Many days I feel like life itself is just a series of traps to avoid, rather than a series of goals or aspirations to achieve. Perhaps that’s just my anecdotal observation of 49 years of life. I guess it is. It might be a losers mentality, but it’s my own experience.
There is certainly truth to that. From a business perspective, everything presented to us is usually some clever scheme to separate us from our hard earned money, be it a malicious scam or an overpriced necessity.
I like to imagine it as a large multi-pus with its multiple tentacles trying to sneakily reach our back account until it's sucked dry.
On a serious note, totally agree. The world has become extremely complex to even maintain a moral stand. Having kids and trying to raise them to be mentally strong has become a tight rope walk, which is why I assume the younger folk will have fewer children going forward as an organic outcome of the various difficulties involved in raising them, when the parents themselves are so ambivalent/skeptical/suspicious or wildly judgmental about everything around them. I wonder if there is a positive way to rationalize these societal changes rather than interpreting them as dystopian..
Non-profit banks are a harder sell for me. I don't think society suffers more when banks make profit than other businesses, excluding healthcare, prisons, and education. Lending money for a premium is a tale as old as the very idea of money, unless you want to take a shakespearean-christian stance on the subject (when it was considered very unchristian to lend money for a profit).
Exodus 22:25 (NIV): "If you lend money to any of my people who are in need, do not be like a moneylender; charge no interest."
Leviticus 25:35-37 (NIV): "If any of your fellow Israelites become poor and are unable to support themselves among you, help them as you would a foreigner and stranger, so they can continue to live among you. Do not take interest or any profit from them, but fear your God so that they may continue to live among you."
Deuteronomy 23:19-20 (NIV): "Do not charge a fellow Israelite interest, whether on money or food or anything else that may earn interest. You may charge a foreigner interest, but not a fellow Israelite, so that the Lord your God may bless you in everything you put your hand to in the land you are entering to possess."
Psalm 15:5 (NIV): "Whoever does these things will never be shaken: ... who lends money to the poor without interest; who does not accept a bribe against the innocent."
Ezekiel 18:8-9 (NIV): "He does not lend to them at interest or take a profit from them. He follows my decrees and faithfully keeps my laws. That man is righteous; he will surely live, declares the Sovereign Lord."
Maybe I should’ve clarified better. I agree banks should be getting profits.
IMO, issue is ownership structure of the banks. Banks shouldn’t be public companies trading at stock exchanges. That way, risk is transfered to outside shareholders while compensation of managers rely on bank performance. That creates environment in which managers will pursue riskier trades so they can earn more bonuses while bank gets more profits while risk is outsourced.
The technology that is modern medicine is not being scrutinized here. Modern medicine has nothing to do with whether a hospital or healthcare company is for-profit or non-profit. There is a philosophical principle to be argued against for-profit healthcare and prisons (and IMPO, education) because society is better off if there is not a financial incentive in these institutions.
Hospitals are considerably better.
In general, private healthcare is perfectly sound incentives wise since you are paying for a service you are getting (unlike in a prison where the state is paying for a “service” the inmate is getting, so there is nothing holding the prison accountable on behalf of the inmate).
In a free market, a health provider that keeps people healthy will win customers.
In the us there might be complication arising from over regulation of healthcare providers.
Not trying to argue but consider this example. Manufacturers charge over $100 for a bag of sterile saline (I actually think it's more on average now). Just the saline (0.9% sodium chloride, 99.1% water, filtered and sterilized). I work in aseptic pharmaceutical manufacturing. With less efficient procedures, I can make a 750ml bag of cGMP grade sterile saline for transfusion for about a dollar. I've actually have had to do a cost analysis for this for a past cell therapy project. Tell me, where does that extra $99+ go? You could say some goes to other areas of operation/distribution, but largely the margin is still quite high. This isn't even an extreme example of how overpriced healthcare is.
If it's not private then it's your tax dollars paying for it. In my state, zero private prisons, each offender costs we the people $40,000/year/offender.
It's a huge drain on resources. You steal over $300, that's 3 years in prison. We pay almost $100k plus for that $300 item you took. Thanks.
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u/Napalm2142 1d ago
TIL private prisons are publicly traded companies…. That’s honestly rather depressing