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My Personal Struggle with OPM Addiction: A Cautionary Tale
Opium is my pet name for OPM – Other People’s Money. I know that it’s addictive and dangerous. I have personal friends whose lives have spiraled out of control after just trying a little bit of it. It seems harmless enough in small doses, but their experience has led me to do my very best to avoid experimenting even with recreational use of this powerful substance. But recently, I have fallen off the wagon. I share my story, hoping to help others. My name is Dr. Bastiat, and I am addicted to OPM.
I live in a very nice house on a golf course in a gated community in Hilton Head. A few months ago, we found a leak in our roof. My neighbor down the street had just replaced his roof. His estimate was $13,000, but during the repair, they found some problems with flashing and sheeting, and it ended up costing nearly $15,000. My house is a little bigger, so I was thinking of numbers close to $20,000. That would be a setback, but not enough of one to lead me to get hooked on OPM. At least, you wouldn’t think so, would you? But hear my story, dear reader, so that you do not suffer the same fate as me.
The roofer shows up, and he finds the leak. There’s a 5×5-foot area of bad shingles, plus some flashing that would need to be replaced. He figured $2,000 – maybe $3,000 if they found some other problems when they got into it. I mentioned that my neighbor got a whole new roof for five times that amount, and he just shrugged.
So he goes to my HOA. Our gated community has very restrictive rules – our mailboxes all match, and I recently got a letter from them pointing out that I needed more mulch around my landscaping. No kidding. Our neighborhood looks very nice. But the HOA rules supreme.
So he goes to my HOA and tells the lady that he needed to replace a 5×5-foot section of shingles on my roof. The lady there asked if he could match them. He said no, they don’t make that shingle anymore. And even if they did, the roof is 14 years old, and has faded some, and they wouldn’t match anyway. But he showed her samples he had found that were very, very close. He pointed out that the repair was in a valley of the roof, facing away from the road, and the new shingles were so close in color, that no one would ever notice the difference. Easy repair, and it’ll look great.
She said, “No.”
He said, “I have to fix this. His roof is leaking.”
She said “No.”
He said, “I need that in writing.”
So he comes to me with a letter stating that he was not permitted to repair my roof. I said some bad words, and he says, “Relax – the game is just beginning. Watch this.”
So he sends that letter to my home insurance company. They had already approved the $3,000 repair. He explained to the insurance company that he was not permitted to do the repair they had approved, and that the only way that he could repair this leak, and have all the shingles match, would be to replace the entire roof. Which would cost $70,000.
The insurance company approved it. They had to fix the leak.
The HOA approved it. The shingles all match, and it didn’t cost them anything.
My roofer approved it. He drives a Shelby Mustang.
My wife approved it. She got a new roof, and it didn’t cost her anything.
And here I sit, rocking back and forth in the dark, struggling with my addiction to OPM. You just can’t imagine the horror until you’ve been there yourself.
But I’ll bet that you have been there yourself, haven’t you? Don’t try to act holier than thou with me – I know you’ve dabbled in the pleasures of this drug yourself, correct? Be truthful. Maybe a little harmless experimentation in college, like a Pell Grant or something? No big deal, right? In fact, it was kind of nice, wasn’t it?
Right. I knew it. So don’t judge me.
Plus, this was just a little relapse. A long weekend, if you will.
I can quit anytime I want.
In fact, I quit now. I’ve had enough. That was it. Never again. I really mean it this time. You’ll see.
Oh, boy…
It’s just that OPM is, um… so, well, so wonderful. There. I said it. It’s wonderful. It really is.
But I don’t want any more. Nope. Not me.
The politicians continue to run for office promising more and more OPM for the masses.
And they win, and they hand out the OPM. Not just to those who really need it — they hand it out to everybody. The people are happy and content, and re-elect the politicians. And we don’t criticize, because now we’re all on the take. And after all, just a little is harmless, right? Maybe just a little more. Why not?
And the politicians keep handing it out — it doesn’t cost them anything.
And they keep getting re-elected. And on and on we go.
It’s mostly harmless, right? Why not?
Oh boy…
This is going to be difficult to stop.
My name is Dr. Bastiat, and I’m addicted to OPM.
Published in General
Dr. B,
What’s really disappointing is that I live in North Carolina, and you didn’t invite me down to punch holes in your soon-to-be-replaced roof with you, which I
rarelynever get the chance to do.I believe it’s called an “adz”. We can team up on it!
!
Really?
He paid into a system and the system pays off and He erroneously calls it “free.” That’s “brillliant?”
I guess anyone and everyone Who ever had an insurance claim is “brilliant.”
