Societal economics on auto pilot:
a personal SGI insurance claim and the war in Iraq

Nipawin - Thursday - April 10, 2003 - by: Mario deSantis
 

concrete
block

Last week I had an accident as I was parking my Ford Tempo at the north side parking lot of Extra Foods in Nipawin. One car was parked on my immediate left and as I was slowing down into the chosen parking spot I didn't see the first concrete block in front of my car and as I referred to the second and more distant parallel concrete block I eventually stopped against the first concrete block. When I got out of the car I realized that the car's radiator was leaking.

 

new
radiator

Anyhow, I did my shopping at Extra Foods, returned home to drop the groceries and then I drove to Nipawin Automotive shop where I left the car in the capable hands of Jason Froesse. The car needed a new radiator and it was finally repaired last Monday April 7th.

 

if you
claim
it will
cost you

I have a Personal Auto Pak insurance policy with Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) and the following day, on Tuesday, I called the SGI's claim office. I talked to Laura Ratcliffe and I told her the story of the automobile accident. Laura confirmed that I have an insurance policy with a $100.00 deductible and since the bill amounted to $368.38 she mentioned I would be responsible for the deductible amount. However, Laura mentioned that before I file the claim I may want to check if the filing of this claim would be beneficial since there would be future adverse changes affecting my driver's license and the auto insurance. I responded that I would appreciate if she would provide her advice in writing and maybe do the accounting for me since I wouldn't know the particulars of the adverse changes. Laura mentioned she couldn't do that for me as herself wouldn't know these particulars. So, we left our conversation with the understanding that she will follow up with this claim.

 

 

sorry
can't
tell you
how much

I am telling this story to show how pervasive is the alienation of our social communication. I have been mentioning for sometime that our social economic system is on auto pilot, that is it is going forward by inertia in the absence of our natural talent to THINK. Now imagine again the above insurance claim situation. I have an insurance policy where the related risk should be financially balanced and yet I am advised to do my accounting and see if the filing of this claim is beneficial for my own interest. This is mind boggling; these insurance people are forgetting the social and economic purpose of insurance, and now accounting has a meaning of its own, disassociated from its own source, that is the social and economic purpose of insurance.

 

 

US blows
up Iraq
UN fix it

Our life is made up of metaphors, and all of these metaphors have some common understanding. Today, we have the American armed forces invading Iraq with no legitimate right, with no just cause, and now that they are almost finished with their precision bombing, they want to legitimize their aggression by having the United Nations do what they are best for: clean up after the American dumping. The American armed forces have forgotten their own social purpose to defend their country, and in the absence of their natural talent to THINK, the American armed forces have reached a meaning of their own, to wage continuous wars against the world.

 

 

need to
think

The morale of these metaphors is that we must stop our societies to be on auto pilot and start thinking again, individually and collectively.

 

 
 

Mario deSantis

   

 

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