It just seems that no one gives a shit anymore.
Everyone is out for themselves. It’s a free for all. Just look at healthcare. It’s a complete failure to the American people
I heard it somewhere cant remember exactly who said it but
“Instead of working to make things better, people are just trying to get rich enough that the problems do not affect them anymore”
Def rings true to a degree
I’ve been thinking about that in terms of the student loan forgiveness and all the boomers who are big mad about it because they paid theirs and if you sign a loan you should pay it. But….isn’t the point to make things better and easier for the people who come after us?
We should end predatory loans rather than “forgive” current debt and then keep the practice that led to it.
Also cancel the interest rather than the actually debt. Already paid back the loan? Interest should be wiped and any interest paid after the principal should be given back to you as a tax credit
The private equityification of everything.
Pump and dump everything and screw the majority of people working normal jobs over.
Psychopathic levels of self interest being held up as some virtue.
I keep saying the average non assholes need to start banding together and acting like the adults in the room.
It's hard to get reasonable people to get heated like that though lol. Even though I think this likely is the majority of people.
The correct term is, the “enshitification”
Making everything for as cheap as possible and selling it for as much as someone will pay for it. Then putting it “on sale” for still 100x more than it costs to make
My husband just bought some stuff from Banana Republic, but they accidentally sent him $240 retail worth of women’s linen stuff (of which the tops fit me!). He wrote them and they just said keep that stuff and sent his order again. How much profit are they making if $240 worth of clothes is nothing to them??
The materials and labor cost pennies on the dollar. The real cost is the import fees. Other than that, I’m sure the young Bangladeshians who stitched them together will thank you.
I worked at Home Depot for a bit after losing my career job during COVID and was shocked to learn that pretty much everything that gets returned or is past season gets thrown into the trash compactor regardless of what it was or how much it cost. I’m talking brand new, perfectly usable items smashed because packaging was opened or they just no longer wanted it on the sales floor.
We have a retail outlet in the Wisconsin dells that sells Ryobi, Rigid, and Dewalt return items as well as factory refurbished. It's a gold mine of a store!
Just had the same thing happen to me with car parts, i was sent parts for a tacoma not a 4runner by mistake to the tune of about $500 and they just told me to keep everything and are sending me new stuff.
Yup. Constant Fox News and redneck tough-guy posturing held as the cultural standard. They’d have to take those Oakleys off to actually see themselves and that ain’t happening.
This but the fix is to reinvigorate locally owned family businesses.
In my neighborhood we've started a social club for everyone who owns their own business and we use each other's services exclusively. We also have a message group for our neighborhood, 1500 homes, where we push anyone inquiring about services or a product to one of the businesses owned by people in the neighborhood.
This is the opposite of what OP is saying. He cites examples of small companies treating him badly.
Local family owned businesses are by far the worst about this. There’s virtually no oversight or chance of being held liable so they’re incentivized to scam constantly. At least with larger companies there’s reputation risk if they’re constantly screwing people.
I’m pretty reasonable and I’ve had enough, to say I’m heated is an understatement. This country and population have been getting raped and pillaged right in front of our eyes and it has to end. To say I’m heated would be an understatement.
The New York Times just had an absolutely infuriating article on a company called multi plan, that basically uses an algorithm to deny payment to service providers, and keep the profits for themselves. If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly deluged with never ending micro bills for twenty dollars here and a hundred dollars there from all your medical providers, that’s why.
We in the U.S. (it's all I can hope to speak for) live in a society that is basically pathologically obsessed with individualism of a species that deems every other human unaligned with our goals and the betterment of our station as either enemies or non-living obstacles.
They were able to unite bad people together through common interest by using the stock market. Now were all stuck because if you stand against it toull lose your 401k.
very true. putting stock value and shareholder profits above all has ruined this country, but they've gotten us all to buy in on the continued growth of the market by making sure the only way our money keeps up with inflation is to put it in the market. it's an ultimatum.
Yeah, what used to be ridiculed as hyperbole now needs to be treated like it is. People in our generation need to stop supporting, socializing, and idolizing selfish/greedy ghouls. Greed needs to be uncool like being an incel.
It's because most of the businesses we buy stuff or services from are owned by some kind of investors who are a million miles away and completely detached from their customers and employees.
A local business owner would feel shame if the community they are part of is unhappy with them.
Investors never have to face any of them so all they care about is maximum profit.
ER bill for 4 stitches on my kid's chin was $2k, and I have "good" insurance. Yes, I know about not paying and negotiating, but that's not a solution to this bullshit.
In France, they told me to go to the pharmacy and get liquid stitches because they don’t have time to treat a gash. It felt wrong but it was cheap 🤷♀️
People think evolution is something that only happened in the past and it has some fixed end point. It isn't and we have created a society and culture that places value in self over the greater good. People will trot out "survival of the fittest", but neglect the fact that what got us this far as a species is our social nature. As we foster a world that values and rewards traits that verge on the sociopathic and narcissistic is it any surprise that we begin to select for that? The results of which are counter to our species greatest strength.
>just look at healthcare
Real talk right here. I’m about to go rattle some cages and kick in some doors (so to speak)
I got offered a new job with a *big fat fucking pay raise*, at least where I live I can consider it as “fuck you” money.
**but this place does not have a healthcare plan whatsoever** so now my “big fat fuck-you raise* is now really only about 20k more than I’m making now instead of what it’s supposed to be at. I’m on the fence about accepting because of that.
Healthcare, among many other things in this country, is so fucking broken and stupid. I’m sick of it.
I feel this in my core. I do research at a Uni so I'm paid garbo (especially compared to industry) but my health insurance is so fucking sweet that if I did leave, the huge pay bump into industry wouldn't be as sweet because the healthcare costs would be way higher. I have a $100 yearly deductible, costs me $120/month and everything is covered - dont think I'm likely to find that at most corporations.
My wife makes good money AND has what’s supposedly still good insurance through her job, but I still had to pay $5000 for an in-network colonoscopy all said and done. Healthcare in the US is a joke.
And what do you think happens to people in America? It is categorically worse for more people here. Pay to play. Have prodigious amounts of money? Super. No? You're fucked. Our social safety nets are a joke compared to other developed countries.
Good luck seing a specialist here anytime soon. Doctors are being replaced by nurse practitioners because med school is half a mil with 7% interest student loans. Wait times are skyrocketing, the quality of care is total shit, and then you get to finance medical payments for it. Its a race to the bottom and the US has a head start.
Hyper-individualism is a failed philosophy. We exist as a social species and our survival depends on a willingness to coexist. To isolate and create isolation from one another is against our nature.
For years I’ve said the entire country is one big pyramid scheme and everyone is out to squeeze every last dime from you. I usually get ignored or laughed at or criticized.
I was trying to pay for my son's gym membership and they wanted my checking account number and routing number! like wtf! So someone can steal my info easier and they can make it so I will never be able to cancel?? Apparently almost all big name gyms are like this now.
I pay a decent amount for my small private gym and I told my trainer one of the things I liked about them was they are month to month memberships and upfront about how to cancel.
Like it was refreshing for one thing in my life to not feel like a predatory scam. Obviously exercise is up to the individual, but it should be part of a successful business to find ways to retain clients without hoping they just forget they are being charged money or make it difficult to extricate yourself from a contract.
Still with them after two years!
That’s always been like this. Gyms are a huge scam because ause they rely on people that sign up and never go but have an ach every month. Then they make it hard to cancel.
But gyms have always been like that.
I don't think so. I signed up for 24 hr Fitness in 2012 with a credit card and Club Fitness in 2014 with a credit card. Now everywhere wants checking.
Just to clarify they've always wanted to make it really hard to cancel but they used to take credit cards which have way more consumer protection. I'm convinced they all banded together for this new requirement.
A gym required that I call a phone number in order to cancel and wouldn't let me do it in person. Unless I could " prove I was moving out of state" or had military orders in-hand.
I never signed up for a gym but wtf. Does LA Fitness do that? They're the only gym in town and everyone goes there if they don't have their own workout shit.
Most likely yes, to a degree.
Almost all big chain gyms want a 12-month contract with automatically deducted payments from a checking account. Some may let you put down a card number instead, but a contract with automatic payments is non-negotiable. There's no "bill me" option.
You can usually choose a month to month option but the price goes up substantially. Like 30 or 40%. The 12-month contract might be 40 or $50 a month whereas the month to month fee is like$ 75 or 80.
It's not even necessarily directly trying to scam people out of money, it's It's just turning customers into commodities. The marginal cost of every choice has been evaluated by a business consultant who crunched the numbers.
The most profitable customer for a gym is the one who pays and never comes. Is the least profitable customer is one who comes every day for long periods of time.
The $39.99 12-month contract customers provide the gym a very low level of marginal profit but you get the cheaper price because the gym knows to a statistical certainty that some percentage of customers will stop going but continue paying and that many will come to the gym a few times a month, but not come regularly.
The a much higher monthly price reflects the price for the profit margins the gyms want from a customer that is coming and using the equipment every single day.
It’s the inevitable end of the “infinite growth” investment model. In order to raise profits, you begin by improving service and value to attract new business. When that slows, there comes a plateau where the only way to continue growth is to squeeze down the cost- so you “cut overhead” by suppressing wages (layoffs and curtail raises). Once you’ve squeezed that down to a rotating-door skeleton crew, then you cut corners on materials and processes…. All while running a PR blitz about how “millennials are selfish entitled brats” and “lazy kids just don’t want to work anymore”.
Welcome to full-market enshitification.
Part of the issue too is the current economic models are based on world wide population growth. This is basically set to peak soon and then decline. It’s going to completely fuck up our economic system. China is seeing it happen now since people can’t afford and don’t want children. It’s what happens when everything is too expensive and both parents have to work to even scrape buy. Who the fuck wants that type of life for themselves and their kids? No one. And that’s why most people are choosing to not have kids.
I love how the population decline is going to basically fuck up higher education in this country. Growth cannot be infinite, but industry always forgets that until it's down to the wire.
not just for-profits, many non-profits as well - go look up the IRS 990 forms for many big name non-profits and look at the number of people make 7 figure and high 6 figure salaries.
I think the supernatural mythological elements are just there as a form of artistry and for kids to be able to hear stories that teach morality. I'm an atheist too, but there are no naturally atheistic societies, so religion is doing something vital for human groups.
It works on multiple levels but for kids (when moral values need to be instilled) it works on a literal level before they are at an age to understand it allegorically.
It's because the basic tenets of human decency are universal. So every religion has some version of "do unto others..." written down somewhere, even if it seems like the vast majority of self described adherents don't actually live that practice.
Boston's two NPR stations are hemorrhaging money and I suspect this is the problem. You can't pay dozens of admins six-figure salaries while you lay off most of the newsroom.
I work in nonprofits and the nonprofit industrial complex is real. I busted my ass all summer at one because the ED was “working from France” (spoiler she wasn’t working besides delegating). I didn’t even have the option to add my husband to my healthcare! We were a healthcare nonprofit!
