What's a scam that's so normalized that we don't even realize it's a scam anymore?

This guy gets it. Chiropractors are a scam, but scammers are drawn to people who "fall through the cracks" because they're treated like their problems don't actually exist. Finally, they meet someone who takes their pain seriously. It's too bad the person who takes it "seriously" is a fucking charlatan.

It falls harder on women, who have more instances of pain that are ignored by the medical community, partially from the history mentioned above, claiming women must be experiencing "hysteria."

It absolutely happens because of the failings of the medical community.

I was suffering from hyperemisis last year and it took 3 doctors before I finally found one to take me seriously, which I consider it lucky it only took 3. The last doc I was practically on my hands and knees begging them to take me seriously.

In the middle of all that I also ended up with pneumonia. Normally I never get sick so I was like wtf is going on. But anyways, a doctor finally took some chest x rays and 2 weeks later they call to tell me that my X-ray was clear. I. Went. Off. I ended up having to go to the ER 2 days after the doctor visit because I could no longer breathe, it was so painful. How is it possible that my x ray was clear??? Then another week goes by and the assistant calls to tell me that I do have pneumonia and a prescription has been sent in. I just hung up and filed complaints with everyone I could. That office was a hot mess.

There are physical therapists who know the actual manipulations that work and use them as needed for treatment. It's the best of both worlds.

One of the objectives of single-payer is to drive down the costs of healthcare by eliminating the overhead of an insurance bureaucracy. There are other aspects that can be considered like nationalizing hospitals to eliminate private run, for-profit hospitals. People like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HCA_Healthcare are just as responsible for the high per-capita costs of healthcare we pay as are the insurance companies. And I agree with you, they shouldn't be getting a guaranteed government handout.

The scam part comes when you are forced to fight tooth and nail to get money from them even when you are clearly covered

It’s true insurance companies need to take in adequate premiums in order to have the money the money to pay claims. And when done in balance, insurance is a great thing. Not all insurance in a scam, no doubting that.

But the current state of insurance, especially health insurance in the US, shows that these companies are making massive profits. How does this happen? Literally one way: They take in more premiums than they pay out in coverage. How? By either knowingly overcharging people or skirting out of paying covered claims through other means (such as baseless rejections).

That’s the problem with the entire insurance industry and why it must be properly regulated in any industry: It is a race to the bottom. The worse the insurer treats the people that buy insurance from them, the better the company does financially (charge a lot, pay out a little). Mix in the fact that (1) you cannot shop around at the time you need a claim and (2) the contracts are so intensive only a sophisticated legal team can interpret them, and it’s a recipe for disaster.

So you’re right that all insurance isn’t necessarily a scam. But if you can’t see that the US health insurance industry raking in profits shows serious dysfunction that could be considered a scam, it’s worth taking a second look.

But the problem is that medical costs are only as high as they are because of insurance. Hospitals started making up fake, artificially high prices because insurance companies wanted a discount for referring patients to their hospital.

Hold up don't forget that in the US, healthcare providers base their pricing on what they will receive after insurance discounts. This creates a massively overinflated market where most of the value is made up and a large portion of actual payments goes to insurance and corporations

Insurance policies are many and varied, covering different types of risk.

Many policies are potentially scammy in some circumstances.

If by "have merit" you mean "has some positive aspects", sure. Every system has merit. Slavery had merit (slave owners got cheap cotton). The Holocaust had merit (antisemites felt better). The issue is weighing the merit against the negatives. You can't just say two systems have positive aspects and call it a day.

Are you a fan of democracy or authoritarianism? Capitalism is a system where productive forces are driven undemocratically, in the name of profit instead of by worker democracy. The commodification of everything exists in a world of private property:

• our bodies (labor power)
• our thoughts (intellectual property)
• the specific ordering of bits on a hard drive you own (digital media, DRM)
• the means of production (which exist as a result of collective knowledge, infrastructure, and labor)

These things being commodified and privatized are ridiculous in any democratic, non-capitalist system.

However, these ridiculous conditions are absolutely necessary in a capitalist society. Without them the system falls apart. And as society continues to progress, the situation gets more and more ridiculous.

What about when AI "takes away" jobs for 50% of Americans (as in capitalists fire humans in favor of AI)? That'll collapse our society. Less work would be a good thing in any reasonable system, but not in capitalism. Less work is an existential threat to our society.

If we ever have an AI that is as capable as humans are intellectually, the only work left for us will be manual labor. If that happens, and robots get to the point of matching our physical abilities, we won't be employable anymore. The two classes will no longer be owners and workers, they'll be owners and non-owners. At that point we better have dismantled capitalism, because if we don't then we'll just be starving in the street, along with the millions who die every year from starvation under the boot of global capitalism.

IMO American style capitalism is completely broken, but that’s not the only way to run your economy and still call it capitalism. Particularly in the EU area companies don’t always have the upper hand. Consumers and employees have the kinds of rights Americans can only dream of.

Don’t really know much about communism, but clearly USSR didn’t survive, and that may have something to do with the system. ML-people here can probably tell me how China, Cuba and other communist countries are doing today.

Arguably, socialism is a bigger scam given its history of failure.

There's a lot of trouble with definitions regarding capitalism. (I'd call them intentional since muddying the waters serves the people who benefit from our current system.)

Pick any person who is complaining about "capitalism" right now.

