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[โ€“] 242 points 3 months ago (10 children)

Dental care being treated as separate from health care.

You can die from teeth issues

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  • [โ€“] 54 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Honestly, just health care in general being locked behind insurance to the point where people conflate the two conceots entirely!

    Dental insurance in most cases is closer to what health insurance should be: an entirely optional, and generally affordable, policy that can offset major expenses. Not an expense that rivals housing in magnitude and is required for most people just to access the basic care needed by nearly everyone.

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    [โ€“] 164 points 3 months ago* (6 children)

    Privatization of government institutions and programs.

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  • [โ€“] 53 points 3 months ago

    Seriously this. The success of a public service shouldn't be how much revenue is generated or shareholder value is gained. We as a society are the shareholders and deserve infrastructure that works for us. Corporations have pushed the idea that lower taxes is better, but when you have to spend more to a company to get basic necessities, you're not really coming out on top buddy.

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    [โ€“] 111 points 3 months ago

    Two party politics

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  • [โ€“] 111 points 3 months ago (6 children)
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    [โ€“] 88 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (10 children)

    The real estate market. In many countries, the value of labor and materials necessary to build a house is about 30 to 40 40 to 120 thousand euros. Everything else is speculation.

    Edit. Initially I put 30 to 40 thousand euros.

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    [โ€“] 78 points 3 months ago (12 children)

    I moved to Chicago a few years. I go to rent an apartment. It has a "move-in" fee.

    I'm like what's that.

    Oh it's $500 that you don't get back.

    I say. What about the deposit? They say. Oh yeah we don't require that. Isn't that great ,?

    I'm like. So move in fee is my deposit but it's just guaranteed I won't get it back.

    Them: well it's different. It's a move in fee. We don't require a deposit but if you don't clean out the apartment to this list of specifications, we will charge you per item you miss.

    Example. Refrigerator not cleaned :$150 Floors not clean : $200

    Etc.

    So I was super unhappy about this and complained to anyone who would listen. To which my new Chicago neighbors and friends were like "that's how it's always been here,"

    Bro. Y'all getting fucked. Hard. Non refundable deposit where you still have to clean out the old apartment.

    Wtf. Should be illegal.

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    [โ€“] 66 points 3 months ago (16 children)

    Passive income. If value is being created and you're being presented some of it without doing any work it necessarily means that someone else isn't receiving the full value of the work they're doing.

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    [โ€“] 61 points 3 months ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 60 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Everything about cars from manufacturing, sales, insurance, repair, registration and taxes. We could just have Public transportation.

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    [โ€“] 58 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Ending a price in .99 so you think it is a whole dollar less.

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    [โ€“] 58 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Recycling being the responsibility of the consumer

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    [โ€“] 57 points 3 months ago (2 children)

    college textbooks. have to have the latest edition for class, but almost nothing is different from the two-years-old one.

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    [โ€“] 53 points 3 months ago

    Subscriptions for everything. Especially hardware.

    I already hate my always-online, have to use their shit app robot vacuum that gets worse after each update. I can't imagine buying a new, overpriced car these days and having it do all the same shit.

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  • [โ€“] 52 points 3 months ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 48 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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    [โ€“] 48 points 3 months ago

    Any form of gambling.

    Console memberships: having to pay monthly to use the games I already paid for, on the console I already paid for, to access the internet I already pay for.

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  • [โ€“] 47 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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    [โ€“] 42 points 3 months ago

    Paying for education that "the market" wants us to have so they can have a larger pool of skilled workers, leading to lower salaries

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  • [โ€“] 40 points 3 months ago

    Health insurance

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  • [โ€“] 37 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    College / university in many countries.

    In the US at least, its become such a parasitic industry, with tuition fees rising exponentially and far exceeding wage rates and job availability, that it accounts for a large portion of most people's personal debt.

    With so many applicants for so few jobs, a college degree is the new highschool diploma / "minimum requirement" for nearly every job now. 1 / 4 US adults have student loan debt, with an average of 40k in student loans.. Nothing is putting the brakes on degree inflation, tuition, or the student loan industry.

    The US federal government also makes a killing off of student loan interest fees, most of which is going to the MIC and Israel.

    They've made the product they're selling you (a degree), both required, and extremely expensive; the ultimate goal of any parasitic industry. Its a dream for state and private colleges, the US government and its military, and a nightmare for people either without a job, or chained to their desks for fear of losing their job and getting further behind on loan payments.

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    [โ€“] 37 points 3 months ago

    Bottled water.

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  • [โ€“] 35 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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    [โ€“] 34 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Working harder instead of prioritizing.

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    [โ€“] 33 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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    [โ€“] 31 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Private Equity

    Credit Score

    Derivitives

    Interest on Loans

    Money

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    [โ€“] 31 points 3 months ago (6 children)
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    [โ€“] 31 points 3 months ago
    [โ€“] 30 points 3 months ago
    [โ€“] 30 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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    [โ€“] 30 points 3 months ago

    Private insurance companies

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  • [โ€“] 28 points 3 months ago
    [โ€“] 28 points 3 months ago*

    Free market capitalism

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  • [โ€“] 28 points 3 months ago

    Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.

    Ban the entire business model.

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  • [โ€“] 27 points 3 months ago

    Extended Warranties.

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  • [โ€“] 27 points 3 months ago (4 children)
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    [โ€“] 27 points 3 months ago (1 child)

    Scientific journals/publishers

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    [โ€“] 26 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

    Suburbia, and by extension big-box stores. Hell, the entire fucking American economy is a huge scam just waiting to permanently collapse.

    Here's NJB's entire 'Strong Towns' playlist, which both vids I referenced are a part of, for anyone who wants to know more.

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  • [โ€“] 26 points 3 months ago (1 child)
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    [โ€“] 25 points 3 months ago* (7 children)

    Democracy.

    This world is what people voted for? Yeah?

    Fake elections, fake democracy. The president of USA is a puppet controlled by secret societies, and thats why nothing ever changes.

    People cant even choose candidates. Everyone has to be rich to be president. Because money is what controls people. If you dont have that greed, you cant be controlled by the system. Thats why everyone powerful is rich.

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    [โ€“] 24 points 3 months ago

    Using non-free (proprietary) software and believing we are free to do anything we want with the software. But we can do only what the app (the devs) let us to do. We can't see or edit the code of program to run as we wish.

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  • [โ€“] 24 points 3 months ago
    [โ€“] 24 points 3 months ago (2 children)
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    [โ€“] 23 points 3 months ago

    Oh you know... vaguely gestures at everything

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  • [โ€“] 23 points 3 months ago (6 children)

    Dying.

    Everyone thinks that you are supposed to go to the hospital when you are dying as if they are going to like, stop you from dying.

    Mostly what they do is make sure that you don't leave anything behind for your kids to inherit as they spend a million dollars a day keeping you a miserable vegetable for a week.

    Once that is done the funeral industry shows up to make sure that you dump the rest into buying a worthless box and digging a hole.

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    [โ€“] 22 points 3 months ago (3 children)

    Inflation. The money you have is worth less every year by design. It's a secret tax on all of us.

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    [โ€“] 22 points 3 months ago (4 children)

    Paying rent for land. Unfortunately it's been that way since feudalism and the progressive movements over the last few hundred years haven't managed to break out of it

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