We had our roof done–insurance paid for it, as it did for Dr. Bastiat–a year ago. Our roof is very steep (it’s a saltbox house design), and there are sections of the house that meet perpendicularly, thus requiring “weaving” of the shingles. It meant that two guys had to work at the same exact pace down the different peaks so that the weaving would come out right.
It took about ten days longer than the roofer originally estimated. I felt sorry for him, and he finally split his crew up so some of the guys stayed at our house while the others went off to the news jobs. Nice group of workmen. I really enjoyed the two weeks they were at our house.
Our total house square footage is a bit more than 3,000 square feet (the exact square footage depends on how generous our town’s tax assessor is from one day to the next), and the final bill was about $18,000.
The most fun was the day crane came and deposited the flats of shingles on the garage roof so the bundles wouldn’t have to be carted up a ladder one at a time. The crane was fun to see:
You’re missing the point, Jimmy. The point is that most people call these things “free,” especially when they come from government.
I agree. It is bad to rope anyone into the degrading condition of social inferiority, the state of a beggar. But to rope all people, rather than just people who happen to be relatively less productive but still willing and able to function as independent adults of sound mind and body, is far worse.
I heard somewhere that cosmetic surgery is the most profitable health industry in the United States. Probably because of cut out all the saggy overhead with firm and well defined price mechanics.
OPM is just one type of OPP.
“You down with OPP? Yeah, you know me!”
1:25
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idx3GSL2KWs
Wow. Popcorn and pee.
This is not “other people’s money.” It is your money.
You paid for insurance. This is what you paid for.
It’s like social security. It’s not other people’s money. My wife collects social security and so, therefore, does my daughter. If it were welfare, I would be ashamed to take it. But the government required her, and me, to buy this insurance. I didn’t want to pay for this insurance, but I do pay for this insurance. I will take every penny of it back that I can legally get back.
When I am 58 1/2 years old I will be eligible to collect my military retirement pay. I earned that as well. I am very much looking forward to start receiving that retirement pay. It is NOT other people’s money.
I think your characterization of your insurance policy as “other people’s money” is bad, and it would seem to equate collecting on an insurance policy with policitians spending tax money on their junkets and such. The two are not the same.
The homeowner’s association is one of the biggest lawyer grafts going. It essentially allows a law firm or real estate firm to collect fees forever. All they have to do is not piss off the homeowners so much that they rise up and change the law firm or real estate firm that runs the HOA. That has happened from time to time, but it’s fairly rare since the by-laws are usually purposefully designed to be too arcane to attack them easily.
What is assured is that an HOA cannot be removed for all intents and purposes. To remove an HOA requires not a majority vote, but a unanimous vote. Every single property owner in an HOA must agree to remove the HOA. Even one single hold out will prevent removing the HOA. The courts have ruled that every property owner has a right to expect the “protection” the HOA offers to the value of the property, and no one have that taken from them by a vote.
Since it is virtually impossible to have a unanimous vote, you will likely never see an HOA removed.
Managing an HOA is a really good gig. You just collect the fees in perpetuity, whether you do anything or not.
That is an evil thought.
The government put a gun to your head and told you that you HAD to pay for insurance or go to jail. So you paid. The insurance that they force you to buy has certain rules. You have every right to demand to be paid off by those rules. It is NOT other people’s money.
This is the evil nature of socialism. It’s not only because socialism takes money from people to give to others, but because it makes people think that they have the right to make decisions for other people. Do not let other people tell you that you should not collect on your insurance money.
If the HOA is jacking up prices with their silly rules, that is not your fault. You paid for insurance to keep your home in good condition. You have every right to expect to collect on that policy.
You are mistaken about the law. What you believe is an insurance premium is legally a payroll tax. They are completely distinct things under law.
Skyler, US laws are not altered by your wanting them to be something else, or your believing false claims made by the mainstream media or your public school teacher.
Under the law, when you pay a tax you relinquish ownership of that amount of money. It is now legally the property of the US government, which has no legal obligation to pay you money in the future. If you want to know the truth, look up the facts, don’t just believe what FDR wanted your great-grandparents to believe so that he could get them to support his socialist scheme .
Government contractors . . .
Am I forced to pay? Do I collect based on the amount I pay? I don’t care what they call it. It’s an insurance policy inflicted by force. You cannot opt out of it. Therefore, when you collect on it per the laws, you should.
No obligation in the future? Yes, so get your money back while you can, even if it only helps towards destruction of socialism just a tiny bit.
I take what I’m legally entitled to take and I have no guilt feelings. When it is the government taking money from the people, it matters not whether we call it a tax or insurance, if it’s mandatory, it is a taking. This has little to do with whether I support and believe this is what our government should be doing nor whether it is being done equitably and efficiently, neither of which ever happens.
