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Before K&R insurers got together, firms and wealthy families were paying badly negotiated sky high ransoms. Now professionals negotiators with ice running throu
by steve19 8y ago
Before K&R insurers got together, firms and wealthy families were paying badly negotiated sky high ransoms. Now professionals negotiators with ice running through their veins negotiate much better "deals" and also reduce the risk of death by two thirds.
Much lower ransoms should mean kidnapping is less profitable and so supply should decrease (of kidnappings).
- ca98am79 8y agoif no one paid, there would be no more kidnappings for ransom
- true_religion 8y agoPeople are inclined to pay ransoms, so you would have to make it illegal to pay ransom, which would make a disincentive to reporting kidnappings to the police as kidnappers want.
- jerguismi 8y agoInterestingly in US paying the ransom was illegal, nowadays they are reverting that, since it was highly problematic and resulted to more deaths for the hostages, and longer hostage times. And in the end the ransom often still was paid. My source (which I have been pasting here already 3 times): https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/episode-792-the-ransom-problem https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/epis...
- girvo 8y agoThe kidnappers can remain irrational longer than you can stay solvent.
- dbasedweeb 8y agoMaybe something like the Russian model makes more sense, if not legally. The most deterrent response is to hunt the kidnapers down and exterminate them, not pay them.
- jerguismi 8y agoSounds like a great way to get the hostages killed at the same time. Maybe it would work _after_ the kidnappers have been paid.
- baud147258 8y agoBut if the hostage takers are dead and other potential hostage taker know this, it would reduce the risk?
- vertex-four 8y agoWhich is great and all, except now your family member is dead, which I’m sure matters more to you than some game theory.
- DmenshunlAnlsis 8y agoThe result of which is everyone is at more risk, including your family in the future.
- baud147258 8y agoTo the family members, it matters. From the viewpoint of the governement, I'd say it makes sense.
- conanbatt 8y agoMarvelous.
- Matticus_Rex 8y agoIf no one undercut, prices for all goods could remain artificially high. Yet, the incentive for the individual firm (and the individual's loved ones, in this case) is to undercut (or pay). An insurance market provides (a) expert knowledge that keeps the price down, (b) an incentivized group that may be able to affect the likelihood of the insured event, (c) a group to provide financial incentives against risky behaviors, thereby pricing behaviors into the market in the same way motorcycle insurance or certain risky living arrangements get priced into the market via their insurers.
- lifeformed 8y agoTrue, but nobody is going to not pay and sacrifice their life so that hypothetical future people won't get kidnapped.
- jerguismi 8y agoThis might not be true: https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/episode-792-the-ransom-problem https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2017/09/01/548032302/epis...
- SirHound 8y agoWho would ever not pay their own ransom?
- steve19 8y agoWell Getty famously didn't want to pay his grandsons!
- simonh 8y agoHow many of your own family members would you be prepared to sacrifice towards that principle?
- tomtimtall 8y agoThat is not true. Past performance does not predict the stupidity of horrible peoples future actions.
- cm2187 8y agoI believe that's the policy that Israel applied with success.