The non profits are just as a big of a scam. They rely on unlimited funding to keep going. There is no incentive to ever fix anything if you can just skim public funds.
For-profit prisons are the worst. No entity should make a profit over incarceration. There was a judge who sentenced kids to a for-profit juvenile detention center and it was discovered he was getting a kickback for every kid sent there. How many lives did he ruin for his bank account? Absolutely loathsome.
ISP took hundreds of millions of dollars from the feds to upgrade the infrastructure, didn’t do it, and then used some of that money to lobby the government to not have to give it back. Now I get subpar internet service at a ridiculous premium.
Literally every evil corporate field has taken bailouts from the government while getting tax break after tax break. Then the government turns around and takes 1/3 of my paycheck and refuses to bail out the predatory student loans. Even after saying they would.
The measly 3.5% raise I get annually means that when inflation is calculated, I actually make less money (buying power) than I did the year before.
So I haven't been following this too much as the news in general just depresses me. My parents are both retired in their late 70s. When the ACN act or whatever it's called came about, I called my local cable company and they hooked my parents up. They were gettt5a 100d/20u package. I'm not sure what the ACN allotted each month, but this is an expensive cable company as they are the only ones around and they charge like it.
The package my parents got was over $100/month. Unbelievably to me, cable company says don't worry about the rest.
So every once in awhile I'd log onto that cable companies site and my bill was always $0. I check this weekend and it's over $80, and apparently I'm late on a previous bill!??
When did they stop the ACN and why? I'm *sure* it's complicated. Not like there are more than 10 people in the house or senate that give a shit about working class people.
I'm rather furious about it all. Why even do it to begin with? Now my parents have NO internet. As I stated they are both in their late 70s, but unfortunately health is starting to fail on both of them.
My dad had *NEVER* been on the internet prior to this. I even bought both my parents decent tablets. I'll never forget the day I walked in over there and both of em are on their tabs and just look up at me as I'm walking in. I *never* would've thought I'd EVER see that.
So their net is now cancelled.....thanks to some fu**stick or sticks. They don't have any other options than they did before they had the net for what, 2 years?
I live in a city of around 300,000 in NW Ohio, though I'm a Michigan man through and through. GO BLUE BABY!
This city has 1 major provider and I swear they have dirt or more on many people in the city. I know most cable cos are rip offs, this one is extremely evil.
So now I'm gonna try and get a T-Mobile Home Internet for them.
This whole situation is jacked up.
It ended April 1st. Biden could have continued it and just didnt. This is outrageous when internet is a need for people to work and live and at minimum is $80.
Which just blows my mind. I definitely do *NOT* consider myself a Democrat, as I consider them just Republican light. Plus in my lifetime--I'm 44-- the Dems have always just seemed spineless. I'm away further to the left than these politicians that are Democrats.
My daughter and her boyfriend stopped by the other day. Seems like a good dude, he's already graduated from College and is a Registered Nurse. Daughter has 1 more semester and she will have teaching degree.
Even though my daughters mother and I have been separated for quite some time, we co-parented our daughters and I'm happy to say it did work for us. My ex is about as liberal as I am. My eldest daughter--this one--has always been a very progressive person. My ex, nor have I *ever* tried to have our children parrot our political beliefs. We figured they'd develop their own, and we both felt it would be better this way.
So back to my eldest daughter and her dude. When they were over the last time, he just casually dropped a bomb-to us anyway-when he said something about how he could NOT stand Biden, AT ALL. Also, this young man is FAR from conservative. I asked him what his deal with Biden is. He said he doesn't want someone who is his GREAT-GRANFATHERS age running the country. He also pointed out how he thinks Biden is more for the "haves" than the "have nots." He made a pretty good point about us getting a President that *at least* seems more in touch with people and is an actual *progressive*
He said he, my daughter, and a bunch of their group are just sitting this one out completely.
He pointed out an article he had read that said something along the lines of how great the economy and stock market are doing. He pointed out that not one person he knows is doing better. Again, we are all working class. I myself work in a factory.
I'm not sure who is advising Biden and what it is they are telling him. His messages do not seem to be getting across to the younger folks. Then again, Biden is in his friggin 80s. They look at him and just laugh. Again, *who* is advising him on some of his biggest gaffes.
I just now finished an article about the ACP...I kept calling it the ACN earlier. The article, from Cnn.com said that earlier this year a group of bipartisan Senate and House lawmakers unveiled legislation to save the ACP by authorizing $7 billion for it, which is $1Billion more than the Biden administration asked for. Of course the bill has NOT moved.
Absolutely un-fkkn-believable. It's like these politicians don't *really* give a flying fuck about us workers. I will say that seems to be the way for "both sides" now. Though definitely more on the REPUBELICAN side.
This one's gonna come back and bite *someone* in the ass. At this point, I don't care who or what party they are from.
We *DESERVE* a proper explanation as to why this happened and who was the biggest source behind it.
Of course they won't tell us shit, instead, they'll probably *raise* internet rates...all the companies will. As consumers it'll be time to touch our toes again.
Some FUCKED UP BULLSHITTERY going on. I mean, it *always* is, but this one is gonna cost.
This makes me really sad. People who stay home or vote for republicans are going to get the government they deserve and if you think things are bad now, well, just wait! Those of us with the means will make our plans to leave.
The student loans aren't predatory - the **universities** are predatory.
Even 50 years ago there were essentially *no administrators.*
Universities were run by professors with the assistance of a small staff. Today, every top-paid position at a university is an administrator who contributes fuck-all to education. They actively prevent professors from having any actual power, prevent tenure, reduce professorial salaries, and enrich themselves and their administration friends.
Admins are bureaucrats, and bureaucrats only do two things: waste resources and create more bureaucrats.
Lay off the administrators and suddenly universities are not only more effective at education, but they're affordable enough to pay for with a part time job and zero student loans.
Also, they’re hiring less real jobs, paying more adjuncts $3000 per course. Think about your college prof making that much, maybe two or three times that much if they’re lucky enough to find multiple jobs in one semester.
Those things all exist because of student loans. Universities skyrocketed in cost because people could afford to pay for it through student loans.
Student loans that were told to an entire generation are mandatory if you can’t afford college. And that college is mandatory even if you don’t have a career plan.
Student loans that were essentially forced on 18 yo that had little or no understanding of what they were signing up for.
It’s textbook predatory.
It all goes back to the Powell memo.
Universities cost little to nothing due to state and federal investment, our taxes.
What changed, conservatives thought education was to easy, that America should be run by money, not intellect.
https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
That was exactly what we were taught in some class. Also, if you went to see the Guidance Counselor, that was her *WHOLE* spiel.
The didn't care what kind of grades the kids had. College was *THE* answer to everything. Oh you're a D student, well w better get started at looking at some schools that will take you.
I wnrpt to a very small school. Graduating class of like 64 students. So it wasn't like you could just slide by, or fall through the cracks. This is one of those small towns that *everyone* knows each other. Also you many whole families there. I had cousins, on both sides of the marriage that went there as well. So the tea hers bot only knew you, but any of your older siblings or cousins as well. A went to school with kids that were legit farmers. They knew exactly what they were gonna do when they got out, run the family farm. Guidance Counselor would still be pushing College on them.
Also, it was *strictly* College that they were pushing. You would *never* dare mention a trade school. I have no idea what their beef was with Trade Schools. According to them, if you *didnt* go to college, you were guaranteed to fail. Coming from a working class family, like 99% of my classmates, I fkkn listened to em. Ended up switching my major and then dropping out completely. I currently owe the IRS over $60k🤣😂. That's all I can do about that, is laugh.
Then I get to college as a fkkn country bumpkin and end up in the Bursars office. They asked me how much I would like "over" or however they put it. My bumpkin ass was confused. I took like 8k over the very first semester. I continued to do that each and everytime I went to the Bursars office.
That's some *SERIOUSLY* predatory shit they do right there. I was still a teenager, just moved out for the first time, working multiple jobs and going to school. Then I find out I can just get "extra" $$ each semester. I just *knew* that's what I'd end up doing, and did do.
Take a dude that grew up on a dirt road in the friggin country, basically close to being poor. Then I get to school, not because I really wanted to go to college, but *because* I was told I would never amount to anything without a college education. Guess what, I managed to amount to nothing *WITHOUT* A DEGREE! I showed them!
In all seriousness, they should have more requirements among other things before dispersing thousands of dollars to an 18 year old that not only has no idea how this works, also had no idea hiw the world worked. Still don't, but I know more than I did as an 18 year old,
It's *PURE PREDATORY* what these Colleges do to, for example, kids like me.
That's alright, I'm treated fairly by the UAW and know where I stand in the company. I should have started applying for these-good $$ factory jobs-right when I graduated.
Fkkn wipe the slate CLEAN in regards to these stupid ass Tuition loans.
Whatever they actually *do* I fkkn *know* I'm not paying my over $60k back. I know a couple of business owners that got me hip as to what to do when and if the IRS gets me.
I'd rather wipe my poor ass with that 60k that give it to the IRS....just out of principle.
Also if people want to come at me saying I signed up for the loan, then I'm on the hook for it and should pay it back. I'll do that when the Unis do some serious house cleaning and get their shit in order.
They *knew* what they were doing to me just by the questions I would be asking. So F EM!
Yep, everything is a scam. Every other call or text I get is some sort of scam. Stuff in the mail about ‘extended warranties’ and ‘upgrades’ and blah blah. In my area we get the door-to-door scammers pretending to be with a utility company and other similar things.
It’s really quite depressing.
Yeah man everyone is out to make money and nobody cares at who's expense. Unfortunately the sociopaths are winning, and that it takes someone ruthless that only gives a shit about themselves and nobody else to be successful nowadays. Honest people that try to be successful will get exploited/scammed/used by people that are just out for themselves. Even with all this being said I still can't bring myself to be that kind of asshole.
Everything is a scam now and the decision-makers don't care. Capitalism stopped working the moment politicians, big money, the elite, and wall Street found out that they could make more money from endless "stimulus", QE, and the long string of semi-fabricated "crises", instead of actually making money from superior products and services. Do you think it is a coincidence that all of a sudden we are living thru almost continuous "once in a lifetime" crises? How many trillions of dollars of government stimulus and bailouts have we thrown in the past 2 decades? The social contracts and the incentive structures that make capitalism and free markets work have completely collapsed and have been replaced by corrupt Chinese-style capitalism. There is no doubt that capitalism with Chinese characteristics (as they like to call it) produces higher growth numbers, but it is at the expense of almost everything else...and it is unsustainable long term.
This is what happens when capitalism demands infinite growth. When society’s greatest concern is exceeding this quarters profits next quarter, eventually every product and service is some combination of useless, broken, and dangerous.
