Wednesday, December 08, 2010

Selling Nothing

Warren Buffett, Robber Baron?


Insurance is basically a swindle, a hedged bet. We all buy it because we figure it's better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it. But the insurance industry essentially exists to take your money and then come up with reasons to not give it back to you. No one who has ever dealt with an insurance company can say otherwise.

All of which is fine and good, until the following:

Did you know that the life insurance lobby is actively lobbying to restore the estate tax?


Why would the life insurance industry care about that? It turns out that ten percent of life insurance industry revenue is related to the estate tax. Wealthy people take out life insurance in order to reduce estate taxes because when you die, your life insurance payout doesn't count as part of your estate.

So the estate tax is essentially a benefice distributed to one of America's largest and most rapacious industries.

Way to level that playing field, Democrats

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