Toothpaste.
You only need to squeeze out an amount the size of a pea on to the bristles of your toothbrush.
The image of squeezing along the entire length of the brush bristles was concocted by an ad agency, a la Mad Men, to make consumers use their toothpaste faster, hence buy more product.
The McDonald’s Monopoly promotions
I remember getting like 3 tickets for “part 1 out of 2 for a free car” a few months ago when they were doing the monopoly thing. I now realise that the employees probably just took all the part 2 ones for themselves.
They definitely didn’t because they count the sleeves that those prize pieces are on.
What really happens is they print 5 million part 1 pieces and like 10 part 2 pieces.
Wait, they were scams?
I knew employees fixed a couple, but…
It wasn’t McDonald’s themselves that were scamming, it’s more like the trusted 3rd party they engaged to run the promotion had a bad actor that used his position to fix the game.
He began stealing winning game pieces after a supplier mistakenly provided him a sheet of the anti-tamper seals needed to securely conduct the legitimate transfer of winning pieces. Jacobson first offered the game pieces to friends and family but eventually began selling them to Gennaro “Jerry” Colombo of the Colombo crime family, whom he had met by chance at the Atlanta airport.[11] Colombo would then recruit people to act as contest winners in exchange for half of the winnings.[9][10]
And that’s just the start.
The one I’m running right now, and you don’t have a clue, Kevin!
Replies are wild, i love it
Ponzi schemes, especially the insurance companies. They really are a Ponzi scheme.
Think about it, they promise you things asking for money, then when you need their services they decide where you go, how much they will pay (leaving the rest for you to pay as a deductible), then they turn around and increase your costs for their services, that they fight tooth and nail not to pay anything.
I work in the insurance industry and I 100% agree with this.
The only time it’s wise to take out an insurance policy is when
A) It’s legally required (though this is sometimes due to lobbying by the insurance companies themselves)
B) When you absolutely will not be able to actually pay for a potential, but necessary expense by yourself (cancer treatments and stuff like that)
So Health Insurance, Auto Insurance (even if your car is cheap and self-insurable, the car you hit may not be), Home-owners insurance and stuff like that are necessary and generally a good financial bet, even if they are crooked af.
Any “micro-insurances” though? All total scams. Travel insurance, phone insurance (or “Extended Warranties”), Apple Care, all that kind of shit is 100% going to cost you more money to have than it’ll save you - unless you get really really lucky (or unlucky, depending on how you look at it). You’d be better off spending what you’d pay on those insurance premiums on a hand of blackjack, I’ll bet the odds would be slightly more in your favor that way
Thanks for your input, it helps not make me sound like a conspiracy theorist or anti-biz whack job
nothing conspiracy theorist about it at all. If anyone gives you sideways looks when you mention that insurance is a scam, just point out the very simple and undeniable fact that insurance companies are (very) profitable. That means, by definition that the average customer pays more in premiums than they get in payouts, and not just a bit more, a lot more, as that profit they make is after they pay their thousands of employees, award multi-million dollar bonuses to their executives, pay for their bigass skyscrapers, and all that other shit. If insurance was a “fair” deal, they’d be losing money from the administration costs
Always self-insure if you can afford it
Ugh my parents both insist on travel insurance. What if you get sick?? Idk, I’ll cancel the stuff I can and take the loss on what I can’t, for all the travel I’ve done the amount of times that has happened does not even remotely come close to how much I would have paid each time for travel insurance.
No mom, I’m not going to insure our 2 night stay at the Hilton in (mid sized city). I’m sure it’s going to be fine.
Last time I did was for a very very expensive flight across an ocean, just because it was like, 15 dollars on a 2000 flight for a few people. Fine, but everything else we took the risk. (And we did not use it)
Travel insurance is especially terrible, because a lot of the time it’s a pretty substantial premium, and actually filing a claim on it is a HUGE PITA.
I worked for a traveler insurance company before, and we denied most claims that came in. People would buy insurance on a $100 concert ticket, paying a $10 premium for the insurance, then when they’d go to file the claim, we’d require a doctors note, so now they also have to cough up a $20 copay and a whole afternoon just to get a note saying “yup, this person is sick”. And that’s just one of the many ways people got fleeced. During COVID, a lot of travel insurance claims got denied because illnesses resulting from pandemics aren’t covered in some policies as well
not surprised at all, I’ve found it’s just better to learn the cancellation policy of your items. Most hotels are full refund if they know >48 hours, and if less usually you’ll at least get points/credit back which for me I’ll absolutely use next time. Not worth the premium and the hassle to get cash back if I only find out less than 48 hours ahead of time
Travel insurance is very much required travelling to many countries. Basically the same category as health insurance.
