SERVICE CONTRACTS...
When you buy an appliance, auto, or other object, you are no longer buying an object. They immediately try to sell you a waranty/insurance poilicy with it, because they are selling you a "service" not an object. In fact, they even call the whole ball of wax their "product", that is, the object plus the service contract. When I am offered a service contract, my reply is, "If you are telling me that this object won't even last a year, maybe I don't need to buy it."
There is no pride in the work we are asked to do. Sales people are required to try to sell the service contract more aggressively than the object.
In fact, there are companies which are selling service contracts on cars they didn't even manufacture. These service contracts are supposed to bring you peace of mind over the questionable performance of an object but in fact are causing more stress because they are siphoning money on a regular basis from an already tight amd shrinking budget.
The contracts are presented as if you can prevent a much bigger cost down the road when you may not have a bundle of cash or credit to cover that expense. We only need to look at how health insurance works to know that they probably WILL NOT cover it when the time comes. Just read the fine print.
AUTO INSURANCE...
Required in all states, is hardly a safety concern... it is not saving lives... it only protects property... "shared responsibility" they call it. In other words, you don't have a right to hurt other people or their cars or other property with your car without paying for it.
Recently more extreme penalties have been enacted for not carrying it and people are having to make the choice between paying the auto insurance and food or utilities.
In Corpus Christi, where half the population is on some sort of public assistance even though they are working, if you are stopped for any reason and they find you don't have auto insurance, you are given a ticket with a penalty of a few hundred dollars and your auto is impounded immediately.
It costs 150 dollars or more to bail it out, AFTER you have reinstated your insurance. What logic punishes people who may not make enough money to keep their auto insurance in force continuously by taking away the means to keep a job?.. In fact most jobs in the area, which has limited public transportation qualify employment with "reliable transportation required".
Being impounded once, bailing it out, reinstating the insurance and paying the ticket could easily cost a month's wages.
HEALTH INSURANCE...
I supported Obama in 2008 and have been encouraged by a lot he has done since then which rarely gets publicized... like the Lily Ledbetter Equal Pay for Equal Work Legislation.
When the Health Care Reform Bill was passed, I started getting the sense that the Presidency may just be a figurehead position and that other forces are really steering the government's ship.
The requirement that all people PURCHASE health insurance stunned me. I didn't really expect for single payer/universal health care to pass, the first time around anyway, but to foist this obligation on everyone [sure, those who can't afford it will be subsidized supposedly] seemed outrageous, but I shouldn't be surprised.
It's the same trap that auto insurance places people in. It re-prioritizes one's budget and life choices for you... more powerlessness... And even with having health insurance, one may still not be able to afford to see a doctor because of copays and deductibles.
MORTGAGE INSURANCE...
I've never had a mortgage, so I'm not too clear about this, but I do know that part of the mortgage cost is for insurance.
Now why hasn't this insurance kicked in when all those people went in to foreclosure? Why weren't their homes saved by this insurance they've been paying, sometimes for decades, when they lost their jobs?
Isn't that what the insurance for... the unforseen change in circumstances in ability to pay?
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