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

Question

"Life", "Living in USA" or "Trump" are NOT acceptable answers. Dig deep and be specific!

Whats a scam thats so normalized we dont realize its a scam anymore?

For me?

Self checkout

"Shipping & Handling Fees" when it's emailed to you

Dollar stores where NOTHING costs a dollar

"half gallon" of ice cream

And my all time favorite: 2x4 lumber. I will NEVER not cringe in rage when I hear the term "2x4"!

Updates

1 y

OMG 😱😱😱😱 I can't believe I forgot this one!

"Plate sharing fee" at some restaurants. WHO THE FUCK ARE YOU TO TELL ME I CAN'T LET OTHERS SHARE WITH ME?

WhiteSteve · Accepted Answer

The 40 hour/5 day work week.

We don’t even need to start on “I’d KILL to work that little!”, haha, but I’ll acknowledge it.

But here’s my whole thing: let’s say it’s 1985. You work in some kind of office. Some client needs something, and that sets a whole chain in motion. You need something information, and there’s no computer database, you call down to Nancy in the Hall Of Records, and she tells you she’ll get back to you with it ASAP, probably tomorrow. The boss tells the client “we’re on it, give us 24-48 hours”, and that was a perfectly acceptable answer. Business goes on, and let’s say that day you also manufacture 100 of the widgets your company makes, and the boss and the ownership and the board of investors are all satisfied with the annual $1M revenue, for the sake of round numbers.

Now it’s 2025 (almost), the client calls with a need, Nancy retired 25 years ago and was replaced by a computer system. You punch something up in a computer, instantly you have the info while the client is on the phone, and the factory produced 1,000 widgets today with the help of automated machinery that replaced a human assembly line. Revenue is $100M, annually.

You’d think this would be great. You’d think we could pay the workers more, and/or reduce the cost of your product to the consumer. You’d think the former satisfactory benchmark of 100 widgets per day/$1M annual revenue over 5 days and 40 hours would still be satisfactory…. but it’s not. It’s never enough. When I was still in sales, I cleared a million dollars in total sales to the Walmarts I oversaw the handling of one year. The next year, that wasn’t good enough. They wanted $1.1M. My salary remained the same, no bonuses, nothing…. but they wanted more every year. If $1M is good in 2014 it should be still just as good in 2015. It’s unreasonable to have expectations of it to just continue climbing every year. There’s a cap to it, it was a niche product line dependent on population demographics. So don’t tell me what’s overachieving one year is underachieving the next. Nobody can be satisfied with the status quo anymore, it’s always gotta be on the rise, tying a newly set record is worthless to them. And that’s just plain old ridiculous.

Anyway, kind of all over the place here, but what I’m saying is that our businesses are equipped to do just as well as they did in the 80s (and if you ask the Reagan-fellators, that’s the peak era of American economics), and we could achieve the same results in half the time, or less. Like why are 1985 business levels not acceptable anymore? Because we’re CAPABLE of more?

The point of life and the point of a country isn’t “business”, so I don’t think making us the most productive laborers we can be is the direction we should be taking. Why can’t we just be happy with 1985’s way, still have our weekends off, still get home while the sun is out most of the year, be able to manage our personal lives, and dare I suggest enjoy some R&R on a regular basis? If that was enough then, in fairly prosperous times, to have some tell it, why is it an underachievement today? More people? Ok, but there are more people to work, so any increases should be relative.

The answer is greed. You know who makes more? The owners of those companies. They’re wildly more rich than they’d be in 1985, when they’d also be pretty damn rich. But it’s not good enough. I was saying somewhere here the other day, “some yachts are just too small to be seen in.” That’s our main problem.

The Walmart lady bought some $80M yacht or something last year, and they turn right around (AFTER the election, when they got the Trump presidency they wanted already) and tell the consumers that “oh jeez, we just crunched the numbers, just today, after everyone voted, and we regret to inform you that things are kinda tight around the old Walton homestead, so we’re gonna have to raise prices on you guys so Trump can do his tariff thing. MAN, who could’ve known that all would’ve been passed to the CONSUMER? Bummer. Too bad no one brought that up and tried to tell you guys before Election Day, but oh well…”

