Long live the Mob

The iconic movies made about the Italian mafia by Francis Ford Coppola capitvate the imagination creating worlds where men were men and the women cooked the pasta. There were many advantages to this form of social organisation that existed to ostensibly protect its members, their families and business concerns. As with all empires, great or small they come to an end, and in the 1990s Mayor Rudy Giuilini of New York launched an all out offensive against the largest crime families with a successful run of prosecutions.

However he may have destroyed the particular persons involved in these underworld activities but they were rapidly replaced by another more deceptive form of gangster that carried a Harvard MBA and took residence behind the fortresses of his banks and insurance companies. The new mobsters are the insurance and banking industry who have become the callous masters of deceit wearing ten thousand suits as they will attemp to sell you financial products they wouldnt sell to their grandmother(or maybe they would).

Human nature is partly charactertised by greed which is an important evolutionary tool. The danger however rises when it is abused with no consideration of what the gained wealth will do to help the rest of humanity. The other more subtle yet toxic feature of greed is that it creates in man a false sense of superiority and he invariably forgets the ease with which it can taken. Wealth is fragile which is probably what motivates the insurance companies to continue their relentless acquisition of money and thus power.

The insurance industry started in the 1970s with Lloyds of London and made its initial money by insuring the ships that carried African slaves to the Americas. An ignominious start indeed.

Since those questionable beginnings the insurance industry has colonised every aspect of mans behaviouir through primarily its tactic of fear-mongering. The agents will sell their products after having sewn the seeds of discontent and made predictions about the likelyhood of accidents, deaths and financial ruin.

It can be categorically stated that the insurance industry does not have good intent and like the mob it too someday will be extinguished