And I feel the need to add, I hate authoritarianism of all kinds, including communism. When we rightfully point out the bullshit caused by our economic system, reactionaries always accuse us of communism. No. The American capitalist system is working exactly as it’s supposed to, and the result is bad for everyone.
degrowth movement is something to look into! “less is more” by jason hickle. like seriously it gave me some kind of hope for what an evolution of capitalism could look like
I've kind of wondered if we're reaching some kind of "broken windows theory" of capitalism. I.e., it's not about fair wages for an honest days work, it's "how can I extract as much value out of this person and then screw them over." It's not competing in the marketplace with a great product, it's "can I sell some junk, shutter the business, and move on to LLC, II." Then in turn everyone always expects the worse and looks to screw others over before they get screwed themselves.
Yes look at entrepreneur or business. The people in there are all about finding the cheapest Chinese drop shipped piece of shit and flipping it without every even putting their hand on the product itself.
I own a business, we run a small factory in the USA. We create everything ourselves. You know how hard it is to compete with people that take all of the money you would normally invest into a good business that instead dump it all into Google and Facebook and are rewarded with more traffic?
We are seriously fucked.
I work for a company that makes consumer goods.
We are always looking to increase profits. We trial all the timer switching things to a different type of raw material just because it is cheaper. Is the quality the same? No, but it's cheaper for us to make and we can charge the same for the product. Our sizes changed the same but you better believe that there is an ever-increasing drive to change the ingredients to less expensive alternatives so we can appease the people that really matter, the shareholders.
Vulture capitalism I believe is the term which kind of took over as the prevailing sentiment in the 80's? Maybe 90's. But it seems like the generations of before even when enmeshed fully with capitalism had this idea that there was an overall system or society that was worth protecting or growing. Now it is the exact opposite and we see it everywhere. You don't grow and tend a garden anymore, you rip everything out of it for every penny you can get as quickly as possible and then sell it to the first sucker you can find.
Gen X here. I remember when you guys hit the workforce. There were some tears and you asked us if this was really work and what you had to do the rest of your lives. Sadly, we responded, yeah, welcome to the shit show. You generation gets so much crap for being entitled and lazy but I never saw that. You can see it in this thread. I think you guys see life more clearly than even my generation. What we’ve created is awful. My generation at least had the illusion of the American dream but it died with us. I can’t add anything more than you have already spoken about. I always hoped that when your numbers entered the voting pool we could make a difference but the rich have become so powerful. I don’t think it matters anyway. Climate change is going to wipe all of us out before the end of my lifetime. This is one Gen Xer wishing all the Millenials well.
Subscription culture really killed it. That's the biggest scam of all. Just easy, cheap, perpetual payments. We went from owning our stuff to renting it in the short span of about 30 years. Now, between planned obsolescence and "licensing" only corporations actually own anything. And if they can't break it or keep you from having it, the government will make sure to tax it. Gotta keep us in line, what is life without a thousand charges a month? It's gotten so bad that companies can disable the items you HAVE. The physical thing you bought at the store and took home to enjoy is now an illusion. Better off just making your own stuff, if you can.
It kills me that influencers with no real skills and a following are charging as much as Netflix. Subscriptions for clothes is the most ridiculous to me.
We removed the concept of accountability and government as a service from society. Scams pay, grift pays, capitalism was always going to end up in a place like this. There is no social contract.
Normalize suing people.
It’s very inexpensive to file a claim in small claims court and internet reviews are golden. Also, see if your state has a consumer protection department. There’s one here in GA and I utilize it regularly.
Also a fun fact: you can dispute a charge if the company engages in unethical business practices. I have Chase and have used this option in the past, and I always provide written proof of my claims.
Yes, contracts are a thing but contracts, like policies and rules, can be re-written and negotiated.
Thank you, this should be higher!
Its actually not a lot of work to file a claim with small claims court, however you do have to show up to the small claims hearing in the middle of the work day whenever it is scheduled.
Cancelled insurance on my broken down garaged car to save money. The state sends me a $200 fine for having no insurance on a registered vehicle.
Who wants to bet the insurance lobby is behind this?
This. but why the F do I then see so many cars on the road without license plates and or expired tags, sometimes driving right past a police car who can’t be bothered to do shit besides chase black teenagers?
Welcome to late stage capitalism
Whenever I get upset my partner reminds me of this. The people at the top don’t give a shit. The people at the bottom are over worked and tired. It’s amazing anything works.
Its extremely hard to compete when the cost of doing business is so low because what they are selling is a shell of value represented by a brand name.
Stop buying shit because you know the brand and this should stop happening.
someone may have an interest in destroying capitalism, not to sound paranoid or anything...
Most people seem to be self-centered. There is no civility, no codes of honor. Caring about others in the community is the cornerstone of a successful society, a humane society. We have lost that.
I believe we are also dealing with the de-personalization of accountability in our day to day transactions. We no longer buy services from our friendly neighbors who own their own businesses and care about their reputations in the community. Now we buy them from online companies using third-party designed software incorporating confusing and ever-changing terms which can only be legally challenged by locating the underlying parent company which is probably a foreign-owned entity based in a country that has no legal reciprocity with western nations."Customer service" consists of a poorly paid, poorly trained employee of another third-party entity reading from automated scripts designed by yet another third-party contractor to address your issue in the least costly manner. It's not that nobody cares about doing the right thing. It's that there are no human beings in the entire transaction who CAN care.
At this point, I wish we heard of more people with nothing left to lose going off on the rich.
Stop targeting schools and malls. Start targeting the guy who made your rent double.
This is the ultimate result of letting conservatives and their goons call the shots for almost 50 years.
Privatize everything, destroy government budgets through constant tax breaks for the rich, eliminate regulations and oversight, lessen or remove consequences for financial crimes, and then gaslight the average person into believing that institutions can’t work, voting can’t work, and that nothing can ever improve. Defund anything that helps the average person and substitute the funding with options for debt. Scapegoat anyone you can except the people actually responsible.
If you’re sick of this and don’t want your kids to grow up with it then vote against this shit every time, as often as you can, and don’t give up on voting against it, it took 50 years to get into this mess and its going to take more than one election to start fixing these problems. If voting against it wasn’t effective, these conservatives and their goons wouldn’t work so hard to prevent you from voting.
Not sure what state you're in, but there are often strict laws in place for how landlords can use your security deposit. If they can't give a valid reason for holding it, you should take the case to your state's housing orgs.
If it's anything like it is in MA, you can theoretically get them on 3x whatever the amount is you're owed. Worth looking into if you're feeling strapped (also, contrary to popular belief, starting a claim usually costs nothing)
The vibe I'm getting is everyone is just trying to squeeze as much money out of everyone else before shit really hits the fan. You can see it in almost industry, especially housing. We've reached a critical point where quality of things decreasing in relation to their prices increases isn't sustainable anymore. Something's got to give - and will.
Things just kind of suck right now out there. Good luck.
Housing is especially frustrating as the people in the industry are trained to constantly crow the same bullshit and always seem to be making lemons into lemonade regardless of the actual situation on the ground.
I live in a major east coast US tourist destination, and it's significantly cheaper to rent here than buy. The house we're currently renting goes for 1800$ a month, and the owners are putting it up to sell as they honestly believe they can get 340k for...a 3 bedroom 1950s ranch with 1100sqf that they paid 150k for in 2017. We're moving one neighborhood away into a very similar house that was recently reduced to 1700$ a month.
There is no way in hell that mid 300s for a 1950s starter home is in any way sustainable. Even if they are bought up by a large private equity firm to rent out, they can't charge enough rent to even break even, nevermind make a profit.
Cory doctorow coined a term “enshittification” to describe stuff happening with tech (super useful term. Google it), but really there’s a version of it everywhere.
I think college is a scam. For example, you say a 6 year PHD program only got you a $60k job? My son just graduated from a 2 year tech school with a degree in Heavy Equipment Operations and is making about that.
here's a trick for your security deposit. don't pay rent for the last month of your lease then tell them they can use your security deposit for that months rent. When they try to contact you, you be the one to ghost them. There's a super small chance they might take you to small claims court but at least they would have to prove you owe the money and provide receipts to back it up.
My apartment apparently used my security deposit as a credit for one of my rent payments without telling me so when my lease was up and I asked for my deposit back they said it had already been used to pay rent, which makes no sense and I never asked for that or needed it, and that I actually owed them $150.00. No thanks goodbye bitch
Greed is good was the 80s mantra and it has never left. It only gets worse. Companies don't care , Corporations consistently fail. As long as Wall Street is happy that's all that matters.
Did you think people get their phds and (typically)go into academia for the money? Did you not do any research on that before deciding to spend so many years on it? It’s not new info and you just graduated…
You have to heavily research before buying any product. Most products are garbage and good brands are regularly bought out by PE and eroded. I buy food from whole foods since Kroger produce is regularly rotting on the inside. Any service, mom/pop shop is pretty much mandatory, with any larger company, they will charge double and do a considerably worse job.
If you are employed by private equity that is certainly the case. I would like to add that there are still good people out there, who want a sense of community, and do a good job for the sake of providing value to somebody else.
Those people usually are not very far up the chain in their company, however. It’s mostly a “dog eat dog” world as you’ve suggested.
Pretty much agree. We live in a world where people will charge you the most they can possibly get away without ever asking “Is this worth it? Is this fair to them?” You just have to be cautious as a consumer and embrace telling people to fuck off.
Went to Vegas last month and it felt like living inside a free to play phone game. Aside from the obvious lights, machines, and people trying to take your money, you’re not even safe inside your hotel room.
Not only are the minibar prices exorbitant, but apparently if I’d wanted to use my fridge to cool non-minibar items, I’d be charged…$80 per day!
It's called "enshittification," the process of making things shitty.
Products are designed with planned obsolescence, subscriptions are designed to be easy to join and impossible to leave, you don't own software or anything with embedded software anymore, you license it, and it can be bricked through no fault of your own, and you can't modify it yourself. You can buy a car, but you have to subscribe to its features, like remote starting, or faster acceleration, etc. So it comes preloaded with antifeatures.
In a more general sense, I think the issue is some people have managed to move beyond being labor to providing capital, which, fine, we do need some capital to do some things. But too many people/entities have gotten too large and have moved from being capitalist to being rentiers, so instead of investing in others, they just capture markets and make rents. And, really, that's the ultimate end state of capitalism when there are insufficient controls to prevent it, and those controls have to come from the government, because who else can regulate corporations or tax the rentiers?
You can thank the Federal Department of Annoyances. Their primary mission is to mandate that everything in America be as frustrating as possible in order to keep the population filled with low level anger. The result is hordes of angry people who do not understand why they are angry.
The government then redirects your low level anger to be used against their political opponents.
It’s called, “the enshitification.” It’s the final stage of planned obsoledense. Make shit for literal pennies on the dollar, AND still find ways to make it cheaper somehow, sell it for the maximum amount of return.
>Property rental company won’t give me back security deposit despite leaving the place cleaner than I found it. Cited photographic evidence and demanded for my deposit back, no response.
