[MD]

It should be evident by watching American Advertising. American auto insurance companies are in the final throes of their war for customers.

The reasons are simple enough:
-There are few cash-flow cows remaining to American enterprise.
-The insurance companies actuarial tables assume infinite energy growth, which has ceased. They have nothing left to due but drive cash flow by under-cutting each other.
-Thus you witness their orgy of price slashing, that will lead to their demise. Each subsequent Irene brings their crisis closer.

any time now!

[MD]

On the up-side maybe it will drive tort reform, but even if so it will be too little too late.

[MD]

"What are we gonna do George? It looks bad!" Sam said to the window overlooking the Hudson.

"We keep adding customers and hope we don't get crushed by our own actuarial tables?" George answered from the foyer, where he had just stepped off the elevator.

"We've bet our futures and our fortunes on those algorithms, and now we are betting against them?" Sam sneered at the skyline.

"Maybe the dice will roll our way," George said hopefully.

"No. It's more like we're hoping for our number to come up on the wheel, and there's nothing we can do but watch the ball roll round and round, and hold our breath."

George had no answer.

[prajeshbhat]

The reasons are simple enough:
-There are few cash-flow cows remaining to American enterprise.
-The insurance companies actuarial tables assume infinite energy growth, which has ceased. They have nothing left to due but drive cash flow by under-cutting each other.
-Thus you witness their orgy of price slashing, that will lead to their demise. Each subsequent Irene brings their crisis closer.

They could insure the people who don't own cars but who think they will own cars sometime in the future. Then combine all those insurances in one big package, chop the package into securities and sell them to unsuspecting investors all over the world.

[nobodypanic]

It should be evident by watching American Advertising. American auto insurance companies are in the final throes of their war for customers.

The reasons are simple enough:

-There are few cash-flow cows remaining to American enterprise.

falling rate of profit. check.

-The insurance companies actuarial tables assume infinite energy growth, which has ceased. They have nothing left to due but drive cash flow by under-cutting each other.

actually they assume infinite economic growth, and out of structural necessity, but i suppose you could argue your point. in any case, when capitalism is in crisis, it's tendency to centralize and concentrate capital moves to the fore.

-Thus you witness their orgy of price slashing, that will lead to their demise. Each subsequent Irene brings their crisis closer.

it will only lead to the demise of the smaller, weaker, individual capitals; the larger ones will do fine so long as they can maintain profitability, e.g., expanding their share even in a declining market.

[MD]

It's not just the insurance companies. It's the drug companies pushing their drugs and the attorneys fishing for side-effect litigation and the insurance companies beating each other to death for a soon to be shrinking pool of drivers.

Remember back in 2006 when television advertising was full of real estate get rich quick schemes? Now look what we have and it's not hard to predict the next bubble-pop.

[Bruce_S]

Now look what we have and it's not hard to predict the next bubble-pop.

PMs?

[nobodypanic]

It's not just the insurance companies. It's the drug companies pushing their drugs and the attorneys fishing for side-effect litigation and the insurance companies beating each other to death for a soon to be shrinking pool of drivers.

Remember back in 2006 when television advertising was full of real estate get rich quick schemes? Now look what we have and it's not hard to predict the next bubble-pop.

intensifying competition in the face of dwindling profits.

monopolies or price collusion are one of the usual methods of compensating for protracted capital stagnation employed by individual capitals as these methods eliminate the downward pressures on profit due to competition.

the largest bubble of all is the capitalist economic system in its totality; when that one pops, however, is impossible to predict.