johnallen
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john allen (M)
los angeles, US
Immortal since Jan 11, 2008
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    The Future of Us
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    The Future of Life Insurance
    When the life insurance guy called encouraging me bump up my plan from term insurance to whole life as they call it, I told him to just cancel the whole thing now. Because when he explained how much money my monthly allotments would add up to and I asked him where all that money goes, he couldn't tell me.

    He assured me that they had a 100 year history of the strongest money market management etc. I asked him for a list of company names where the money was actually invested and he came back with a half dozen names of corporations that I considered the enemy of any form of sustainable or socially conscientious practices.

    It dawned on me that all this time I had paid for life insurance as an "investment in the future of my wife and kids", as he put it. What good would a million dollars do my children when I die if the corporations I 'invest' in have bought the air, the water, the sunlight and the food source, to own and destroy in whatever fashion best serves the shareholders.

    I asked the broker if there were any life insurance company out there that invested in life-assuring enterprises. He simply said "no, there's no profit in it". no profit in it.... Wow, I told him, if he ever started a company like that I would find him 1 million customers and I would be the first.

    It occurs to me now that if an honest business person stepped up to the task, the profit in such an enterprise would be self fulfilling. Register your vote with a comment.


    Tue, Sep 13, 2011  Permanent link

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    Autotelic     Wed, Sep 14, 2011  Permanent link
    There was that shoe company that donated a pair of shoes to a child in need for every pair of shoes they sold... They have given away over 1 million pair of shoes to children in need while managing to make a profit at the same time. We need to see more companies like this one in the future...

    http://www.toms.com/
     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TOMS_Shoes 
    nagash     Fri, Sep 16, 2011  Permanent link
    I admire your attitude.
    we all have to start asking those questions, it's not so hard
    HallieRose     Fri, Nov 4, 2011  Permanent link
    Life insurance is just one in a million things we've been convinced that we need by none other than those profiting from them. I admire you canceling right then and there, asking questions and demanding answers.
    I'd encourage you and anyone who sympathizes with this point of view to do the same sort of questioning and, if need be, abandoning of other things now integrated into our daily lives like bank accounts and cell phones. If within your grasp maybe even the concepts of employment and formal education (at least questioning.)
    CoCreatr     Sun, Nov 6, 2011  Permanent link

    Thank you. Indeed, once we dig deeper so that we can actually vote with our money, the darnedest issues crop up. Synapsing prior art:


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