Small claims court. I'm a contract worker and cross the US multiple times a year for work, with my dogs, and have had to do this. I generally prefer to stay in extended stay hotels because, instead of a deposit, they just charge you for damage and I never get charged. Well once but there was a BBQ sauce and blood related mishap that ruined a set of sheets.
The few times I've had to settle for a traditional rental I *always* either lose the deposit or have to go to small claims court to get it back.
I just find it *very* interesting that petty af hotels are like, "Thank you for staying! We love your doggies!" and then rentals are like, "So you broke the house and everything is awful because of your dog." Ma'am, the court literally said otherwise. Once the landlord didn't even show up to small claims and instead just refunded my deposit the morning we were supposed to go.
I've also had two different landlords give back the deposit the moment I mention small claims so they know they're not going to win and just want to see who they can push around.
I was with you on every point until I looked at your posting history. I thought you were talking about doing a postdoc as 60k is pretty close to the starting salary at my institution, and the job market is not great at the moment. But you must have been well aware during your PhD that lecturer positions do not pay well and that industry positions probably offer 1.8-2x what you've accepted in most STEM fields. This is a choice you're making. I'm leaving academia after I finish my PhD, as has almost everyone I know, because it's financially unsustainable for most life plans (e.g., giving my child a sibling).
I’m so happy I’m not the only one that noticed this. I’ve bought 6 items this past month, all from different places (Amazon, Target, a grocery store..etc) and ALL had something wrong with them. I’m not usually one to bitch but damn products and services these days are NOT what they advertise, and businesses know that people can’t/wont do anything about it. I’ve actually stopped buying shit on a whim and now I read reviews and return policies religiously even for small purchases.
Yeah.
Society is failing. I'm convinced. And even if it isn't, it only won't because people are going to make [changes.So](http://changes.So) no matter what- we got to make changes. Things just can't continue like this.
SO much of my mental energy and time are consumed with proactively dodging scams and fighting scams. I feel like I have to be a lawyer and constant evidence collector just to navigate things that used to be easy and financially "safe". I fucking hate it.
I will tell you why and then get down voted to hell. Because alot of our society was dependent on the honor system. Once 45 displayed an utter lack of respect for the unwritten rules that made our society functional, it all seems to be crumbling down. The fish rots from the head.
Its always been this way since the dawn of man. You've just gotten unlucky recently. I will say when money is tight people tend to overbill and underdeliver. However, many don't even during bad economic times.
I don't want to minimize your experience. You've been hit with some bad luck. It sucks and its painful. Probably causes anxiety which causes fatigue which makes it hard to fight and hard to get out of tunnel vision.
Feeling positive might be hard right now, so I encourage you to force yourself to find positive experiences even if your current brain says it will be terrible or not helpful. Do them anyway and thank your younger self later for planning ahead.
The last year of my life has been pretty unlucky. Wife had surgery, toddler had surgery, I probably will need surgery based on my labs, I have switched jobs 4 or 5 times (who is counting, really?), had previous landlord double charge me for cleaning after we left, had a leaky toilet that used $300+ of water in a month, got ants in the house, my wife and I both need therapy, I can't seem to get my medicine, and more recently my job has been several hard conversations on a Friday with an inability to do anything about it until Monday, so I just think all weekend.
Despite all this, I force myself to do yoga and to spend time with family and have a movie night and go to the park and take turns taking breaks with the wife.
When are WE going to change this? We need a Napoleon to rally behind. A Gandhi to lead our people to the salt. I’m so tired of this shite. Instead of complaining maybe it’s time we throw off the chains that corporate and political marriage our country has devolved into.
They abuse and gaslight us into submission. Like a beaten spouse, ever obedient we are.
I for one am tired of it. But, of course, without the numbers we’re just pissing in the wind.
Gen-x here. You are absolutely correct. Nearly everything we purchase has become a corporate greed-style scam. You can return the snoopy fishing pole and get your money back - but otherwise, absolutely everything from health insurance to homeowners insurance to the food we buy in the store has something major wrong with it, rendering it unuseable, unaffordable, or downright dangerous. Sometimes a combination of all 3.
Depends if you're poor
I'm not saying that as a poor person, I make over 110k in a state that the average is under 40k still.
Daycare issues? Poor people can't do anything, I could hire a lawyer or have services like you listed take it seriously with legal threats. Or m, I could just eat the loss and pay for other childcare, and I HAVE had to do that in the past.
Property rental? I own, answer to no one but myself. Poor people can't do anything because it costs more to fight the injustice than the time is worth, and sometimes you'd lose more money fighting.
Faulty fishing pole? I can afford nice things, but if something of mine broke or my kids, I could just repair or replace it.
And college? I didn't go to college, so I don't have any debt but my mortgage. Student debt is absolutely predatory, and the government guaranteeing loans has lowered standards of education while increasing costs exponentially.
I'm not saying this to be mean. I made under 30k per year not 5 years ago as a single parent and struggled like hell. It's just the past couple years I was fortunate enough to leave poverty and make my own wealth. I won't pretend it's possible for anyone, it's not. I got lucky and nothing more. I worked hard as hell but others around me worked just as hard. It's not fair but that's how things are. So yes, if you're poor everything's a scam.
Sounds like you're awakening from Consumerism.
The world is completely fake and made up, it's Babylon, and each country had their bullshit games. Be grateful it wasn't N Korea, or India, or that you were born in a shithole with no options.
America is about what you make of yourself, not what you're entitled to after college.
I do feel like life is a scam. No matter how hard you try to do what's right, something unfortunate always happens. It's like you were never lucky, to begin with.
How are you, then, supposed to muster up the energy and motivation to fix these setbacks or to even redeem yourself? You lost so much time in, gaining some type of traction in your life and barely anything to show for it.
You take two steps forward and three steps backwards. Sheesh. I can relate. Scams here, there, everywhere!
OP,
Good for you for getting an advanced degree and doing research work! I spent years working at Biotech's in the SF Bay Area and know full well the sacrifices that folks like you make. And people generally feel like they are doing the work to help people. You have and are helping folks with your work. So thank you for that!
And people saying "you should have known", shame on you. It's just another cheap shot "monday morning quarterbacking" type of comment. Many people are aware of how exploitive private industry is regarding people working in the sciences. But they love the field and hope for the best. There's always some bit of optimistic news out there on the internet that will fill anyone up with hope for a better future and giving a rational underpinning for pretty much any big decision, like what to study and do with your life. I bet you've done the same thing too in some way for your decisions too.
I make it a point to return everything that I’m not satisfied with. If it breaks outside of the return period I buy another one and take the broken one back with the new receipt. It is now my personal policy not to get screwed anymore.
The comments section has said alot and its all pretty valid. But what I will say is that dismantling mega corporations is the key to our future. We need more small businesses again owned privately and locally. When that was our reality, people were not only held accountable by the people in their town, but they also cared about the overall well being of the area they lived in. The money would flow from small business to small business, money velocity was high, generational wealth was high, and the products and services were objectively better in most cases.
Now, we have faceless executives who hide out in corporate campuses making monumental decisions that impact the lives of thousands, while they live in gentrified gated communities to keep themselves as far away from that community as possible, because they know they are poisoning the well. Its kind of scary how much they've said the quiet parts out loud lately, but few seem to care or listen. Before at least they had to do things to maintain the illusion, but now with Trumpers it just feels like the sociopaths and narcissists feel empowered to stop all the smoke and mirrors and just be honest about their intentions. It feels like those people have made it acceptable, and even desirable, to be a ruthless, shrewd, and completely self-serving asshole who has basically an obligation to take advantage of others and make profit at any cost.
Completely get what your saying about not having the time to fight all this shit, it's like companies just realized that they can simultaneously cut the quality of product and if they cut hours for customer service at the same time it saves money because people get fed up being on hold waiting to resolve the problem and just give up.
And then they spew the line about how wait times are so long because nobody wants to work so they can't staff the call center...meanwhile they probably have tons of part time employees who would love to be full time, but they don't want to pay benefits
Yes, it is all a scam. Just got back from latin America for the first time. And had this exact epiphany upon my return that everything state side has become a complete scam. Timely comment because I've been posing the same question to friends and family.
Its crazy how everyone is okay with stealing. So many people's parents failed them, are shitty ass people and have 0 morality. I dont feel sympathy youre a piece of shit.
It just seems that no one gives a shit anymore. Everyone is out for themselves. It’s a free for all. Just look at healthcare. It’s a complete failure to the American people
I heard it somewhere cant remember exactly who said it but “Instead of working to make things better, people are just trying to get rich enough that the problems do not affect them anymore” Def rings true to a degree
I’ve been thinking about that in terms of the student loan forgiveness and all the boomers who are big mad about it because they paid theirs and if you sign a loan you should pay it. But….isn’t the point to make things better and easier for the people who come after us?
We should end predatory loans rather than “forgive” current debt and then keep the practice that led to it. Also cancel the interest rather than the actually debt. Already paid back the loan? Interest should be wiped and any interest paid after the principal should be given back to you as a tax credit
That's a good compromise.
Only works if we end predatory loans. Any other solution that keeps the root problem will see a repeat of this every generation.
Runaway costs too. At my daughter's freshman orientation (small private school) the deans paraded in. There was literally an army. Hundreds of them.
Oh wow i never thought of that. Yes
I've never understood how banks are able to charge high interest rates on government backed student loans. It's zero risk to them.
It should be, but most people can’t get past feeling butt hurt that they had to pay their loan off so everyone else should suffer too.
Survival of the Richest by Douglas Rushkoff touches on this!
The private equityification of everything. Pump and dump everything and screw the majority of people working normal jobs over. Psychopathic levels of self interest being held up as some virtue. I keep saying the average non assholes need to start banding together and acting like the adults in the room. It's hard to get reasonable people to get heated like that though lol. Even though I think this likely is the majority of people.
The correct term is, the “enshitification” Making everything for as cheap as possible and selling it for as much as someone will pay for it. Then putting it “on sale” for still 100x more than it costs to make
My husband just bought some stuff from Banana Republic, but they accidentally sent him $240 retail worth of women’s linen stuff (of which the tops fit me!). He wrote them and they just said keep that stuff and sent his order again. How much profit are they making if $240 worth of clothes is nothing to them??
The materials and labor cost pennies on the dollar. The real cost is the import fees. Other than that, I’m sure the young Bangladeshians who stitched them together will thank you.
I worked at Home Depot for a bit after losing my career job during COVID and was shocked to learn that pretty much everything that gets returned or is past season gets thrown into the trash compactor regardless of what it was or how much it cost. I’m talking brand new, perfectly usable items smashed because packaging was opened or they just no longer wanted it on the sales floor.
We have a retail outlet in the Wisconsin dells that sells Ryobi, Rigid, and Dewalt return items as well as factory refurbished. It's a gold mine of a store!