Anyway, to wrap it up…. our 1985 levels of business and production were just fine, but since then they’ve convinced us that that’s no longer good enough, maybe the woman of the household should get her lazy ass a job too and just give the kids a key to let themselves in after school, and maybe, MAYBE, if you work REAL hard, you can take a trip to Disney World next summer. We could all be working like 20 hours and 2 or 3 days, for the same total earnings, the same total production, and all that needs to happen is those exponential profits go into OUR pockets, not the CEO’s and such, who are NOT working as hard as they used to, I’d wager, and at very least are being compensated astronomically more than they used to be for at least the same work.

dragoblack · Accepted Answer

Charities, becoming a multimillion $ artist, trickle-down economics, "poor people are stealing your money", USA is the land of the free, that you own property, USA is the best country in the world.

mandyfire98 · Accepted Answer

I think a lot of people realize health insurance is a huge scam especially with everything being uncovered now about united health group.

But there's so many people that still think they aren't getting treated like dirt and ripped off by it. You still see people defending it, acting like it's damn near perfect.

petitedollbabee · Accepted Answer

Most insurances. There’s very few that are actually worthwhile.

Lynx122 · Answer

I love self checkout lol idc if I'm doing the job of the cashier it's worth it to me. So I don't have to stand in line and wait for some people who just take for ever to do things. When I'm doing my self checkout I can relax more because I know how long it's gonna take me to finish it and I'm on my own time if I wanna go fast I can try and stress and do it fast if I don't need to go fast I can just go at a normal speed but it's all up to me. If I'm standing in line and someone forgot something and the cashier has to get up and go weigh the friggin vegetables because the person forgot to do it and I'm in a hurry I can't do anything except stand there and seethe.

But what's a scam? Maybe retirement like social security since it won't be available for a lot of people once we get old :P

lightbulb27 · Answer

here's something deep...

INFLATION!!! Add to it... lying about the rate and making a spread between what is advertised and what is taken.

in short... theft via the executive branches of govt and on a global basis.

Enables some to live like kings and queens and others to sink as paupers.

But I maybe it keeps an illusion going longer and perception of wealth for some... while sticking others with the cost.

Scam!

Dongie · Answer

As a retired framer and carpenter what the hell is wrong with saying 2×4? In my line of business it was said all day long. Is it because the deminsions are closer to 1.5×3.5 inches?

abc3643 · Answer

Basically, what's in this cartoon. This goes all the way back to "The Southern Strategy" of the 1968 Nixon Campaign.

ChicoFromThe305 · Answer

Universities and schools, lab made medicine, addictive like nicotine, alcohol, electric cars cause they still use oil and combustion engines to make the batteries for those cars, gasoline is also another scam because there's been several cases where people have made engines that run on bio fuel and simple things like water, I'm pretty sure I could name more if I thought deeper.

exitseven · Answer

EZPass/They sell the customer lists to anyone with money. The FBI knows where you go.

DryGermanGuy · Answer

"Pay first and last month at once." with phone/internet contracts. And of course the companies screw you over and debit the last month again.

Unit1 · Answer

Jobs & "Education" . And then there are products like this

Gwendoline · Answer

A lot of charities I believe. I'm very suspicious of charities. I prefer to help local charities run by the church.

RavVid · Answer

Organic food is better and we should pay a premium for it.

CaptainObivous · Answer

OTC medicine at hospitals, they usually charge 5x the price you'd at your local pharmacy.

andreasderjuengere · Answer

... elections, democracy, freedom and fast food chains

Anonymous · Answer

University. They teach you nothing and get in debt.

All the extra add on charges when you buy a car from the dealer.

Concerts. You're making those dumb singers richer while you are looking at the with your binoculars.

Anonymous · Answer

Social Security is the literal definition of a Ponzi scheme. And it's a ticking time bomb that will destroy the US economy.

Jakefromstatefarm6 · Answer

Taxes on income, especially inheritance, you get taxed more on inheritance yet I'm sure that inheritance was already income that was taxed

Likes2drive · Answer

All types of insurance, taxes, and paying for parking

SweetDripp · Answer

Food prices at airports and sporting events

PeachyPie93 · Answer

Property tax..

beefcakebradybatson · Answer

The two American parties of the rich !!!

Anonymous · Answer

Schooling especially the later stages

Kingofkings1992 · Answer

Car insurance and income taxes.

butterly248 · Answer

Life lol

Anonymous · Answer

Democratic primaries.

Anonymous · Answer

DEI.

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

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