1. water
2. warmth
3. calories
4. cash
5. information
This is in order of priority ... before to the disaster happens.
That is, the single most important item to have on hand in a disaster situation is a source of fresh water.
In the aftermath of a disaster, the order is reversed.
After the disaster, the most important issue is personal information.
This involves zillions of passwords, and also personal information like birth certificates, marriage licenses, social security numbers, wills, trusts, deeds, etc.
Recently, it was on the news that legendary singer Aretha Franklin did not write a will, and that this is going to screw up her family six ways to Sunday. Bob Marley did not have a trust or a will, and because his music just kept getting more popular after he died, that created infinite complications for his family. Not forming a trust or writing a will seems to be a common pattern among talented but uneducated people who become wealthy.
How to get people to sit down and do that kind of estate planning?
Perhaps fines could be imposed on those who do not have their act together.
People would pay a fine every year during their income tax preparation for not having a will or trust.
It would not be a set amount, but a percentage of income.
Wealthy people, for whom having a trust would be most important, would simply shrug off a small fine.
For example, in Finland, speeding tickets are adjusted to income, and can cost a wealthy speeder over $100,000. They are putting the lives of others at risk and should feel the sting of punishment just as much as the little guy who gets caught speeding.
In fact, the Finnish “day fine” system, also in use in some other Scandinavian countries, dates to the 1920s, when fines based on income were instituted for all manner of lesser crimes, such as petty theft and assault, and helped greatly reduce the prison population.
The fines are calculated based on half an offender’s daily net income, with some consideration for the number of children under his or her roof and a deduction deemed to be enough to cover basic living expenses, currently 255 euros per month.
Then, that figure is multiplied by the number of days of income the offender should lose, according to the severity of the offense.
What should the fine for not having a will or trust be set at? Say, 0.1% of annual income.
The average family income in the US is about $50,000, so a 0.1% fine on income would come to $50 per year for not having a trust. That's enough to hurt a little but not break the bank by any means.
In another example, the annual fine for a household with an income of $400,000 per year for not having a trust and/or will would come to $400. That sucks, but it is not onerous.
This might sound like yet another example of an intrusive "nanny state" trying to get people to do what they should already do on their own, supposedly much like a tax on sugary drinks. But the tax on sugary drinks is really a fee to compensate for the "negative externalities" that people's awful personal choices consequently impose on society (obesity epidemic). Likewise, fines for not having a will or a trust are really fees to compensate society for irresponsible personal behavior.
Advocates such as national medical associations and the World Health Organization promote the tax as an example of Pigovian taxation, aimed to discourage unhealthy diets and offset the growing economic costs of obesity.
Perhaps ideally, the information of whether or not one had a will or trust (and other information mentioned above, like birth certificates and marriage licenses) would be in a single ID, like the Estonian e-identity cards.
That may eventually come to pass.
In the meantime, it might be a good idea to use the materials at hand to have a reasonably secure way of securing personal information, the veracity of which would be vouched for by a credible institution.
That might be ... credit card companies.
In lieu of a government ID card that serves multiple functions, perhaps credit cards could be re-purposed for the task.
When people sign a will in the presence of a notary or establish a trust with a lawyer, that information would be submitted simultaneously to the government and to credit card companies.
When people do their taxes, they would submit credit card numbers that would confirm whether or not they had a will or a trust made out, and would accordingly be fined or not fined. (The revenue from the fines would in part go to compensating credit card companies -- and perhaps lawyers and notaries -- for this service.)
Perhaps someday citizens could vote with their credit cards, from home or at ATMs. Corrupt politicians who manipulate citizens to vote for them would not only be guilty of voter fraud, but also credit card fraud.
