From a different era, but still early in recorded history, you may enjoy the Excavated Shellac collection (https://excavatedshellac.com/) by Jonathan Ward.
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> Also that's a pretty common misconception, cancer is pretty well defined, abnormal cell growth
I don't think cancer biologists would subscribe to this simple definition (and it's not hard to find cases of 'abnormal cell growth' that do not ultimately constitute cancer). There have been, and continue to be, publications that pose the question of what it means for a patient to have cancer (cf https://www.cell.com/fulltext/S0092-8674(11)00127-9 )
Cancers quite clearly cause different diseases - it's even the case that cancerous cells can yield distinct clinical presentations simply based on whether they are primarily found in the blood or in solid organs.
I don't think anyone would disagree that 'viral infection' is also an unhelpful description. Viruses may transiently infect host cells and die out (the common cold, for example) or permanently become part of the host genome (consider the various herpesviridae).
HPV causes multiple lesions in humans, including warts.
Certain types of HPV are more associated with certain lesions over others, but the broad range of HPV targets means that dangerous HPV types could be transmitted through relatively innocuous means.
That's interesting—I know that NCGS is somewhat controversial and its causes aren't totally understood, so this makes me wonder how many people with NCGS have some other, undiagnosed underlying condition that the gluten's aggravating.
> Also the blood cancer has already killed one of the patients
This isn’t a fair interpretation of the death - the treatment of the drug-linked cancer bears a risk of multiple complications. One of these complications led to a patient’s death.
> The entire concept of inflation comes from the fact that various Med. cultures figured out you could issue coinage with a high percentage of gold and then slowly drop the percentage over time to increase the purchasing power of the government. It got insanely bad at some points, with "gold" coinage being less than 50% gold. Inflation wasn't just constant, it was an everyday fact of life.
I'm not an expert on this - how does this idea differ from that of 'seigniorage' where the sovereign can profit from the creation of money?
Your example only addresses the buying power of the sovereign; it's not obvious that it should affect the prices of goods between private parties.
Devaluing the new currency by adding lesser metals will also devalue existing currency that is "pure" as you aren't able to trust the value of the currency anymore, so the value of the existing pool of money will drop.
Its at a smaller scale, but it can be seen with counterfeit currency today. Cash-heavy businesses have to absorb whatever amount of counterfeits they accept, so they are really valuing your dollar at $0.99 if they might have to throw it out.
This is where the logic breaks down - lenders are selling these mortgages irrespective of any other conditions.
The only loans that aren’t sold are unsaleable investor and boutique loans. These wouldn’t be offered to normal borrowers in the first instance (since the loans of a normal borrower would be targeted for resale)
What I am missing is how do you profit from this. Many of these new entries have to know that the big insurance companies left for a good reason. That the smaller entries cannot absorb the risk they will be facing.
So, what’s the play? I have to assume there is some smart money who has identified a way of discharging the liabilities while still collecting pay, but how does it work?
I have no idea about these circumstances, but speaking generally...
It is really easy to make money from an irresponsible insurance company if customers have confidence in you. You take in a large amount of money from people insuring their stuff, invest it, make lots of money in the stock market, distribute the money back to the company owners as profit. Good times.
Then the highly predictable crisis that "nobody" predicted happens, the insurance company goes bankrupt, the customers get no payouts and the company owners don't really lose anything because they got their profits out years ago. Sucks to be a customer.
Under modern theory there is a Phase 3 where the government steps in to pay the insurance company extra money and keep them ticking over. It is an optional step and depends on political connections.
The basic idea is that insurance companies are paid to assume risk. But if, when the risk materialises, it turns out that the risk was actually held by the customers or government then it is a bit like the insurance company was making free money in the intervening period.
The goal is to underprice risk to drive out competition then grow to a point where you are too big to fail. All the while you collect bonuses as the leader of this scammy enterprise. You bank on events that happen every 50 or 100 years not happening before you grow so big you get bailed out when they do.
First, insurance boards by each state set the rules of the game, and one of the rules is to have an asset coverage ratio for the risk. Its effectively a sort of liquidity measure. Another one is minimum capital etc.
Both are traditionally paid by the original owners.
So, in effect, if the insurer goes belly up owners do lose some of the capital, and owners cannot loot the assets, either. But I agree that overall it is the customer who is most short changed because although they will get a partial payout in a crisis, it wont match their expectation - most of the missing funds will be gone as you have explained.
Thanks for this. I was anticipating some grand conspiracy, but nothing need be so complex. Just swoop in offering a product for a market who is required to buy. Pay yourself above market rates, and if you get lucky, you can maintain the system for years before ruin.
A mismatch in risk and term duration. In the worst case its short term cashflow, converted to profit ona regular basis. the huge tail risk is of a longer (likely) term. On a normal year reinsurance pays out expected losses, the primary insurer keeps their couple of percent margin, business continues. Eventually their optimistic/naive/malign actuarial numbers are shown up, reinsurance doesnt cover it, huge losses, bankruptcy, the profits are long gone and paid out, remaining share and debt holders are wiped out. Their insured customers are covered by the state after much bad pr, or just not covered.
Duh, I suppose this is obvious. Just take inflated pay as long as the good times last. I was trying to envision some grand huge payout, but methodical grind until apocalypse is fine too.
> That works out to ~$22 per American per year. Not sure what Visa's operating costs for their network are, and I'm no big fan of them (or any other credit card company) but that's far cheaper than I would have expected
You’re assuming quite a few things - the most significant are that the cost is borne equally among Americans. Instead, many Americans use credit card networks instead of debit cards, and those who use debit cards may have no option to avoid the fees.
Please share other collections if you know of any!