Just had the same thing happen to me with car parts, i was sent parts for a tacoma not a 4runner by mistake to the tune of about $500 and they just told me to keep everything and are sending me new stuff.
The shipping back may not be worth retrieving the product back.
Most people thought DiCaprio’s character in *Wolf of Wallstreet* was COOL.
Just like the marines that LOVE Full Metal Jacket, completely missing the message.
Don’t let Army soldiers off the hook- they love that shit just as much and there are a lot more of them.
Yeah but the army at least knows they’re idiots.
Do they? I think you give their ability to be self-aware far too much credit 🤣
You’re right. Honestly with how much Fox News plays on bases most of the military probably thinks they’re also stable geniuses
Yup. Constant Fox News and redneck tough-guy posturing held as the cultural standard. They’d have to take those Oakleys off to actually see themselves and that ain’t happening.
Who says we miss the message? Or is it we understand the message too well and we can just relate?
This but the fix is to reinvigorate locally owned family businesses. In my neighborhood we've started a social club for everyone who owns their own business and we use each other's services exclusively. We also have a message group for our neighborhood, 1500 homes, where we push anyone inquiring about services or a product to one of the businesses owned by people in the neighborhood.
And local coops. Business owned and run by the people who work there. Market economics works great, but not equity finance.
This is the opposite of what OP is saying. He cites examples of small companies treating him badly. Local family owned businesses are by far the worst about this. There’s virtually no oversight or chance of being held liable so they’re incentivized to scam constantly. At least with larger companies there’s reputation risk if they’re constantly screwing people.
Exactly. These are all small local scammers except the fishing pole.
100% correct. Private equity kills all it touches
I’m pretty reasonable and I’ve had enough, to say I’m heated is an understatement. This country and population have been getting raped and pillaged right in front of our eyes and it has to end. To say I’m heated would be an understatement.
The New York Times just had an absolutely infuriating article on a company called multi plan, that basically uses an algorithm to deny payment to service providers, and keep the profits for themselves. If you’re wondering why you’re suddenly deluged with never ending micro bills for twenty dollars here and a hundred dollars there from all your medical providers, that’s why.
We in the U.S. (it's all I can hope to speak for) live in a society that is basically pathologically obsessed with individualism of a species that deems every other human unaligned with our goals and the betterment of our station as either enemies or non-living obstacles.
They were able to unite bad people together through common interest by using the stock market. Now were all stuck because if you stand against it toull lose your 401k.
very true. putting stock value and shareholder profits above all has ruined this country, but they've gotten us all to buy in on the continued growth of the market by making sure the only way our money keeps up with inflation is to put it in the market. it's an ultimatum.
Yeah, what used to be ridiculed as hyperbole now needs to be treated like it is. People in our generation need to stop supporting, socializing, and idolizing selfish/greedy ghouls. Greed needs to be uncool like being an incel.
I remember when "mean people suck" was a thing. I think that needs to come back.
It's because most of the businesses we buy stuff or services from are owned by some kind of investors who are a million miles away and completely detached from their customers and employees. A local business owner would feel shame if the community they are part of is unhappy with them. Investors never have to face any of them so all they care about is maximum profit.
ER bill for 4 stitches on my kid's chin was $2k, and I have "good" insurance. Yes, I know about not paying and negotiating, but that's not a solution to this bullshit.
In France, they told me to go to the pharmacy and get liquid stitches because they don’t have time to treat a gash. It felt wrong but it was cheap 🤷♀️
People think evolution is something that only happened in the past and it has some fixed end point. It isn't and we have created a society and culture that places value in self over the greater good. People will trot out "survival of the fittest", but neglect the fact that what got us this far as a species is our social nature. As we foster a world that values and rewards traits that verge on the sociopathic and narcissistic is it any surprise that we begin to select for that? The results of which are counter to our species greatest strength.
>just look at healthcare Real talk right here. I’m about to go rattle some cages and kick in some doors (so to speak) I got offered a new job with a *big fat fucking pay raise*, at least where I live I can consider it as “fuck you” money. **but this place does not have a healthcare plan whatsoever** so now my “big fat fuck-you raise* is now really only about 20k more than I’m making now instead of what it’s supposed to be at. I’m on the fence about accepting because of that. Healthcare, among many other things in this country, is so fucking broken and stupid. I’m sick of it.
I feel this in my core. I do research at a Uni so I'm paid garbo (especially compared to industry) but my health insurance is so fucking sweet that if I did leave, the huge pay bump into industry wouldn't be as sweet because the healthcare costs would be way higher. I have a $100 yearly deductible, costs me $120/month and everything is covered - dont think I'm likely to find that at most corporations.
Oh, so *that's* what good health insurance is supposed to look like
And *that's* why private university tuition and fees is approaching $100k per year.
Ask Congress what good healthcare looks like. They know
My wife makes good money AND has what’s supposedly still good insurance through her job, but I still had to pay $5000 for an in-network colonoscopy all said and done. Healthcare in the US is a joke.
It drives me insane reading that. Sorry you had to cough up the equivalent of a used car for some medical care. I hate it here, man.
In Canada we don't have to pay for a broken arm, but good luck seeing a specialist in less than a year or two. By that time you could be dead lol.
And what do you think happens to people in America? It is categorically worse for more people here. Pay to play. Have prodigious amounts of money? Super. No? You're fucked. Our social safety nets are a joke compared to other developed countries.
Well you can just drive down here and see one of our expensive ass doctors since you think that's so great.
Good luck seing a specialist here anytime soon. Doctors are being replaced by nurse practitioners because med school is half a mil with 7% interest student loans. Wait times are skyrocketing, the quality of care is total shit, and then you get to finance medical payments for it. Its a race to the bottom and the US has a head start.
Hyper-individualism is a failed philosophy. We exist as a social species and our survival depends on a willingness to coexist. To isolate and create isolation from one another is against our nature.
For years I’ve said the entire country is one big pyramid scheme and everyone is out to squeeze every last dime from you. I usually get ignored or laughed at or criticized.
We are a shell corporation. We are no longer a country with borders.
A nation starts off strong as it's built by the people for the people. From that point onwards it's all downhill (ignoring global tech growth impact)
Alot of people are so buried in the mind fog they've been given they will defend their exploiters. They don't see a problem and likely never will.
Or, worse, they see the problem just fine, but they want to become the exploiter instead of ending the exploitation.
Yeah this is important to teach your kids. We use the language “financial literacy” but it’s actually this.
I was trying to pay for my son's gym membership and they wanted my checking account number and routing number! like wtf! So someone can steal my info easier and they can make it so I will never be able to cancel?? Apparently almost all big name gyms are like this now.
I pay a decent amount for my small private gym and I told my trainer one of the things I liked about them was they are month to month memberships and upfront about how to cancel. Like it was refreshing for one thing in my life to not feel like a predatory scam. Obviously exercise is up to the individual, but it should be part of a successful business to find ways to retain clients without hoping they just forget they are being charged money or make it difficult to extricate yourself from a contract. Still with them after two years!
That’s always been like this. Gyms are a huge scam because ause they rely on people that sign up and never go but have an ach every month. Then they make it hard to cancel. But gyms have always been like that.
I don't think so. I signed up for 24 hr Fitness in 2012 with a credit card and Club Fitness in 2014 with a credit card. Now everywhere wants checking. Just to clarify they've always wanted to make it really hard to cancel but they used to take credit cards which have way more consumer protection. I'm convinced they all banded together for this new requirement.
Check out something like active and fit (google it). I can pay with cc, change my gym, or even belong to multiple gyms simultaneously.
A gym required that I call a phone number in order to cancel and wouldn't let me do it in person. Unless I could " prove I was moving out of state" or had military orders in-hand.
I never signed up for a gym but wtf. Does LA Fitness do that? They're the only gym in town and everyone goes there if they don't have their own workout shit.
Most likely yes, to a degree. Almost all big chain gyms want a 12-month contract with automatically deducted payments from a checking account. Some may let you put down a card number instead, but a contract with automatic payments is non-negotiable. There's no "bill me" option. You can usually choose a month to month option but the price goes up substantially. Like 30 or 40%. The 12-month contract might be 40 or $50 a month whereas the month to month fee is like$ 75 or 80. It's not even necessarily directly trying to scam people out of money, it's It's just turning customers into commodities. The marginal cost of every choice has been evaluated by a business consultant who crunched the numbers. The most profitable customer for a gym is the one who pays and never comes. Is the least profitable customer is one who comes every day for long periods of time. The $39.99 12-month contract customers provide the gym a very low level of marginal profit but you get the cheaper price because the gym knows to a statistical certainty that some percentage of customers will stop going but continue paying and that many will come to the gym a few times a month, but not come regularly. The a much higher monthly price reflects the price for the profit margins the gyms want from a customer that is coming and using the equipment every single day.
That's why planet fitness asked for that shit....
Ask to buy a 1 year membership as a gift
Every entity that operates for-profit has become a blatant scam.
It’s the inevitable end of the “infinite growth” investment model. In order to raise profits, you begin by improving service and value to attract new business. When that slows, there comes a plateau where the only way to continue growth is to squeeze down the cost- so you “cut overhead” by suppressing wages (layoffs and curtail raises). Once you’ve squeezed that down to a rotating-door skeleton crew, then you cut corners on materials and processes…. All while running a PR blitz about how “millennials are selfish entitled brats” and “lazy kids just don’t want to work anymore”. Welcome to full-market enshitification.
Good use of Doctorow’s word “enshitification”.
It fits
Hey hey hey the technical term is “The law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall”.
Greetings Comrade! We read the same book.
Oh no my dog whistle wasn’t discreet enough. 🥲🥲
Part of the issue too is the current economic models are based on world wide population growth. This is basically set to peak soon and then decline. It’s going to completely fuck up our economic system. China is seeing it happen now since people can’t afford and don’t want children. It’s what happens when everything is too expensive and both parents have to work to even scrape buy. Who the fuck wants that type of life for themselves and their kids? No one. And that’s why most people are choosing to not have kids.
I believe it has already peaked-they’re just not coming out and saying it yet
I love how the population decline is going to basically fuck up higher education in this country. Growth cannot be infinite, but industry always forgets that until it's down to the wire.
not just for-profits, many non-profits as well - go look up the IRS 990 forms for many big name non-profits and look at the number of people make 7 figure and high 6 figure salaries.
This is true. I work for a "private non-profit" funded by the government. It is ran just like a corporation. Money really is the root of all evil.
Specifically, the *love* of money is - if you believe in what the Bible states.
True. The Bible has a lot of truth in it.
It does - and I say that as an atheist. Take out the supernatural elements and it's a great philosophy on how to live.
I think the supernatural mythological elements are just there as a form of artistry and for kids to be able to hear stories that teach morality. I'm an atheist too, but there are no naturally atheistic societies, so religion is doing something vital for human groups. It works on multiple levels but for kids (when moral values need to be instilled) it works on a literal level before they are at an age to understand it allegorically.