I guess it depends on how big you want ’em. This begs the question:
If a woman undergoes breast reduction surgery, does the doctor pay her?
What about the men, are they not the main users of this service?
An interesting part of this discussion involves the point that a homeowner gets a better price on their insurance premium if they have a new roof. That concept strikes me as odd. An insurance company is not obligated to replace an old roof because of wear and tear. It only replaces roofs because they have been damaged by wind or storms, ice and hail. I suppose an older roof would be more susceptible to incurring damage, but only slightly. A bad storm can damage any roof, including a brand new one. So why would an insurance company reduce its premium because of a new roof? What don’t I understand?
Storm (water) damage inside the home is typically covered by insurance, and can add up to a much bigger expense than a roof.
A bad storm might damage any roof, but is less likely to damage a new one than an old one. And if the new roof is damaged, the damage is likely to be less and cost less to repair. Hence the lowering of the premium.
Note also that the companies may refuse to provide coverage on a new policy if the roof is sufficiently old. That forces the seller of a house (or the buyer) to replace the roof at their expense before the sale goes through. (Most mortgage companies will not lend on a house that cannot be insured.)
Why shouldn’t your insurer lower rates after a new roof? If they do not, you go to another insurer who does not care who paid for your new roof, only that it is new.
But this particular roof could have been repaired much more cheaply except for the requirements of the HOA. So maybe citizens should somehow elbow in to agreements with HOA’s such that appearance only expensive repairs cannot be required.
A few years ago, The Reader’s Digest reported on a legal matter regarding a Maryland condo owner. He got a notice from his HOA that he needed to purchase a $ 550 mailbox, or otherwise his unit would not be in compliance with the HOA ground rules. He took the HOA to court.
The court ruled in his favor. In light of Dr Bastiat’s situation, it is interesting to note that one of the main reasons offered by the judge, that the owner should not be required to purchase a specific mailbox was this one: if the HOA can require a person to buy a $ 550 mailbox, what is to stop the HOA from requiring some type of expensive, $ 50K slate roof!
However it is debatable if the Maryland homeowner won at all. The HOA was required to absorb their own legal bills and those of the appellant. These legal bills were quite extensive, so the HOA split the cost up and then all the condo owners had to assume their portion of the legal bills. Each resident ended up paying more than $ 550 the mailbox would have cost the appellant, and he had to cough up that amount up as well. A number of the other condo owners ended up being very upset with the homeowner.
I think it’s a win for the homeowner. Yeah, he ended up paying more, but the end result (I bet) is the home owners are mad as hornets at their HOA officers . . .
For the same reason that your car insurance goes up after an accident. If you cause an insurance company to pay out damages on your behalf, they will raise your premiums, just like they did mine after they paid for a new roof. The trick for them is to hold the increase down to a level that won’t chase their customer away, while giving good enough service that the customer won’t “look around.” In my case, they failed to restrain themselves. As a result, they lost my business. I’ve been buying insurance of all kinds, business, residential, property, employee health, and other, as, I am sure, most everyone here has, for 50 years. After two or three years it’s almost always time to go shopping when it comes to insurance.
Umm no. Unless you are living in an RV the situations are not analogous. The reason your car insurance goes up after you have an accident is because you or someone you authorized to drive the car was responsible for getting into an accident. Unless you are responsible and make a claim your auto rates do not go up. (I know. I was rear-ended at a stoplight. Other driver was at fault. My rates did not go up.) By being at fault you have demonstrated a higher risk for the insurance company and they need to cover the costs of the additional risk.
This does not apply to a house, especially to roof damage. Roof damage is typically caused by weather events, not by owner error. Therefore, even if you replace your roof on the insurance company’s dime, the risk (to the insurance company) does not increase. (It drops.) Similarly, my insurance company lowered my rates after I replaced my furnace and air conditioning systems. Same argument. Their risk went down insuring a newer furnace and air conditioner.
I don’t know what insurance company you are dealing with, but if they raise rates when risk goes down, they are not very good.
It’s other peoples’ money in that some people collect more Social Security than they paid in. It used to be that it was assumed to be the case that most people would receive more SS than they paid in, but for newer retirees, that may or may not be so.
When you buy insurance, you are always betting that you will collect more than you pay in. That’s the nature of insurance.
Seawriter, you should definitely stay with your insurance company.
What a great illustration of the way government works. Reminds me of that girl a couple of years ago, whose insurance company wouldn’t cover her experimental chemo but offered to pay for her suicide (not even kidding).