Insuring travel itself is a scam.
Travel insurance is my big one. Why would you not get that? That seems like such a stupid risk not to get that.
Like if I get hit by a car in the middle of nowhere and they got to fly my home because the medical care there sucks. That’s going to cost an absolute fortune. Even having to send my dead body home will cost my family loads.
Why would you not get that? That seems like such a stupid risk not to get that.
Pretty much for all the reasons I said in my comment - you’ll almost certainly spend more on premiums for travel insurance than you’ll ever claim (this is true of all insurance) and the expenses incurred by self-insuring are generally manageable. Even in the two situations you refer to, we’re “only” talking about costs of a few thousand, and both of those are highly unlikely events that most people go their whole lives not dealing with. you’re much better off putting the money you’d spend on that travel insurance into an emergency fund to cover those kinds of unexpected expenses.
Insurance is only a good financial call if you risk completely bankrupting yourself by not having insurance, otherwise you’re just trading potential lump sum costs for small continuous costs, and the premiums will generally always wind up being more than what you’re saving (because if they weren’t, then the Insurance companies wouldn’t be making so much money).
That being said, it’s your money, if you’d rather accept that you’re paying more over a lifetime on travel insurance than you’re saving just to have the peace of mind that you won’t have to dip into savings for any incident that happens before or during the trip (assuming your incident doesn’t fall under one of the many carefully crafted exclusions that the insurance companies add to their policies to prevent paying out, which it probably will), then by all means, buy it - but if you’re buying it because you think it’s the financially savy move, and you have at least a few grand in your bank account for emergencies, then you’re kidding yourself.
you’ll almost certainly spend more on premiums for travel insurance than you’ll ever claim (this is true of all insurance)
Yes I agree but it’s about how you value risk. Losing $100 on travel insurance is better than losing $1,000,000 on hospital bills. The risk is different obviously but I’m not worried about $100 for peace of mind. I have even gone to war zones were my insurance was invalid but I had it in safer places because it’s all about risk.
Even in the two situations you refer to, we’re “only” talking about costs of a few thousand, and both of those are highly unlikely events
That’s just where your wrong and there is no point continuing this discussion. You don’t think people have to pay a fortune for medical cover when you have no insurance? Sure some countries might cover that and their might be mutual care agreements. But not having insurance in a place that won’t pay your hospital bills. That’s madness. Your argument works if you artificially make up costs sure.
I have personally know loads of people to get in accidents when travelling, I have myself. I have only heard one person being hospitalised and getting sent home but it happens and it isn’t cheap.
And you would be entirely correct - if insurance companies acted in good faith, the reality however, is that they don’t. Your comments are already littered with replies of people giving you examples that they’ve personally experienced of carefully constructed exclusions meaning that they can’t actually claim their policy.
I have no doubt that there are people out there for whom travel insurance has saved their ass, but I know from my own experience in the industry that the far more common experience for policy holders is to wind up with the insurance company finding a reason to not pay up, and now you’re left both with the cost of the emergency, as well as the cost of the policy.
Like I said, it’s your money, and I’m certainly not going to give a shit if you keep buying travel insurance policies, hell - people buying insurance policies pay my salary (though i don’t work in travel insurance any longer)
I think the main point is that the policies have so many exclusions in the fine print that you are unlikely to get them to pay even if something does happen. That seems pretty scammy to me. But I guess there is something to be said for the peace of mind you get when you buy it, eh? Even if it’s unfounded.
Yup - this is exactly it. I’m entirely certain that there are people out there who have had their financial lives saved from utter ruin via vacation insurance - but I’m also certain (because I’ve witnessed it myself) that far far more people who think they should be covered wind up in deep shit because their hospitalization came from an accident, or as the result of a crime, or some other edge case that happens to be excluded by the travel insurance policy (and make no mistake, these exclusions are carefully crafted to cover as many potential cases as humanly possible while still sounds decent on paper).
When you say travel insurance, are you thinking of overseas medical expenses?
I cut my foot on some rocks in the US and that insurance claim paid for all the previous travel insurance I’d taken out previously.
