Too Late Canary

I was reading a story from New York recently where the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was gunned down in the street by an apparent assassin in a targeted attack. There are reports that on the recovered bullets, the words Deny, Depose, and Defend were engraved. Which is similar to the title of a book on insurance payouts, Delay, Deny, Defend - subtitled with, “Why insurance companies don’t pay claims and what you can do about it.”

Interesting.

While at this point it could be a scorned secret lover getting revenge for a perceived slight, it is worth exploring some of the other possibilities, where it is in fact an act of revenge for something UnitedHealthcare did, like not paying out insurance on a claim. And it is also worth considering what this might mean for other insurance companies and industries as a whole.

There are lots of things to unpack here, but perhaps it is worth highlighting Unitedhealthcare's share price as an indicator of how they have grown over time.

What is happening to UNH stock?
UNH stock has risen 27% from levels of around $480 in early 2022 to $610 now. This can be attributed to: a 42% rise in the company's adjusted earnings from $19.02 in 2021 to $27.02 now; partly offset by, an 11% fall in the company's trailing P/E ratio from 25.4x to 22.6x over this period.

What might be interesting to note at this point is the etymology of "insurance".

insurance (n.)
1550s, "engagement to marry," a variant of ensurance "an assurance, pledge, guarantee," from Old French enseurance "assurance," from ensurer, from en- "make" (see en- (1)) + sur "safe, secure, undoubted" (see sure (adj.)). Commercial sense of "security against loss or death in exchange for payment" is from 1650s. Assurance was the older word for this specific sense (late 16c.).

Safe, secure, undoubted.

Is that your experience with insurance companies?

For a while now I have been talking about how culture has changed, how we are more disconnected, less community-orientated and for less concerned with the consequences of our actions. I think that this is driven by a number of factors, and one of the main ones is the incentivization of maximizing profits at the expense of wellbeing. Business is increasingly untethered from the results and needs of society, and this means that while corporations make record gains, the average person struggles more and more.

This all has consequences.

depose
/dɪˈpəʊz/
verb
remove from office suddenly and forcefully.

Well, while it might be the wrong way to go about it, it could be said that the CEO of UnitedHealthcare was indeed removed from office suddenly and forcefully. And perhaps this is part of the "pushback" by a society that has itself been continually crushed into relative suffering. I think a lot of people are pretty fed up with not only the state of the world, but the daily conditions they face, and this ultimately comes down to two core groups as the cause, government and corporation.

Just the other day I was again writing about how alignment of incentives has lead us into a situation where we are disconnected. And yesterday, before reading the story about the CEO, I was writing about safety in society coming from the wellbeing of the people. And often, I have mentioned that "success" in the current economy is always going to be limited when it comes at the expense of the majority, because wide variation in opportunity and wealth, will lead to an unsafe community. We see it in many poor and developing countries, but it is increasingly spreading to those who were formally successful, because they provided opportunity to all.

I think the average person in many developed countries no longer feels the sense of opportunity that they might have earlier, and they often no longer feel the same sense of obligation to the community they live in, or the country itself. This results in even more individualistic behaviour, and in a world that has incentivized and encouraged a lack of emotional maturity and control, is it any wonder that violence is increasing?

The other day when I left my workplace and people were reflecting on what it meant for them, one of my friends and colleagues said that I might be "the canary in the coalmine" for many people. Where, if I lost my job, what does that say about the conditions and the future of the company? Since then, a couple more people have announced they are leaving, even though they didn't have to leave at all.

Maybe the CEO of a large insurance company gunned down on a New York morning is the canary that tells of the conditions of society now, and how the rebellion against optimized economic practices for wealth creation without distribution or concern for wellbeing of humanity, has started. Maybe it is a signal to show a fork in the road, that if the governments and corporations continue on the path of putting wealth growth in the few, over the wellbeing of the many, the rebellion is going to grow in momentum and snowball.

As I wrote just yesterday;

There is always rebellion.

And time and time again, the same mistakes are made.

“When you surround an army, leave an outlet free. Do not press a desperate foe too hard.”
― sun tzu, The Art of War

The governments and the corporations have cornered society and given no way out. This is combined with their relentless push to maximize the wealth and control for the few. In terms of a war analogy, we are the enemy of corporation and government, we are the army that stands against them, that is in the way of maximizing their profits and limiting their control. The more pressure they apply, the fewer opportunities we have, and at some point, the only way forward is to go through them, to fight. It isn't a pleasant option, but at some point, there is no option at all, there is only one door.

The canary in the coalmine was used to test for carbon monoxide levels. When the canary died, it was time for the miners to get out of the mine, as the levels were too high. The toxicity in society has been rising for a long time, but with so much information muddying for profit-seeking at government and corporation levels, the early warning systems are malfunctioning, or not present at all. There are dead canaries to be found all through the community, from the wealth gap, to the obesity epidemic, the addiction problems, to the depression and suicide levels in the young, to the birth rates and the attention disorders - yet, so few are paying attention, because they are spending their time paying to be entertained instead. This way, they don't have to look. But we all feel it.