Cyan: Well, she’s just wrong about us being “slaves.” . . . was just wrong. Put that right outta your mind.
We have contracts! We get paid! It only runs until our debts are cleared! And who gets forced into debt, eh? I sure wasn’t! Could’ve got a cheap, non-moving prosthetic, easy. I just chose not to.
Chartreuse: Mine’s not a medical debt. It’s a “my house got crushed by an avalanche” debt.
Cyan: Well . . . you could’ve chosen to live somewhere that doesn’t have natural disasters?
Chartreuse: Huh. You got me there.
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I’ll presume Cyan was just saying the only thing one could really offer up after that kind of revelation. He seems a decent person, so far in.
So… Disaster insurance isn’t a thing, eh?
Now, what part of Sønheim ISN’T vulnerable to avalanches?
It has been mentioned that medical insurance is a thing, but that doesn’t prevent people from going into medical debt.
https://leifandthorn.com/comic/borrowing-limits-2033/
Hence it’s entirely possible that disaster insurance is a thing too, and Chartreuse might have even had a policy that covers avalanches and still gone into debt.
To be fair, while there are SOME health insurances without limits, there aren’t really disaster insurances without limits.
However, how could someone get into debt for losing the house? I mean, usually when you lose house, you are at zero, not below it. Unless it was something like mortgage, which is technically already debt but you may end up as slave if you lose the property securing the debt.
When someone talks about an underwater mortgage in the US it is just an expression, the house is not literally under water. Typically in that case, a borrower unable to pay is able to declare bankruptcy and walk away from the house at zero (albeit shackled to a shattered credit history that will burden them for years).
Neither applies to Sønheim it would seem.
There have been numerous instances where disasters happened and insurance companies didn’t cover all of the disaster. That said, I can’t recall any in recent history. I remember there was at least one sometime in the 1980-1995 timeframe that hit Florida and South Carolina. Possibly other places, too. I think it was a hurricane, but it was a long time ago.
I wasn’t living in Florida, but did have relatives who were.
That said, we didn’t put people into slavery over it. If I recall correctly, a few regional banks collapsed over it, in addition to the various people and businesses that went bankrupt.
So do you have legal avenues to pursue against unjust treatment like the Irish indentured servants? Are you still qualified as human beings? Do you still possess rights like the non-servants?
It’s one thing to treat someone like shit because you have the power, it’s another to perpetuate it because you think you deserve it.
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