“We’re supposed to pay out, too? Quack!”

This could be a new method (if not already in place) for insurers of all policies to save (ie, make) money. No coverage for a severed limb unless you provide the limb and whatever (and/or whoever) cut it off. No payout for a damaged car from a hit and run unless that driver & unrepaired car can be produced.

A mother whose daughter was murdered is suing American Life Assurance of Columbus (AFLAC) because it has refused to pay the death benefit on life insurance the daughter applied for shortly before her death.
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In November 2004, AFLAC denied the claim due to “insufficient proof of loss” stating that it required the name of the person charged with the homicide. In 2009, AFLAC closed the file, while the investigation into the death of Michelle Williams remains open.

Twenty-six percent (26%) of employed adults say they have seriously thought that someone in their workplace was capable of mass violence, according to the latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey.

Most working adults (64%), however, say they have not seriously thought a co-worker would be capable of such violence. Another 11% are undecided.

One-in-three men (33%) say they have held that thought before, compared to only 17% of women.

Forty-three percent (43%) of government workers say they have felt a fellow employee was capable of mass violence, more than double the number among those who work for private companies.
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Just 22% of all Americans believe stricter gun control laws would reduce the number of workplace shooting sprees. Most (58%) adults say stricter laws on gun ownership would not help this problem, while another 19% are undecided.

Even as drug makers promise to support Washington’s health care overhaul by shaving $8 billion a year off the nation’s drug costs after the legislation takes effect, the industry has been raising its prices at the fastest rate in years.

In the last year, the industry has raised the wholesale prices of brand-name prescription drugs by about 9 percent, according to industry analysts. That will add more than $10 billion to the nation’s drug bill, which is on track to exceed $300 billion this year. By at least one analysis, it is the highest annual rate of inflation for drug prices since 1992.

The drug trend is distinctly at odds with the direction of the Consumer Price Index, which has fallen by 1.3 percent in the last year.

Drug makers say they have valid business reasons for the price increases. Critics say the industry is trying to establish a higher price base before Congress passes legislation that tries to curb drug spending in coming years.

Bill Gates said on Wednesday he believes Wall Street pay is “often too high” and that U.S. government ownership of American International Group Inc worries him because it has devalued the giant insurer.

The billionaire Microsoft founder, who retired in 2008 to concentrate on philanthropy, blamed a 1993 U.S. law that capped executive salaries at $1 million and warned that further bids to try limit Wall Street pay could also backfire.

“It was a bad milestone in controlling executive salaries when that $1 million cap went on,” Gates told a discussion on philanthropy at the 92nd Street Y cultural and community center in New York City.

“The compensation problem is a very interesting problem. I do think compensation is often too high, but it’s a very tough problem to solve,” said Gates, who was also ranked by Forbes on Wednesday as the 10th most powerful person in the world.

The $1 million limit on salaries encouraged companies to instead give executives lucrative stock options, sending pay to vast new heights.

The third-quarter GDP figures, released on Oct. 29, showed the economy growing at a 3.5% annual pace, breaking a string of four consecutive negative quarters. The growth was driven mostly by a surge in the production of motor vehicles and other manufactured goods.

This number was greeted by many economists and journalists as confirmations that the recession is over. What’s more, the rise in real GDP, combined with a sharp fall in employment in the third quarter, implies that productivity also soared during the period. Good news, right?

The trouble is that those GDP and productivity growth figures could be significantly overestimated—perhaps by one percentage point or even more.

That’s because the official statistics are not designed to pick up cutbacks in “intangible investments” such as business spending on research and development, product design, and worker training. There’s ample evidence to suggest that companies, to reduce costs and boost short-term profits, are slashing this kind of spending, which is essential for innovation.
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Here’s a sobering sign that companies are robbing the future to pay for short-term profits: Over the past year, U.S. employment of scientists and engineers—the people who create the next generation of products and make the U.S. more competitive over the long term—has fallen by 6.3%, according to a BusinessWeek tabulation of unpublished data. Yet overall employment has fallen only 4.1%.