If you proposed a system where everything was structured the same as it is right now, HOWEVER instead of shareholders and owners possessing companies, every, single company was a worker cooperative (owned and controlled by its workers) then I am 95% sure the anti-capitalist you picked would

1. Not consider that capitalism, and
2. Vastly prefer that over what we have right now

With some minor variation. (Tankies don't think it's possible to maintain such a system without monopolizing violence. Anarcho-communists wouldn't be too happy about the scope and financial power of state and federal governments, and would seek to pare them down. Democratic socialists would think it was perfect. Little disagreements like that.)

But I think most other people (people who aren't anti-capitalists) would think "that's just a form of capitalism" if I described the above.

In fact, if I said,

A free market system, but ownership and control of the means of production is only allowed collectively and democratically. No shareholders allowed, no transferable individual ownership allowed.

Most ordinary people would consider that a form of capitalism. (Even though calling it capitalism is, technically, highly inaccurate). So it's a difficult conversation to have. Because most "anti-capitalists" disagree with most "pro-capitalists" on the basic definition of what they are fighting or defending.

I'm actually convinced that a lot of "pro-capitalists" are more eager to defend the free market system than they are to defend transferable, stock-marketable, individual ownership of the means of production. I think they would compromise on the latter if they could safeguard the former.

How do you figure financial mobility is a myth? I’ve altered my own financial situation successfully. That wouldn’t be possible if it were a myth.

At this rate, toothpaste will soon be sold in tiny single-use tubes.

Just on a slightly grander scale. I feel like it's malicious in a different way. Instead of tricking the unaware consumer into thinking they are getting the same product they are getting people to buy what they can now whether it's due to distance or price

Or can’t afford a giant pack, so you get poorer value. Being poor is expensive

Yeah I never understood why it's called the 9-to-5

I don't know if it is quite as simple as that. Most recently the bank failures were because those banks got upside down on bond holdings due to rate increases. If everyone chilled out and took their money out in appropriate time, then the bank would have had all the money. They just couldn't get all the money immediately due to the duration of their bond holdings.

Credit unions are a much better option.

No because at grocery stores, you get a product.

With renting, you are paying for landlord's mortgage. You don't even get to own anything.

Also, grocery stores do operate like a scam in certain cases, for example price gouging during a pandemic or other disasters.

Are you a landlord?

I agree that I never ear anyone I know tell me they use it, but they are sold in every drug store here in Canada so people must buy them, otherwise they would be bankrupt.

Maybe there's better examples. Maybe glasses. Like 500$ for plastic. More people are buying online though these days.

It is very normalized in the south of Germany, but generally Germany is very pro homeopathy so so it is even subsided by the public health care system.

Have you ever seen stuff like Occillococcinum or anything made by company Boiron? They don't advertise it as homeopathy, so even if you saw a homeopathic sugar pill you wouldn't necessarily know. That's a part of the scam

In Germany, a lot of medicine can only be sold in very regulated apothecaries. Those stores are allowed to recommend and sell homeopathy. There's even a state-exam for homeopath. Though for that you only have to demonstrate you won't kill your patients, not that you can actually help.

Here's what happens. Say you have three businesses providing roughly the same service in your area. They know you are going with one of them.

If they compete too much on price is a race to the bottom. There's a point at which one or more companies are losing money to compete. The ones with deeper pockets starve everyone else out then start raising prices.

Now, let's assume these three are the ones that made it.

They are not allowed to collude on price. That's illegal, they would be acting like a monopoly. Can't have that so they passed a law.

What's allowed? Publishing your pricing online. What's crazy is the other companies can see this so it's kind of light all three can still meet and compare pricing.

Because of this, you'll be paying about the same no matter where you go. You might be able to find a reseller that provides the connection but no real service. That's fine, but most people aren't using that.

You might find services bundled with other services like a mobile phone plan, tv packages, etc. That's even worse since they call use "price confusion" to make it look like price diversity but no one is letting anyone else eat their lunch.

All of this should be yelling at you full volume that this business is a de facto monopoly so therefore should be regulated heavily or run as a government utility.

That only works in a competitive market. A lot of places, even in the developed world, have just a single provider in some of the areas people live in outside of major cities. And even in major cities there’s often not enough competition to find reasonably cheap internet, all the prices are within stone throw of each other. Essential utilities being privatized is a scam, especially when infra is funded by the public dollar.

And different towns can be charged wildly different amounts for the same service

This is a dangerous game you're playing (despite the Robinhood like dynamic -- trust me I hate ISPs too, though I will say AT&T fiber has been quite reasonable). You can be sued for all the lost payments plus interest, and likely will be when/if they find out.

It's the same thing as getting an unexpected raise on your paystub, if it's in error and a reasonable person would believe it's in error, they're within their legal right to take the money back.

Wait until I tell who the "competitors" rent the infrastructure from

Hugely location dependent.

They all copy the "best" ideas from their international arms and their competitors

It's a tight run race to the bottom

The "one ad/one pamphlet" concept is a horrible idea. Reactionary political platforms rely on regressive ideas that have remained in the popular political consciousness for centuries - meanwhile, the positive development of society requires an understanding of complex things that won't be adequately expressed in such a brief format. Think economic planning, human ecology, etc.

This is a recipe for a cruel, inhumane, and backwards society. In short, bourgeois democracy.