strong profits

"while insurers have enjoyed strong profits in recent years, they say the cost of the pandemic could be overwhelming...without help lowering their costs by having the government pay for the most expensive hospital stays, mr.lee warned that insurers are likely to double their additional costs from the virus. if their costs go up 20 percent, mr. lee says rates could jump as much as 40 percent in 2021."

welcome to capitalism...and private costs turned into public debt by a cadre of greedy "entrepreneurs" and what will no doubt be their compliant whores in congress...this is nothing short of overt blackmail and/or extortion in the name of "profit" which is what happens when greed seizes control of the extractive levers...clearly insurance is no longer a service paid for by the insured, but rather an investment for profit takers who maintain wealth by shirking responsibilities at every available opportunity while whining ceaselessly about "additional costs"...what happened to profit as reward for risk? gone...vanished into the bowels of the imperial senate as it kowtows to its owners...why face risk when you can simply subsidize avarice through legislation? there may indeed be a serious pandemic going on and there may indeed be an extensive increase in costs to everyone...not just insurers...who are clearly taking advantage of a climate of fear to line there pockets with profits from health care which is already an obscenely costly experience for the ailing...i cannot say "fuck these people" enough...and that includes the ideologues who would defend this as a "function of the market" ( that's right economists...you unrepentant justifiers of greed and sub-set of whores nearly as slimy as politicians...that's you )...just another example of coronavirus as growth opportunity...

while many "non-essential" lower end retailers have simply locked their doors those on the upper end of the retail spectrum are putting up the plywood...one supposes in anticipation of mob action by the rabble who, in a state of misplaced rage and confusion are surely going to go after high end goods as the economy implodes rather than say...food...and other more pressing necessities...a crisis will highlight what is important and what can easily be let go of and i, for one, can think of little that would be of less use to the starving as a fucking coach purse...the elite think highly of themselves ( look at the megalomaniac in chief ) and they assume that we all value what they value...this may be error...there are more valuable things than material goods ( even though wee all must consume materially to survive )...you could hope that these "interesting times " might bring that into focus...one wonders.