I’m just a regular person making about $70K a year in a big city, and I’ve recently felt incredibly powerless dealing with private companies. For instance, my landlord’s auto-pay system had a glitch that excluded my pet rent and water bill. I ended up with over $1,000 in late fees. Despite hours on the phone, it turns out their system doesn’t really do auto-pay and requires a fixed amount instead of covering the full rent. It feels like a scam, and my options are to pay the fees or potentially spend a fortune on legal action.
Another frustrating experience was trying to cancel my pest control service. I had to endure a 40-minute call followed by 35 minutes of arguing, just to finally cancel. There’s no online cancellation option, and the process felt like a timeshare sales pitch.
Why do ordinary people seem so unprotected against these shady practices, and how can we change this? How does one person even start to address these issues?
The country was founded by slave owners. After that we had various “industry barons” like railroads, petroleum, automobiles, etc. Now we have multinational corporations (with larger budgets and more power than several countries) calling the shots in congress. It’s always been like this. Post-WWII provided a brief respite, but that limited run of the “American Dream” was temporary and no longer exists.
Part of the solution would be: worker cooperatives. We need a lot more of those. It won’t solve everything, but it’s a really good start.
Basically we got all our rights in the post war period. Baby boomers and their parents had an excellent time, got theirs, then pulled up the ladder behind them. Zoomers will probably fix this but it’ll be interesting to see if it sticks this time.
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I’d rather have a New Deal 2
Electric Boogaloo
Accelerationism isn’t a good look
We need a kind of everybody union.
I had this conversation with lots of people if everyone saw a company is doing things or taking advantage of people imagine if on the exact same day, one million customers canceled their accounts. That kind of unity can give all the power needed to the regular people. But you can’t get people to cooperate or even to have enough self-discipline to go along with something that isn’t for their immediate and measurable benefit. And so the big players know they can abuse and exploit.
A more perfect union, that can establish justice and domestic tranquility. One that provides for the common defense, promotes the general welfare, and secures the blessing of liberty for ourselves and future generations.
Dang, if only we had written that down and made it legally enforceable
One big union? For all the industrial workers in the world? I wonder if anyone has thought of that before.
Too bad it never works.
In a democracy, that’s called a government.
U.S.A. is not a democracy, it’s an oligarchy. Has been for decades, but more so now than ever before. Corporations have begun to openly ignore law and have no fear of punishment. Because they own the government they write the laws and they decide what happens everywhere.
As I said in a different comment, it’s a painful thing to hear, but the sad simple truth is, the bad guys won.
Isn’t that ideally what the government is supposed to be? We can’t all individually fight for ourselves, so we vote for people to represent us and work to protect our interests. That is, if politicians actual represented their constituents and not the highest bidder.
Well yes except our government is bought and owned by those corporations. That’s why we are not represented by them.
There’s a simple way to put it, but it’s painful to hear: the bad guys won.
I have had this same thought many times! Vote with our wallets en masse. It’s kind of almost happening to fast food.
In Australia ACCC takes care of abusive businesses, surely there must be something like that? Even 3rd world countries like Brazil has something like it.
Nope. America is OWNED by rich people. It’s a corporation and they make the laws so all the laws are to help them have more power.
I wouldn’t see it so black-and-whitely. I don’t think Tim Walz is owned by anyone and he is running for VP.
He’s beholden to the corporations controlled by the wealthiest 1%. Anyone who gets elected is already someone who “plays ball” because they don’t get to there otherwise.
Ha you don’t even get to run without people in line to donate to you. And since corp donates for both candidates it’s a win or win situation for them, which implies lose or lose for everyone.
It would be nice if corporate bribery were not allowed. Giving tens of millions to them - to their “campaign” - which they all funnel and launder into their pockets - is literal and unambiguous bribery. And yet it’s the reality of our nation.
AIPAC owns him.
We have the Federal Trade Comission but it needs to have the balls to really protect us.
Even when they step up its usually a small fine the offender just writes off as the cost of doing business.
Corp breaks a law. Makes $100m profit. Gets $10m fine. All good for the books!!
True but Lina Khan’s been doing some great work in changing that agency’s track record.
I haven’t been to Brazil but as far as its politics goes I don’t think it’s that 3rd world
Wait until you see the Brazilian definition of poverty. People literally dream of having the chance to be poor in US.
Ill add a worker cooperative might be even better than a union because a union can easily be corrupt
Any group of people can become corrupt if it is filled with corrupt people.
Thanks for starting your argument with this, so I know I can ignore the rest.
So you don’t understand basic American history or what the word ignore means. Got it.
See also: blaming “capitalism” for literally everything
basically capitalism