I just read a news article this week about a young Australian man on vacation in Indonesia who got in an accident. His family now face costs of around $350,000 because his insurance didn’t cover riding motorized scooters.
I think travel insurance is generally wise to have, and to be aware of what you are covered for. This is an example both of the potential costs and how if you don’t read your policy carefully they will fuck you over.
I got travel insurance recently for a hiking trip with my wife. We had an emergency and my wife had to be airlifted out by helicopter, and we were so glad to have the travel insurance because it covers emergency evacuation up to $10,000 (and the helicopter costed around $5,000). Awesome, right?
Well… actually no. Turns out, the terms of our policy dictate we needed to call insurance first and have them organize the airlift. Since we dialed 911 and organized the helicopter ourselves, our insurance won’t cover it. I guess it’s my fault for not reading the fine print, but it feels pretty scummy from the insurance company. Even if we had read the fine print, in the moment I don’t think I would have remembered as my immediate instinct is to contact emergency services.
Oh my god, thank you so much! I’m glad I’m not the only one that sees it. They get money, they invest that money in pension funds, and then they try not to pay that back. The only things stopping it from being one legally are some slight changes such as the investment part and the part where they pay back to people in need, not people at the top.
Unfortunately, like all big business, they don’t care about anything but fleecing the little guy
I argue insurance in and of itself is no ponzi scheme. Working together is the basis of all civilisation. Trying to make a business out of a social service however … that’s rife for abuse, yes.
Depends on how you define a Ponzi scheme. Personally I define it as pay us money in return for a service, then run with the money or come up with ways to deny that service, once again keeping the money or as much as possible by telling businesses how much they can charge for their services.
If I ran my own company, I would be damned if someone is going to dictate my prices to help their bottom line.
IMHO, that is what has caused health care cost to be untenable for someone who cannot afford health insurance or makes like $3 too much to qualify for the likes of Medicaid.
Ponzi schemes actually already have a clear definition, and what you’re describing isn’t actually a Ponzi scheme
That’s not a Ponzi scheme. Sorry, but this misuse of the term really grinds my gears.
A Ponzi scheme is a specific scam promoted as an investment, but in reality the payouts made to early victims come from the incoming money paid by new investors.
Might as well be, the patron still gets screwed
Aka social security…
Where is social security pitched as an investment?
Edit. Now that I think about it, government retirement funds actually kind of fill those requirements. At least where I live.
school system
Neoliberalism!
The second is financialization.
Both are huge scams still running.
1950 to present antipsychotics whose severe side effects are written off as crazy talk.
Care to elaborate?
Today lack of insight or “anosognosia” was protested in massachusetts https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/08/fighting-outpatient-commitment-in-massachusetts/ September last year I was told by pro-perjury republican suffolk, new york judge I was not fit to decide. Whether to be assaulted with risperdal, haldol causing Nystagmus eye spasms blatantly against the Quran which northwell banned twice. Alaska Supreme Court acknowledges least restrictive (Olmstead) treatment must be tried first.
I never hallucinated nor self harmed and haven’t defended my exes and dog for 3 years during no probable cause, sans investigation false arrests. For peacefully protesting the “delusion” I was invited 5 years ago twice on 90 Day Fiance by a Doomsday Preppers producer. Free charity 125 page lithography Google and 100 page quack Law books don’t make me qualified, but a doctor silently passing by the hallway counts as an evaluation www.dropbox.com/sh/p4hbeqa7e74j4lk/AAAl2RN_pmlCDoeg9MXHVe4Ca?dl=0
thorazine, the first antipsychotic, was injected “in emergencies” of talking about fish, crickets, Jesus into an alabama senior citizen who felt safer in the worst state. nassau university medical center pharmacist said she was at the maximum dose but co-workers demanded increase. chemical restraint is illegal everywhere, these are not meant for falling asleep which “pacing” or benadryl, Ativan can help.
neuroleptic malignancy syndrome resulted in May 24, 2020 death perhaps a heart attack, multiple women there stopping menstruation, diabetes, sometimes did not cure the few who hallucinated; kidney, liver damage. Politely asking for FDA label printout and discussing experiences with peers gets your freedom of association revoked in contradiction of state patients’ Bill of Rights. $25 billion/year False Claims Act defrauded from 25 million Americans.
The side effects have been well known for a long time. I can see pharma companies downplaying them, but in modern times the risks are well understood. Do you have an example?
