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Except increasingly many elderly don't have children / relatives to pass power of attorney to. A bit of a tangent but there is a market opening for a national

Except increasingly many elderly don't have children / relatives to pass power of attorney to. A bit of a tangent but there is a market opening for a national scale business that is a trustworthy end of life management service for people who are going to die alone. That is going to be a huge market if demographic trends are any indication. Local attorneys / solicitors already provide such services but one has no way of knowing whether they are trustworthy or will remain trustworthy (think Lionel Hutz from the Simpsons) whereas a larger scale business can afford to do internal auditing and integrity checks and make them public to ensure trustworthiness. A large enough scale business can also afford to maintain specialists on hand to handle things like managing online social media accounts that a local operation wouldn't be able to afford.

matthewdgreen 2y ago
Sure. But in our society that “trustworthy end-of-life management service” is going to realize that it can achieve better returns by abusing seniors’ finances (or else lookalike services will pop up.) This is the pattern with most debt management companies: they take vulnerable people and upsell them on high-interest consolidation loans. You either need strong societal values that can stop this (and a business structure that keeps reasonable people in control) or a government that legislates to stop it. We currently have neither in the US, which is one of the reasons we’re in this jam.
- ThrowawayR2 2y ago
  Firstly, is that worse than letting individual scammers prey on the elderly which is what is happening now? Authorities already can't keep up with finding and prosecuting each of these individual cases. For an institution, there's at least some small hope of scrutiny and eventual accountability for crimes. Secondly, there can be institutions that are trustworthy enough. There are nationwide scale banks in the US that I could name that have an unsavory past reputation but there are also ones I could name that don't. It's not impossible to make an end of life management business that the public can feel safe in hiring.
  - matthewdgreen 2y ago
    I am simply pointing out a risk. Everything you do to make things better can be corrupted, and you need to take enormous steps in advance to counteract that.
foxglacier 2y ago
Surely the government provides that? In my country it does. Those children EPOAs can also choose to give up their responsibility and the government will appoint a professional. It's not hard to just basically avoid hemorrhaging money.

matthewdgreen 2y ago

Sure. But in our society that “trustworthy end-of-life management service” is going to realize that it can achieve better returns by abusing seniors’ finances (or else lookalike services will pop up.) This is the pattern with most debt management companies: they take vulnerable people and upsell them on high-interest consolidation loans. You either need strong societal values that can stop this (and a business structure that keeps reasonable people in control) or a government that legislates to stop it. We currently have neither in the US, which is one of the reasons we’re in this jam.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago
Firstly, is that worse than letting individual scammers prey on the elderly which is what is happening now? Authorities already can't keep up with finding and prosecuting each of these individual cases. For an institution, there's at least some small hope of scrutiny and eventual accountability for crimes. Secondly, there can be institutions that are trustworthy enough. There are nationwide scale banks in the US that I could name that have an unsavory past reputation but there are also ones I could name that don't. It's not impossible to make an end of life management business that the public can feel safe in hiring.
- matthewdgreen 2y ago
  I am simply pointing out a risk. Everything you do to make things better can be corrupted, and you need to take enormous steps in advance to counteract that.

foxglacier 2y ago

Surely the government provides that? In my country it does. Those children EPOAs can also choose to give up their responsibility and the government will appoint a professional. It's not hard to just basically avoid hemorrhaging money.