The wonderful perpetual benefits of ZIRP...Seriously, I can count on one hand the number of journalists who have tackled this topic over the past 8 years; it's literally a media blackout on the topic.
A few months back he started a poll about a few competing companies that "backed traders". It drew more than a few "wtf's"; kinda wondering if he was doing some shilling on the side.
There was a thread earlier this week with Fred (Gabfly) where I basically stated that my position was that most of these problems originate with monetary policy.
So you don't think it has anything to with many teen-agers are texting and then have accident? I been hit twice in ten years and both times back ended by teens texting.
Nope. The statistics don't bear it out. Teenagers today are no more prone to accidents than teenagers in my day, proportioned to the fact that probably way more teenagers are driving today than in my day. Cars are far safer today than they were in my teenage years. If insurance was truly market driven, insurance rates would be lowering. Instead, they have skyrocketed simply due to profit motive. This to me, means insurance should not be a privatized system. But this stuff is really complicated and muffled because no one really knows what the role of Capitalism is in society - free competition is probably its most useful societal goal. No question in my mind though, competition does lead, in theory and in practice, to better products and generally lower costs.Except in insurance. One thing that worries me is the Free Trade also leads to better products. American cars were made waaay better once Asian cars were allowed in the US. I have not reconciled this fact with my own societal goal that one role of the government is to protect homeland jobs. Something has to give in my system of beliefs, or I am missing something. Working on it. One possibility is that the government takes customer satisfaction polls in value/$ and other metrics like longevity and reliability. The lower the satisfaction, it turns the dial to favor Free Trade and vice versa. So it is not a two-valued logic. Free Trade is neither good nor bad, but somewhere in between and constantly being monitored. This way, monopolistic environment and all their flaws are avoided. It also rewards excellence. This kind of adaptive system probably works on many things. For example, I am also thinking about the correct way to entice people to vote. One idea is that we don't vote for one candidate, but instead we grade several candidates on a scale of say 1 to 10. That way, if your top candidate doesn't win, your vote goes to the next top candidate in your list. This way, your vote always counts, it just gets weighted to some non-zero value. So say you like Trump, then Kasich, then Cruz, then Rubio. You assign 10-Trump, 7-Kasich, and so on. That way even if your candidate doesn't win, your 7-Kasich, etc gets counted and it could then be used to assign delegates.
Cars cost exponentially more to repair these days. The average new car now costs $35k. In any case, insurance companies of all kinds, eg prop and casualty, life, auto, report their various loss ratios. It's easy enough o see what if anything they are making on premiums versus investments. That might be more accurate than some anecdote.
They are less expensive when safety, performance, efficiency, longevity, comfort, etc, but most importantly, after inflation is taken into account then say in 1980. Part of the rise in price apart from inflation has to do with stringent government standards on fuel efficiency, pollution, and safety. Not to mention all the electronics in a car. Agreed that it should not be hard to estimate how much greed is in the rise in premiums above and beyond the fact that IRs are zero. University professors study this sort of thing all the time. I just don't have the time to go hunting for it.
If you think you are overpaying for insurance, get in touch with someone at a broker and let them shop rates for you. I work for a broker but we specialize in mid market commercial accounts, but I have a buddy that works for another smaller broker and he was able to match/improve my coverage for a fraction of the cost. State Farm is the cheapest in my area usually and I had a ton of discounts from having multiple lines, family members, long term discounts etc....the broker got me better coverage for nearly half the price. Two 23 year olds and we pay $1,680 annually total. That's full coverage on a $50k SUV and a $20k car. My homeowners went up $200, but they almost doubled my coverage.
Car parts themselves cost more is often real reason insurance goes up, and State government, some have panels to discuss insurance costs and others don't. I am still in court trying to get my 90 year old car fixed that teenager smashed into, parts are insanely expensive, but you break something, you should pay to get it fixed correctly. http://www.carinsurancecompanies.com/average-price-for-teen-car-insurance/ I believe foreign tax should be used to get foreign made products equal to American made products, if Japan car is better, the public will pay equal and often times more than American made car. Then my vote is Trump 20, Cruz -9 and Kasich -1, it is complicated enough without assigning more problems to voting. Just trying to get people out to vote is tough enough.
The important thing is the spread between what Treasuries are yielding and the inflation rate. If you use the official Fed inflation rate than that spread today is more less a normal spread, i.e. bond yield just keeps you a little ahead of inflation. But the place where the cheating my come in is in the way the inflation rate is computed. Years ago the government did not use hedonics.