I got a bit behind in my reading recently and so I missed this post last week from Martin Grace at RiskProf, which I resurrected from one of my Bloglines search feeds.
This is a great post on government inherently lacking the incentive to run an insurance program at anything but a deficit. This is objectively true. If you look at the federal flood insurance program and federally subsidized crop insurance, to name two stand-out examples, you will see one program that is broke and another that takes enormous resources to subsidize a relative few, most of who are either corporations or better off than the rest of the taxpayers who subsidize them. But what really made my jaw drop — not as much, I admit, as when I heard Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood come unhinged about State Farm at his February 16 press conference, but it did at least sag — was the colloquy in the comments between Martin and a reader, Brian. Do yourself a favor and read Martin’s take on the issues Brian raised — this stuff is so good it’s amazing. This should be required reading by legislators (and certain attorneys general) everywhere.