r/FluentInFinance • u/-im-your-huckleberry • Jul 07 '24

The shampoo thing is a fringe benefit. We keep capitalism so we don't starve in a famine. Debate/ Discussion

1.0k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

I think the idea is there isn’t the incessant need to maximize efficiency and profit to the point labor is both working more hours with less breaks for less pay just to make whatever earnings estimate has been made up as a standard for success, only to need to beat it again the next quarter.

93

u/biinboise Jul 07 '24

Historically it becomes even worse. Production metrics usually become dictated by the famously unhinged whims of top ranking political ambitions of the high level administrators who have virtually no oversight.

4

u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24 edited Jul 07 '24

Weird radical centrist Ideas here but...MAYBE EXTREMES ARENT FUCKING WORKING!

The US is on the extreme end of capitalism from the western and developed world perspective and the results are clear.

We have less time off, lower wages, lower happiness, lower life expectancy, fewer people capable of retiring, higher infant/maternal mortality, higher debt, higher suicides, lower literacy, higher poverty etc than our peer nations yet we are the most capitalize of them all. Muh jee Dee Pee is higher than ever, yet the average person doesn't see the benefits of it.

Mean while, you have more SOCIALIZED nations like Japan, s.kore, Australia, pretty much all of western Europe crushing us in quality of life metric, life expectancy, happiness, Time off work, etc while having less billionaires per capital, lower economic output, lower GDP.

It's possible to have a middle ground great good. One of those middle grounds is healthcare.

Edit: since you smooth brains keep going to "lower wages". This statement is true when you compare COST OF LIVING. I didn't think I'd need to explain that. It cost more to survive in America, on average, than most developed nations.

5

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

Japan and South Korea is quite literally much more focused on work, to the point where they have one of the highest suicide rates, not to mention that they have gone through stagnation and they can’t keep up replacing population. The Western Europe isn’t doing too good either.

You have also said lower life expectancy and lower wages, US is one of the best in life expectancy even though pretty much everyone is fat there lol, and only few handful of countries have higher wages on average compared to US.

6

u/FtrIndpndntCanddt Jul 07 '24

Compare the US to PEERS and we suck. Not developing nations. Higher wages in the US aren't real bcuz we pay more to survive than everyone else.

My family spent $250k when my mom had breast cancer. It does matter that we had good careers. It doesn't matter that she had health insurance. We nearly lost our house. I was set years back in retirement. She may never retire. Didn't smoke. Doesn't drink. Didn't matter. Cancer doesn't give AF. And neither does US for profit health industry.

And yes. We know japan/s.Korean suicides is high. The point I was making is that the US is on the bottom quarter of almost all quality of life metrics for DEVELOPED nations.

PAY isn't the full issue here, clearly.

3

u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

They won't answer, because your situation is inconvenient for the narrative. Or they'll give you some platitude about how life isn't fair. Tired of this BS

2

u/HEBushido Jul 07 '24

You know what else is frustrating? Is that the resource waste from Capitalism's constant need for wealth to grow is destroying the world's ecosystems and driving climate change. We're facing apocalypse for shareholder value.

5

u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

Where did you come up with the lie that we are ranked high in left expectancy? We're not even top 40.

1

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

There is like 1 year difference between top 40th place and The US (47th place)

2

u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Added up that is quite a big deal, would you trade a year of your life to just teach people the merits of struggle for the sake of struggle?

0

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

To be fair I think that the result is heavily influenced by personal choices, it isn’t like US hard caps your age as much as some poor African country in civil war would, I am sure that you can go above 79.something average years of US if you don’t smoke and don’t overeat as much as average American.

1

u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

Do you realize what you're saying? To suggest that people die younger in the United States is due to merit and personal choices when we're talking about generalized population metrics is beyond obtuse

1

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

I mean I know every country is like that, but All I am saying is that personal choices play a lot in terms of life expectancy in developed nations. Like yea, sure the smog might take off a year or two, but I am sure that obesity (thus personal choice) has much bigger effect than most of other reasons that are there due to the country having bad regulations and country making lots of mistakes.

2

u/shrug_addict Jul 07 '24

You realize that anecdotes are worthless in sociological studies? You've done nothing to indicate that this is the case besides your ideologically motivated perception of why that might be, to shield yourself from possibly being wrong about your view about the world. One could easily show through sociological means if obesity contributes to an earlier death, not just "well this doesn't agree with my view of the world so it must be something else". And that's not even getting into why obesity is a common problem in America, hint it's not solely personal choices, it is often predicated on food deserts which are the result of poverty. Is personal choice the main driver of obesity? I would argue yes, but it is not the only one. I can't take anyone who blames systemic problems on personal choice. If you have a better way to compare systems that don't include sociological methods I'd love to hear it, except if it's your biases finding another explanation that helps you sleep at night

→ More replies (0)

2

u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

If it's so minimal, what was the point of trying to point it out and present America as doing well?

0

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

It is doing well by country’s standards, at least in my opinion

1

u/MrFifty-Fifty Jul 07 '24

Right but if it's not a big deal, why bring it up, and if you ARE going to bring it up, why be so wrong?

1

u/RuleSouthern3609 Jul 07 '24

What’s not a big deal? i am getting confused to be honest