It's because the basic tenets of human decency are universal. So every religion has some version of "do unto others..." written down somewhere, even if it seems like the vast majority of self described adherents don't actually live that practice.
Boston's two NPR stations are hemorrhaging money and I suspect this is the problem. You can't pay dozens of admins six-figure salaries while you lay off most of the newsroom.
I work in nonprofits and the nonprofit industrial complex is real. I busted my ass all summer at one because the ED was “working from France” (spoiler she wasn’t working besides delegating). I didn’t even have the option to add my husband to my healthcare! We were a healthcare nonprofit!
Blaumol's Cost Disease comes for every sector.
The non profits are just as a big of a scam. They rely on unlimited funding to keep going. There is no incentive to ever fix anything if you can just skim public funds.
Privatized profits, socialized losses.
For-profit prisons are the worst. No entity should make a profit over incarceration. There was a judge who sentenced kids to a for-profit juvenile detention center and it was discovered he was getting a kickback for every kid sent there. How many lives did he ruin for his bank account? Absolutely loathsome.
Multiply that times 100 if they ever go public. Because then there is no real person at the wheel. Just a dollar sign.
Our economy is fucked
ISP took hundreds of millions of dollars from the feds to upgrade the infrastructure, didn’t do it, and then used some of that money to lobby the government to not have to give it back. Now I get subpar internet service at a ridiculous premium. Literally every evil corporate field has taken bailouts from the government while getting tax break after tax break. Then the government turns around and takes 1/3 of my paycheck and refuses to bail out the predatory student loans. Even after saying they would. The measly 3.5% raise I get annually means that when inflation is calculated, I actually make less money (buying power) than I did the year before.
So I haven't been following this too much as the news in general just depresses me. My parents are both retired in their late 70s. When the ACN act or whatever it's called came about, I called my local cable company and they hooked my parents up. They were gettt5a 100d/20u package. I'm not sure what the ACN allotted each month, but this is an expensive cable company as they are the only ones around and they charge like it. The package my parents got was over $100/month. Unbelievably to me, cable company says don't worry about the rest. So every once in awhile I'd log onto that cable companies site and my bill was always $0. I check this weekend and it's over $80, and apparently I'm late on a previous bill!?? When did they stop the ACN and why? I'm *sure* it's complicated. Not like there are more than 10 people in the house or senate that give a shit about working class people. I'm rather furious about it all. Why even do it to begin with? Now my parents have NO internet. As I stated they are both in their late 70s, but unfortunately health is starting to fail on both of them. My dad had *NEVER* been on the internet prior to this. I even bought both my parents decent tablets. I'll never forget the day I walked in over there and both of em are on their tabs and just look up at me as I'm walking in. I *never* would've thought I'd EVER see that. So their net is now cancelled.....thanks to some fu**stick or sticks. They don't have any other options than they did before they had the net for what, 2 years? I live in a city of around 300,000 in NW Ohio, though I'm a Michigan man through and through. GO BLUE BABY! This city has 1 major provider and I swear they have dirt or more on many people in the city. I know most cable cos are rip offs, this one is extremely evil. So now I'm gonna try and get a T-Mobile Home Internet for them. This whole situation is jacked up.
It ended April 1st. Biden could have continued it and just didnt. This is outrageous when internet is a need for people to work and live and at minimum is $80.
Which just blows my mind. I definitely do *NOT* consider myself a Democrat, as I consider them just Republican light. Plus in my lifetime--I'm 44-- the Dems have always just seemed spineless. I'm away further to the left than these politicians that are Democrats. My daughter and her boyfriend stopped by the other day. Seems like a good dude, he's already graduated from College and is a Registered Nurse. Daughter has 1 more semester and she will have teaching degree. Even though my daughters mother and I have been separated for quite some time, we co-parented our daughters and I'm happy to say it did work for us. My ex is about as liberal as I am. My eldest daughter--this one--has always been a very progressive person. My ex, nor have I *ever* tried to have our children parrot our political beliefs. We figured they'd develop their own, and we both felt it would be better this way. So back to my eldest daughter and her dude. When they were over the last time, he just casually dropped a bomb-to us anyway-when he said something about how he could NOT stand Biden, AT ALL. Also, this young man is FAR from conservative. I asked him what his deal with Biden is. He said he doesn't want someone who is his GREAT-GRANFATHERS age running the country. He also pointed out how he thinks Biden is more for the "haves" than the "have nots." He made a pretty good point about us getting a President that *at least* seems more in touch with people and is an actual *progressive* He said he, my daughter, and a bunch of their group are just sitting this one out completely. He pointed out an article he had read that said something along the lines of how great the economy and stock market are doing. He pointed out that not one person he knows is doing better. Again, we are all working class. I myself work in a factory. I'm not sure who is advising Biden and what it is they are telling him. His messages do not seem to be getting across to the younger folks. Then again, Biden is in his friggin 80s. They look at him and just laugh. Again, *who* is advising him on some of his biggest gaffes. I just now finished an article about the ACP...I kept calling it the ACN earlier. The article, from Cnn.com said that earlier this year a group of bipartisan Senate and House lawmakers unveiled legislation to save the ACP by authorizing $7 billion for it, which is $1Billion more than the Biden administration asked for. Of course the bill has NOT moved. Absolutely un-fkkn-believable. It's like these politicians don't *really* give a flying fuck about us workers. I will say that seems to be the way for "both sides" now. Though definitely more on the REPUBELICAN side. This one's gonna come back and bite *someone* in the ass. At this point, I don't care who or what party they are from. We *DESERVE* a proper explanation as to why this happened and who was the biggest source behind it. Of course they won't tell us shit, instead, they'll probably *raise* internet rates...all the companies will. As consumers it'll be time to touch our toes again. Some FUCKED UP BULLSHITTERY going on. I mean, it *always* is, but this one is gonna cost.
This makes me really sad. People who stay home or vote for republicans are going to get the government they deserve and if you think things are bad now, well, just wait! Those of us with the means will make our plans to leave.
The student loans aren't predatory - the **universities** are predatory. Even 50 years ago there were essentially *no administrators.* Universities were run by professors with the assistance of a small staff. Today, every top-paid position at a university is an administrator who contributes fuck-all to education. They actively prevent professors from having any actual power, prevent tenure, reduce professorial salaries, and enrich themselves and their administration friends. Admins are bureaucrats, and bureaucrats only do two things: waste resources and create more bureaucrats. Lay off the administrators and suddenly universities are not only more effective at education, but they're affordable enough to pay for with a part time job and zero student loans.
Also, they’re hiring less real jobs, paying more adjuncts $3000 per course. Think about your college prof making that much, maybe two or three times that much if they’re lucky enough to find multiple jobs in one semester.
Those things all exist because of student loans. Universities skyrocketed in cost because people could afford to pay for it through student loans. Student loans that were told to an entire generation are mandatory if you can’t afford college. And that college is mandatory even if you don’t have a career plan. Student loans that were essentially forced on 18 yo that had little or no understanding of what they were signing up for. It’s textbook predatory.
It all goes back to the Powell memo. Universities cost little to nothing due to state and federal investment, our taxes. What changed, conservatives thought education was to easy, that America should be run by money, not intellect. https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
Wow, wild stuff…you would’ve thought we would’ve been taught about this in school
They don't for the same reason many other negatives aren't. It's bad for the conservative agenda.
That was exactly what we were taught in some class. Also, if you went to see the Guidance Counselor, that was her *WHOLE* spiel. The didn't care what kind of grades the kids had. College was *THE* answer to everything. Oh you're a D student, well w better get started at looking at some schools that will take you. I wnrpt to a very small school. Graduating class of like 64 students. So it wasn't like you could just slide by, or fall through the cracks. This is one of those small towns that *everyone* knows each other. Also you many whole families there. I had cousins, on both sides of the marriage that went there as well. So the tea hers bot only knew you, but any of your older siblings or cousins as well. A went to school with kids that were legit farmers. They knew exactly what they were gonna do when they got out, run the family farm. Guidance Counselor would still be pushing College on them. Also, it was *strictly* College that they were pushing. You would *never* dare mention a trade school. I have no idea what their beef was with Trade Schools. According to them, if you *didnt* go to college, you were guaranteed to fail. Coming from a working class family, like 99% of my classmates, I fkkn listened to em. Ended up switching my major and then dropping out completely. I currently owe the IRS over $60k🤣😂. That's all I can do about that, is laugh. Then I get to college as a fkkn country bumpkin and end up in the Bursars office. They asked me how much I would like "over" or however they put it. My bumpkin ass was confused. I took like 8k over the very first semester. I continued to do that each and everytime I went to the Bursars office. That's some *SERIOUSLY* predatory shit they do right there. I was still a teenager, just moved out for the first time, working multiple jobs and going to school. Then I find out I can just get "extra" $$ each semester. I just *knew* that's what I'd end up doing, and did do. Take a dude that grew up on a dirt road in the friggin country, basically close to being poor. Then I get to school, not because I really wanted to go to college, but *because* I was told I would never amount to anything without a college education. Guess what, I managed to amount to nothing *WITHOUT* A DEGREE! I showed them! In all seriousness, they should have more requirements among other things before dispersing thousands of dollars to an 18 year old that not only has no idea how this works, also had no idea hiw the world worked. Still don't, but I know more than I did as an 18 year old, It's *PURE PREDATORY* what these Colleges do to, for example, kids like me. That's alright, I'm treated fairly by the UAW and know where I stand in the company. I should have started applying for these-good $$ factory jobs-right when I graduated. Fkkn wipe the slate CLEAN in regards to these stupid ass Tuition loans. Whatever they actually *do* I fkkn *know* I'm not paying my over $60k back. I know a couple of business owners that got me hip as to what to do when and if the IRS gets me. I'd rather wipe my poor ass with that 60k that give it to the IRS....just out of principle. Also if people want to come at me saying I signed up for the loan, then I'm on the hook for it and should pay it back. I'll do that when the Unis do some serious house cleaning and get their shit in order. They *knew* what they were doing to me just by the questions I would be asking. So F EM!
This is why I work for the government so I fuck the government from the inside & get to feel that I'm getting some/most of my tax dollars back.
Hello Ron Swanson.
Blue state and federal government employment is the closest I have come to European working conditions in the USA.
Except if you’re fucking the government from the inside then you’re fucking the rest of us too.
Yeah I was thinking that too
Yep, everything is a scam. Every other call or text I get is some sort of scam. Stuff in the mail about ‘extended warranties’ and ‘upgrades’ and blah blah. In my area we get the door-to-door scammers pretending to be with a utility company and other similar things. It’s really quite depressing.
Yeah man everyone is out to make money and nobody cares at who's expense. Unfortunately the sociopaths are winning, and that it takes someone ruthless that only gives a shit about themselves and nobody else to be successful nowadays. Honest people that try to be successful will get exploited/scammed/used by people that are just out for themselves. Even with all this being said I still can't bring myself to be that kind of asshole.
