me: "Dont do it; its too risky. No one should build so close to an ocean."
But I built anyway.
Why? As my eager-for-the-business architect said, "Why not? If the ocean destroys your house, the government will pay for a new one."
What? Why would the government do that? Why would it encourage people to build in such risky places? That would be insane.
But the architect was right. If the ocean took my house, Uncle Sam would pay to replace it under the National Flood Insurance Program. Since private insurers werent dumb enough to sell cheap insurance to people who built on the edges of oceans or rivers, Congress decided the government should step in and do it. So if the ocean ate what I built, I could rebuild and rebuild again and again -- there was no limit to the number of claims on the same property in the same location -- up to a maximum of $250,000 per house per flood. And you taxpayers would pay for it.
Thanks.
(Excerpt) Read more at reason.com ...
It's what Republicans call republicans.
I could be wrong, but I don't believe your calling him a "flaming libertarian" was a compliment.
I know what you mean. It took only one issue in a trial subscription offer for me to return the bill marked, "Cancel." We really didn't see eye-to-eye; it'd been well over 20 years since I'd said goodbye to the bong.
Thats what insurance companies do, accept the least amount of risk. just like automobile insurance: you have too many claims, they drop you and then you can only get insured thru a state "insurance pool"
For all practical purposes, there is no such thing as private flood insurance.
Correction. It's what Republicans call republicans, over their shoulder.
He is a hot and passionate Libertarian, i.e. a Flaming Libertarian. If you like libertarians, that was a compliment. It is the opposite of LINO.
There was a time when many stances now considered "libertarian" (small l, not large L) were considered conservative.
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