The Cost of the "Protection" Mafia
Posted by freedomforall 12 months ago to Government
Excerpt:
"Let’s consider for purposes of this discussion the average victim of the mafia’s strong-arming. He isn’t a teenager or an oldster and so he falls into the “lowest risk” category, especially if he’s married and a homeowner and has a “clean” record, which means he hasn’t been “ticketed” within the past three years for having transgressed one of the government’s various use-conditions, such as driving faster than the government says is permissible. He has a middle-of-the-road car, nothing unduly obstreperous.
A Camry or Accord sedan, let us say.
Let’s assume the victim described above pays an absurdly modest $500 annually for “minimum” (sans collision) “coverage” that doesn’t really cover anything, except any damage he may cause to someone else’s property. If his car is damaged, he pays for the repairs himself – with whatever he’s got left after he’d paid the mafia. If he does not cause damage to someone else’s property, all he’s got to show for what he spent – for what they took – is the ethereal “coverage” provided by the mafia, which had to pay nothing but got a lot in return for it.
How much, again?
Well, let’s take that postulated $500 per year – deliberately lowballed to make the point – and factor it out over ten years. The sum is $5,000. Let’s factor it over a driving lifetime, say 60 years.
It is $30,000.
That’s for “inexpensive” – bare minimum (legally) “coverage” that doesn’t actually cover anything unless you damage someone else’s vehicle. (It is like paying for a warranty on your neighbor’s roof.) A policy that “covers” you – that will in theory pay to repair your vehicle, if you have an accident – would cost at least three times that ($1,500 annually, also lowballed for purposes of this discussion) assuming an average car and assuming a driver neither very young nor very old, with few if any tickets on his record.
Now we’re looking at $90,000 paid out over a lifetime – real money, as the saying goes."
"Let’s consider for purposes of this discussion the average victim of the mafia’s strong-arming. He isn’t a teenager or an oldster and so he falls into the “lowest risk” category, especially if he’s married and a homeowner and has a “clean” record, which means he hasn’t been “ticketed” within the past three years for having transgressed one of the government’s various use-conditions, such as driving faster than the government says is permissible. He has a middle-of-the-road car, nothing unduly obstreperous.
A Camry or Accord sedan, let us say.
Let’s assume the victim described above pays an absurdly modest $500 annually for “minimum” (sans collision) “coverage” that doesn’t really cover anything, except any damage he may cause to someone else’s property. If his car is damaged, he pays for the repairs himself – with whatever he’s got left after he’d paid the mafia. If he does not cause damage to someone else’s property, all he’s got to show for what he spent – for what they took – is the ethereal “coverage” provided by the mafia, which had to pay nothing but got a lot in return for it.
How much, again?
Well, let’s take that postulated $500 per year – deliberately lowballed to make the point – and factor it out over ten years. The sum is $5,000. Let’s factor it over a driving lifetime, say 60 years.
It is $30,000.
That’s for “inexpensive” – bare minimum (legally) “coverage” that doesn’t actually cover anything unless you damage someone else’s vehicle. (It is like paying for a warranty on your neighbor’s roof.) A policy that “covers” you – that will in theory pay to repair your vehicle, if you have an accident – would cost at least three times that ($1,500 annually, also lowballed for purposes of this discussion) assuming an average car and assuming a driver neither very young nor very old, with few if any tickets on his record.
Now we’re looking at $90,000 paid out over a lifetime – real money, as the saying goes."