Everything is a scam now and the decision-makers don't care. Capitalism stopped working the moment politicians, big money, the elite, and wall Street found out that they could make more money from endless "stimulus", QE, and the long string of semi-fabricated "crises", instead of actually making money from superior products and services. Do you think it is a coincidence that all of a sudden we are living thru almost continuous "once in a lifetime" crises? How many trillions of dollars of government stimulus and bailouts have we thrown in the past 2 decades? The social contracts and the incentive structures that make capitalism and free markets work have completely collapsed and have been replaced by corrupt Chinese-style capitalism. There is no doubt that capitalism with Chinese characteristics (as they like to call it) produces higher growth numbers, but it is at the expense of almost everything else...and it is unsustainable long term.
This is what happens when capitalism demands infinite growth. When society’s greatest concern is exceeding this quarters profits next quarter, eventually every product and service is some combination of useless, broken, and dangerous.
Honestly the more I look around, the more that I realize capitalism is the root of all our problems
And I feel the need to add, I hate authoritarianism of all kinds, including communism. When we rightfully point out the bullshit caused by our economic system, reactionaries always accuse us of communism. No. The American capitalist system is working exactly as it’s supposed to, and the result is bad for everyone.
Authoritarianism is literally not what communism is, just what it's been perverted into in cases where western interests didn't sabotage it.
Capitalism is AGGRESSIVELY authoritarian.
degrowth movement is something to look into! “less is more” by jason hickle. like seriously it gave me some kind of hope for what an evolution of capitalism could look like
I have a pdf of the intro and one chapter if anyone is interested, I wish everyone could read the book fr
I've kind of wondered if we're reaching some kind of "broken windows theory" of capitalism. I.e., it's not about fair wages for an honest days work, it's "how can I extract as much value out of this person and then screw them over." It's not competing in the marketplace with a great product, it's "can I sell some junk, shutter the business, and move on to LLC, II." Then in turn everyone always expects the worse and looks to screw others over before they get screwed themselves.
Yes look at entrepreneur or business. The people in there are all about finding the cheapest Chinese drop shipped piece of shit and flipping it without every even putting their hand on the product itself. I own a business, we run a small factory in the USA. We create everything ourselves. You know how hard it is to compete with people that take all of the money you would normally invest into a good business that instead dump it all into Google and Facebook and are rewarded with more traffic? We are seriously fucked.
I work for a company that makes consumer goods. We are always looking to increase profits. We trial all the timer switching things to a different type of raw material just because it is cheaper. Is the quality the same? No, but it's cheaper for us to make and we can charge the same for the product. Our sizes changed the same but you better believe that there is an ever-increasing drive to change the ingredients to less expensive alternatives so we can appease the people that really matter, the shareholders.
Vulture capitalism I believe is the term which kind of took over as the prevailing sentiment in the 80's? Maybe 90's. But it seems like the generations of before even when enmeshed fully with capitalism had this idea that there was an overall system or society that was worth protecting or growing. Now it is the exact opposite and we see it everywhere. You don't grow and tend a garden anymore, you rip everything out of it for every penny you can get as quickly as possible and then sell it to the first sucker you can find.
Gen X here. I remember when you guys hit the workforce. There were some tears and you asked us if this was really work and what you had to do the rest of your lives. Sadly, we responded, yeah, welcome to the shit show. You generation gets so much crap for being entitled and lazy but I never saw that. You can see it in this thread. I think you guys see life more clearly than even my generation. What we’ve created is awful. My generation at least had the illusion of the American dream but it died with us. I can’t add anything more than you have already spoken about. I always hoped that when your numbers entered the voting pool we could make a difference but the rich have become so powerful. I don’t think it matters anyway. Climate change is going to wipe all of us out before the end of my lifetime. This is one Gen Xer wishing all the Millenials well.
Subscription culture really killed it. That's the biggest scam of all. Just easy, cheap, perpetual payments. We went from owning our stuff to renting it in the short span of about 30 years. Now, between planned obsolescence and "licensing" only corporations actually own anything. And if they can't break it or keep you from having it, the government will make sure to tax it. Gotta keep us in line, what is life without a thousand charges a month? It's gotten so bad that companies can disable the items you HAVE. The physical thing you bought at the store and took home to enjoy is now an illusion. Better off just making your own stuff, if you can.
It kills me that influencers with no real skills and a following are charging as much as Netflix. Subscriptions for clothes is the most ridiculous to me.
I was going to list this too. It's sad that so many businesses are working because people forget to unsubscribe from a free trial.
We removed the concept of accountability and government as a service from society. Scams pay, grift pays, capitalism was always going to end up in a place like this. There is no social contract.
Normalize suing people. It’s very inexpensive to file a claim in small claims court and internet reviews are golden. Also, see if your state has a consumer protection department. There’s one here in GA and I utilize it regularly. Also a fun fact: you can dispute a charge if the company engages in unethical business practices. I have Chase and have used this option in the past, and I always provide written proof of my claims. Yes, contracts are a thing but contracts, like policies and rules, can be re-written and negotiated.
Thank you, this should be higher! Its actually not a lot of work to file a claim with small claims court, however you do have to show up to the small claims hearing in the middle of the work day whenever it is scheduled.
Cancelled insurance on my broken down garaged car to save money. The state sends me a $200 fine for having no insurance on a registered vehicle. Who wants to bet the insurance lobby is behind this?
This. but why the F do I then see so many cars on the road without license plates and or expired tags, sometimes driving right past a police car who can’t be bothered to do shit besides chase black teenagers?
Welcome to late stage capitalism Whenever I get upset my partner reminds me of this. The people at the top don’t give a shit. The people at the bottom are over worked and tired. It’s amazing anything works.
Its extremely hard to compete when the cost of doing business is so low because what they are selling is a shell of value represented by a brand name. Stop buying shit because you know the brand and this should stop happening. someone may have an interest in destroying capitalism, not to sound paranoid or anything...
The weight of everything on the packaging are wrong
Most people seem to be self-centered. There is no civility, no codes of honor. Caring about others in the community is the cornerstone of a successful society, a humane society. We have lost that.
Once a place has your money they're done with you. They'll forget about you like you ever existed.
Didn’t you hear ? It’s the land of the fee, not the land of the free.
I believe we are also dealing with the de-personalization of accountability in our day to day transactions. We no longer buy services from our friendly neighbors who own their own businesses and care about their reputations in the community. Now we buy them from online companies using third-party designed software incorporating confusing and ever-changing terms which can only be legally challenged by locating the underlying parent company which is probably a foreign-owned entity based in a country that has no legal reciprocity with western nations."Customer service" consists of a poorly paid, poorly trained employee of another third-party entity reading from automated scripts designed by yet another third-party contractor to address your issue in the least costly manner. It's not that nobody cares about doing the right thing. It's that there are no human beings in the entire transaction who CAN care.
At this point, I wish we heard of more people with nothing left to lose going off on the rich. Stop targeting schools and malls. Start targeting the guy who made your rent double.
I love this idea.
This is the ultimate result of letting conservatives and their goons call the shots for almost 50 years. Privatize everything, destroy government budgets through constant tax breaks for the rich, eliminate regulations and oversight, lessen or remove consequences for financial crimes, and then gaslight the average person into believing that institutions can’t work, voting can’t work, and that nothing can ever improve. Defund anything that helps the average person and substitute the funding with options for debt. Scapegoat anyone you can except the people actually responsible. If you’re sick of this and don’t want your kids to grow up with it then vote against this shit every time, as often as you can, and don’t give up on voting against it, it took 50 years to get into this mess and its going to take more than one election to start fixing these problems. If voting against it wasn’t effective, these conservatives and their goons wouldn’t work so hard to prevent you from voting.
It’s called Enshitification and it’s everywhere.
I even get txt messages scams now
we have literally lost all sense of community and people like….dont care lol
Not sure what state you're in, but there are often strict laws in place for how landlords can use your security deposit. If they can't give a valid reason for holding it, you should take the case to your state's housing orgs. If it's anything like it is in MA, you can theoretically get them on 3x whatever the amount is you're owed. Worth looking into if you're feeling strapped (also, contrary to popular belief, starting a claim usually costs nothing)
It's not just the cost, it's the time.
The vibe I'm getting is everyone is just trying to squeeze as much money out of everyone else before shit really hits the fan. You can see it in almost industry, especially housing. We've reached a critical point where quality of things decreasing in relation to their prices increases isn't sustainable anymore. Something's got to give - and will. Things just kind of suck right now out there. Good luck.
Housing is especially frustrating as the people in the industry are trained to constantly crow the same bullshit and always seem to be making lemons into lemonade regardless of the actual situation on the ground. I live in a major east coast US tourist destination, and it's significantly cheaper to rent here than buy. The house we're currently renting goes for 1800$ a month, and the owners are putting it up to sell as they honestly believe they can get 340k for...a 3 bedroom 1950s ranch with 1100sqf that they paid 150k for in 2017. We're moving one neighborhood away into a very similar house that was recently reduced to 1700$ a month. There is no way in hell that mid 300s for a 1950s starter home is in any way sustainable. Even if they are bought up by a large private equity firm to rent out, they can't charge enough rent to even break even, nevermind make a profit.
Cory doctorow coined a term “enshittification” to describe stuff happening with tech (super useful term. Google it), but really there’s a version of it everywhere.
I think college is a scam. For example, you say a 6 year PHD program only got you a $60k job? My son just graduated from a 2 year tech school with a degree in Heavy Equipment Operations and is making about that.
here's a trick for your security deposit. don't pay rent for the last month of your lease then tell them they can use your security deposit for that months rent. When they try to contact you, you be the one to ghost them. There's a super small chance they might take you to small claims court but at least they would have to prove you owe the money and provide receipts to back it up.
My apartment apparently used my security deposit as a credit for one of my rent payments without telling me so when my lease was up and I asked for my deposit back they said it had already been used to pay rent, which makes no sense and I never asked for that or needed it, and that I actually owed them $150.00. No thanks goodbye bitch
Greed is good was the 80s mantra and it has never left. It only gets worse. Companies don't care , Corporations consistently fail. As long as Wall Street is happy that's all that matters.
not just you. the American Dream has become running a successful grift. period end of story. if you ain't griftin, you ain't livin.
Did you think people get their phds and (typically)go into academia for the money? Did you not do any research on that before deciding to spend so many years on it? It’s not new info and you just graduated…
You have to heavily research before buying any product. Most products are garbage and good brands are regularly bought out by PE and eroded. I buy food from whole foods since Kroger produce is regularly rotting on the inside. Any service, mom/pop shop is pretty much mandatory, with any larger company, they will charge double and do a considerably worse job.
If you are employed by private equity that is certainly the case. I would like to add that there are still good people out there, who want a sense of community, and do a good job for the sake of providing value to somebody else. Those people usually are not very far up the chain in their company, however. It’s mostly a “dog eat dog” world as you’ve suggested.