I have taken an antipsychotic for insomnia at different times. Can you elaborate on what you’re saying? It isn’t clear to me. Severe side effects, however, have been extremely clear at different times. Are you saying those are downplayed to the point of gaslighting?
It’s absurd that people still think chiropractic is legitimate.
I don’t know what they did to me but I actually got lot of relief from them when I hurt my back deadlifting.
i know a girl who takes her literal newborns to her chiropractor
completely fucking horrifying and it’s impossible to convince her that doing so is like playing catch with your baby as the ball
I get it to some extent cause it feels good when I crack my back
Religion
Are we allowed to mention capitalism and brexit?
Ever since the 90’s, almost every protest or riot that has been on TV in the past few decades has been based on circumstances everyone has been misled or lied to about. I say this generally, I’m not speaking about any specific ideology or any particular group. All the protests follow the same pattern of epiphany, yet they keep happening.
The ones that took place during covid scammed us all because covid required those in charge to say “don’t worry, us being out in the open didn’t cause the virus to spread, we took precautions”. Today, covid commercials will say those same groups that those protests were made for were disproportionately affected by covid as if it’s because of human right, and nobody is connecting it to the fact the protests happened during a time when every restaurant had plexiglass barriers. Again, not speaking for any group in particular, this was a fault for the Canadian truckers, BLM, those Trump-voting Libertarians, etc.
Phoebus Cartel, essentially the few oligopolistic light bulb companies got together and colluded and intentionally reduced the lifespan of light bulbs.
Homeopathy. It’s literally based on the idea that diluting stuff turns it into a remedy.
The American healthcare system.
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What is the alternative to capitalism?
Depends on how you define capitalism.
According to the modern (very intentionally altered) definition of capitalism,
“a system allowing the exchange of goods and services for currency, where different skill sets can result in different compensation”
… everything, including the USSR [1][2] has been capitalism. And even most Marxists are pro-capitalists.
The definition above encompasses everything that ever was, and everything that ever will be. (And that’s only a slight exaggeration)
Which – just fyi – makes the word one of the most useless words in the history of language.
If, however – just hypothetically – you wanted to have a productive dialogue with a self-described anti-capitalist, you would need to carry out the entire conversation pretending the word “capitalism” referred to something a hell of a lot more specific. A single mechanism within market society. A single kind of contractual relationship between worker and company.
Which is an exercise in imagination and in the algebraic concept of substitution that most people have a rather stubborn aversion to.
The barter system before currency was invented wouldn’t fit that definition, and strictly speaking Marx wanted Communism to do away with currency so if that ever happened anywhere, that would also be outside of that definition.
That being said, yeah the modern definition of “capitalism” is over-broad and mostly useless as a concept.
Right. That is a good point. Although Marx didn’t see the elimination of currency as a realistic goal attainable within the first few decades (possibly even the first century) of communism, he did believe a post-scarcity humanity would eventually transcend the need for currency.
However when it comes to barter, the thing is: even in societies dominated by barter, some commodity tends to become the standard against which the values of other commodities are measured. Cigarettes in POW camps, cacao beans in Mesoamerica.
By an admittedly-loose definition of currency, a currency does always emerge and end up being directly exchanged for goods and services, even in barter systems.
A hybrid system Whereby capitalism in a regulated form can go on pretty much as usual, but government run companies provide affordable alternatives for basic necessities (food, water, housing, communication, mass transit etc). The government run companies hire anyone who wants a job. Unemployment is reduced, cost of living is reduced, and no ones freedom is stepped on.
Communism
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Having actually grown up in USSR and lived under communism, I can definitively say that it’s not. I love how a bunch of idiots who are suffering under capitalism got convinced that nothing better is possible and to reject obvious alternatives that would immediately improve their lives.
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Why would I lie about something like that, you delusional piece of human garbage.
People only overthrow the government when they get really desperate. Your mistake is comparing communist Russia to capitalist USA. If you compare communist Russia to either tzarist Russia or the cluster fuck Russia is today then yes communism was imesurably better. Unless you were a learned fella.
Scam for sure. Hard to say it’s been unnoticed for a long time though
idk - only 63% of Americans support single-payer healthcare, nearly half of Americans still haven’t caught on at least
“only”
That’s a clear majority. If we had a referendum about it we’d get it (but the US doesn’t have federal referendums.)