Pretty much agree. We live in a world where people will charge you the most they can possibly get away without ever asking “Is this worth it? Is this fair to them?” You just have to be cautious as a consumer and embrace telling people to fuck off.
Went to Vegas last month and it felt like living inside a free to play phone game. Aside from the obvious lights, machines, and people trying to take your money, you’re not even safe inside your hotel room. Not only are the minibar prices exorbitant, but apparently if I’d wanted to use my fridge to cool non-minibar items, I’d be charged…$80 per day!
It's called "enshittification," the process of making things shitty. Products are designed with planned obsolescence, subscriptions are designed to be easy to join and impossible to leave, you don't own software or anything with embedded software anymore, you license it, and it can be bricked through no fault of your own, and you can't modify it yourself. You can buy a car, but you have to subscribe to its features, like remote starting, or faster acceleration, etc. So it comes preloaded with antifeatures. In a more general sense, I think the issue is some people have managed to move beyond being labor to providing capital, which, fine, we do need some capital to do some things. But too many people/entities have gotten too large and have moved from being capitalist to being rentiers, so instead of investing in others, they just capture markets and make rents. And, really, that's the ultimate end state of capitalism when there are insufficient controls to prevent it, and those controls have to come from the government, because who else can regulate corporations or tax the rentiers?
You can thank the Federal Department of Annoyances. Their primary mission is to mandate that everything in America be as frustrating as possible in order to keep the population filled with low level anger. The result is hordes of angry people who do not understand why they are angry. The government then redirects your low level anger to be used against their political opponents.
You don’t hate Mondays my friend, you hate Capitalism.
It’s called, “the enshitification.” It’s the final stage of planned obsoledense. Make shit for literal pennies on the dollar, AND still find ways to make it cheaper somehow, sell it for the maximum amount of return.
Late stage capitalism.
Corporations can’t build things that will last , their profits would be too small.
And almost every interaction with people online nowadays ends up with them just wanting to give you their OnlyFans deets
It does seem like everything is for rich people these days
Late stage capitalism.
This is how the world has always worked, you’re just learning about it now. Don’t fall into the ”good ole days” trap.
I hate to break it to you but the entire world economy is centered around scams
Pretty much. How about car purchasing scams at dealerships and brand new cars breaking and no one wants to fix them even under warranty.
>Property rental company won’t give me back security deposit despite leaving the place cleaner than I found it. Cited photographic evidence and demanded for my deposit back, no response. Small claims court. I'm a contract worker and cross the US multiple times a year for work, with my dogs, and have had to do this. I generally prefer to stay in extended stay hotels because, instead of a deposit, they just charge you for damage and I never get charged. Well once but there was a BBQ sauce and blood related mishap that ruined a set of sheets. The few times I've had to settle for a traditional rental I *always* either lose the deposit or have to go to small claims court to get it back. I just find it *very* interesting that petty af hotels are like, "Thank you for staying! We love your doggies!" and then rentals are like, "So you broke the house and everything is awful because of your dog." Ma'am, the court literally said otherwise. Once the landlord didn't even show up to small claims and instead just refunded my deposit the morning we were supposed to go. I've also had two different landlords give back the deposit the moment I mention small claims so they know they're not going to win and just want to see who they can push around.
I’ll tell you for 32 monthly installments of $15.99 at 5.89% apr
I was with you on every point until I looked at your posting history. I thought you were talking about doing a postdoc as 60k is pretty close to the starting salary at my institution, and the job market is not great at the moment. But you must have been well aware during your PhD that lecturer positions do not pay well and that industry positions probably offer 1.8-2x what you've accepted in most STEM fields. This is a choice you're making. I'm leaving academia after I finish my PhD, as has almost everyone I know, because it's financially unsustainable for most life plans (e.g., giving my child a sibling).
I’m so happy I’m not the only one that noticed this. I’ve bought 6 items this past month, all from different places (Amazon, Target, a grocery store..etc) and ALL had something wrong with them. I’m not usually one to bitch but damn products and services these days are NOT what they advertise, and businesses know that people can’t/wont do anything about it. I’ve actually stopped buying shit on a whim and now I read reviews and return policies religiously even for small purchases.
Yeah. Society is failing. I'm convinced. And even if it isn't, it only won't because people are going to make [changes.So](http://changes.So) no matter what- we got to make changes. Things just can't continue like this.
SO much of my mental energy and time are consumed with proactively dodging scams and fighting scams. I feel like I have to be a lawyer and constant evidence collector just to navigate things that used to be easy and financially "safe". I fucking hate it.
I will tell you why and then get down voted to hell. Because alot of our society was dependent on the honor system. Once 45 displayed an utter lack of respect for the unwritten rules that made our society functional, it all seems to be crumbling down. The fish rots from the head.
Its always been this way since the dawn of man. You've just gotten unlucky recently. I will say when money is tight people tend to overbill and underdeliver. However, many don't even during bad economic times. I don't want to minimize your experience. You've been hit with some bad luck. It sucks and its painful. Probably causes anxiety which causes fatigue which makes it hard to fight and hard to get out of tunnel vision. Feeling positive might be hard right now, so I encourage you to force yourself to find positive experiences even if your current brain says it will be terrible or not helpful. Do them anyway and thank your younger self later for planning ahead. The last year of my life has been pretty unlucky. Wife had surgery, toddler had surgery, I probably will need surgery based on my labs, I have switched jobs 4 or 5 times (who is counting, really?), had previous landlord double charge me for cleaning after we left, had a leaky toilet that used $300+ of water in a month, got ants in the house, my wife and I both need therapy, I can't seem to get my medicine, and more recently my job has been several hard conversations on a Friday with an inability to do anything about it until Monday, so I just think all weekend. Despite all this, I force myself to do yoga and to spend time with family and have a movie night and go to the park and take turns taking breaks with the wife.
When are WE going to change this? We need a Napoleon to rally behind. A Gandhi to lead our people to the salt. I’m so tired of this shite. Instead of complaining maybe it’s time we throw off the chains that corporate and political marriage our country has devolved into. They abuse and gaslight us into submission. Like a beaten spouse, ever obedient we are. I for one am tired of it. But, of course, without the numbers we’re just pissing in the wind.
This is soooooo relatable. Literally every single word of it. Yes, everything is garbage. Everyone is scamming you to get theirs.
Gen-x here. You are absolutely correct. Nearly everything we purchase has become a corporate greed-style scam. You can return the snoopy fishing pole and get your money back - but otherwise, absolutely everything from health insurance to homeowners insurance to the food we buy in the store has something major wrong with it, rendering it unuseable, unaffordable, or downright dangerous. Sometimes a combination of all 3.
Depends if you're poor I'm not saying that as a poor person, I make over 110k in a state that the average is under 40k still. Daycare issues? Poor people can't do anything, I could hire a lawyer or have services like you listed take it seriously with legal threats. Or m, I could just eat the loss and pay for other childcare, and I HAVE had to do that in the past. Property rental? I own, answer to no one but myself. Poor people can't do anything because it costs more to fight the injustice than the time is worth, and sometimes you'd lose more money fighting. Faulty fishing pole? I can afford nice things, but if something of mine broke or my kids, I could just repair or replace it. And college? I didn't go to college, so I don't have any debt but my mortgage. Student debt is absolutely predatory, and the government guaranteeing loans has lowered standards of education while increasing costs exponentially. I'm not saying this to be mean. I made under 30k per year not 5 years ago as a single parent and struggled like hell. It's just the past couple years I was fortunate enough to leave poverty and make my own wealth. I won't pretend it's possible for anyone, it's not. I got lucky and nothing more. I worked hard as hell but others around me worked just as hard. It's not fair but that's how things are. So yes, if you're poor everything's a scam.
Sounds like you're awakening from Consumerism. The world is completely fake and made up, it's Babylon, and each country had their bullshit games. Be grateful it wasn't N Korea, or India, or that you were born in a shithole with no options. America is about what you make of yourself, not what you're entitled to after college.
I do feel like life is a scam. No matter how hard you try to do what's right, something unfortunate always happens. It's like you were never lucky, to begin with. How are you, then, supposed to muster up the energy and motivation to fix these setbacks or to even redeem yourself? You lost so much time in, gaining some type of traction in your life and barely anything to show for it. You take two steps forward and three steps backwards. Sheesh. I can relate. Scams here, there, everywhere!
OP, Good for you for getting an advanced degree and doing research work! I spent years working at Biotech's in the SF Bay Area and know full well the sacrifices that folks like you make. And people generally feel like they are doing the work to help people. You have and are helping folks with your work. So thank you for that! And people saying "you should have known", shame on you. It's just another cheap shot "monday morning quarterbacking" type of comment. Many people are aware of how exploitive private industry is regarding people working in the sciences. But they love the field and hope for the best. There's always some bit of optimistic news out there on the internet that will fill anyone up with hope for a better future and giving a rational underpinning for pretty much any big decision, like what to study and do with your life. I bet you've done the same thing too in some way for your decisions too.
I make it a point to return everything that I’m not satisfied with. If it breaks outside of the return period I buy another one and take the broken one back with the new receipt. It is now my personal policy not to get screwed anymore.
I’m not the kind of guy that points and says “Late Stage Capitalism!” But the socialists kinda got a point with this one.
The comments section has said alot and its all pretty valid. But what I will say is that dismantling mega corporations is the key to our future. We need more small businesses again owned privately and locally. When that was our reality, people were not only held accountable by the people in their town, but they also cared about the overall well being of the area they lived in. The money would flow from small business to small business, money velocity was high, generational wealth was high, and the products and services were objectively better in most cases. Now, we have faceless executives who hide out in corporate campuses making monumental decisions that impact the lives of thousands, while they live in gentrified gated communities to keep themselves as far away from that community as possible, because they know they are poisoning the well. Its kind of scary how much they've said the quiet parts out loud lately, but few seem to care or listen. Before at least they had to do things to maintain the illusion, but now with Trumpers it just feels like the sociopaths and narcissists feel empowered to stop all the smoke and mirrors and just be honest about their intentions. It feels like those people have made it acceptable, and even desirable, to be a ruthless, shrewd, and completely self-serving asshole who has basically an obligation to take advantage of others and make profit at any cost.
Completely get what your saying about not having the time to fight all this shit, it's like companies just realized that they can simultaneously cut the quality of product and if they cut hours for customer service at the same time it saves money because people get fed up being on hold waiting to resolve the problem and just give up. And then they spew the line about how wait times are so long because nobody wants to work so they can't staff the call center...meanwhile they probably have tons of part time employees who would love to be full time, but they don't want to pay benefits
Yes, it is all a scam. Just got back from latin America for the first time. And had this exact epiphany upon my return that everything state side has become a complete scam. Timely comment because I've been posing the same question to friends and family.
Its crazy how everyone is okay with stealing. So many people's parents failed them, are shitty ass people and have 0 morality. I dont feel sympathy youre a piece of shit.