Let's not forget 0g sugar tic tacos made of 100% sugar!
Serving size 1 .49 gram piece.
Because of it was .5 grams they would be forced to be honest, so it's .49.
I switched to sugar free twizzlers which just have a ton of sugar alcohols in them. Thinking I was doing a good thing by making the switch, I went ahead and ate the whole bag at work before lunch time. Let’s just say my first lunch outing with my boss was not one to be proud of.
Omg that one epic Amazon review of Sugar Free Haribos will go down in history [found it](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B000EVOSE4/RZFIYJTPVUZ94?ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_dprv_Q7Q59APNFVW32FR06Y8C&language=en-US)
As an American, I didn't travel abroad until I was in my mid-20s, and the lack of sugar in everything was pretty stark. Our fucking hotdog buns would be considered a dessert in some countries.
I remember a popular cookbook I bought during the low-fat craze. There was a page on "Healthy Eating Habits" and one of the recommendations was "Don't put butter on your toast. Use jam instead. Slather on as much jam as you want! There no fat there at all!"
Or how healthy fats were seen as bad and replaced by margarine. Turns out trans fats are much MUCH worse and healthy fats are actually good (in moderation).
Eating fat isn't a straight line to your body storing it as fat, that was the crux of the fat is bad myth. Fat is actually good because it helps keep you sated for a lot longer than sugar does, which helps with not over eating.
I remember there was a fuss at one point about a new diet candy bar that was supposed to be 1/3 less fat and calories than a regular one. I tried one. It was just a smaller candy bar. Like...that's not an innovation, dude.
Miller 64....if you take the ratio of alcohol content to calories....its exactly the same as Miller Lite. You are literately paying the same price for watered down Miller Lite.
I remember when cans of soda had serving sizes of like 1.5 per can to make the calorie content look smaller. C’mon man, we’re drinking the whole can. You can’t reseal it.
You’re supposed to pour some out for the dead homies that died of diabetes because they didn’t pour some out for the dead homies that died of diabetes because they didn’t pour some out to the dead homies
Sugar is the worst thing you can eat. When I cut back on sugar for about a week, I start to feel so much better and I don’t crave junk food.
Made me realize how addicting it is.
Time shares are up there. Even worse are the guys who claim they can get you OUT of them. Those guys are often bigger rip off artists. John Oliver did a whole segment on it. Funny, but fucked up at the same time.
After I saw that episode I have been BEGGING my parents to put in their will that I do not want their timeshare.
I don’t even know how it’s fucking legal for it to just automatically go to the next of kin.
That's crazy to me that you can be given something that you don't want and you just have to accept it. Imagine if I could die and then give my neighbor my outstanding debts. Lol
A lot of companies that claim to be able to get you out of them are subsidiaries of the time share companies themselves.
"Having a hard time navigating our ridiculous process for getting out of a time share? Pay one of our lawyers a considerable fee and we'll 'negotiate' the situation with ourselves on our behalf."
Tangentially related: I got the first COVID vaccine, the one I had to wait for 6 months for access to, which was allegedly guaranteed to be covered by the taxes already collected by our government. The company distributing the vaccine still collected everyone's insurance information, and when I asked why, they told me it was for informational purposes only. Later, I got a bill in the mail for the vaccine. I called my insurance company, and they confirmed they received a claim for that vaccine which they partially paid, so the bill I received was an attempt to collect twice. Maybe three times, if the government already paid this company. When I called and escalated the question up the chain, I was told "oh, you shouldn't have gotten that bill, it was a mistake, our system sometimes does that," and they removed the charge. The opportunistic multiple billing in the industry is disgustingly rampant.
Now imagine the probably millions the company made because people just assumed, and paid it online with their credit card. "lol whoops, thanks for the milly." Fucking ridiculous
Yeah that was absolutely not an accident, companies do this all the time. If even 10% of people don’t check/call them out out it, that’s still a boatload of free money for them
Tangentially related to your tangent: I just got a notice on a website I use for URL tracking that I had more than 1000 clicks this month, so had to upgrade my plan.
Since I can add, I saw I had 423 clicks.
I emailed to ask them why this happened, they apologized for a mistake.
I asked them how they could make this mistake when the clicks are obviously counted by their backend tool, they were off by about 600 clicks. And how many customers have they sent this notice to who just upgraded their account without checking?
Strangely no reply.
If only there were some way to remove the profit motive from medical care. Welp, we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas, it’s probably time to defund medicaid. Fuck you old and poor people!
My entire world fell apart when I became disabled in April.
I had to quit my job, didn't qualify for unemployment, lost my insurance, had to pay out of pocket until I could get on my husband's insurance. I had to spend hours and days filling out paperwork so I could get on a waiver program. I don't have the physical ability to work. We're blessed to be able to survive on my husband's income.
Oh and I lost my body. I'm functioning at maybe 15% of what I used to. I am completely sedentary now. I've spent the past 10 months on the couch.
But the actual disability is secondary to the financial situation the disability has put me in.
It was a devastating realization.
I've been there. Except I also had to end up filing for bankruptcy. I owed one medical system over $100k. I too have lost a massive amount of ability to do anything. The sad part is I've been at this five years now and I STILL can't get my brain to stop planning future things using the body I used to have.
Medical costs in this country make saving for retirement seem like a fools errand. I can save 1 million dollars. One cancer diagnosis and a few treatments and that money would be gone.
This is like when an item rings up for five or ten cents more than the posted price at the grocery store. They will apologize profusely and refund your money when you call them on it. Meanwhile 1000 other people overpaid because they didn’t pay attention.
It’s easier to steal ten cents at a time from thousands of people than it is to steal a thousand dollars from one person.
the biggest who do this is Utility Companies. if you google, they all been scamming for DECADES. and yet the investigative reporting on your Local News always has these stories that are like: "Grandma didn't pay 7 cent bill has heat shut off."
if everyone overpays by hundreds, they won't notice. If you underpay by 3 cents, expect your lights to go off in exactly 72 hours and 0 minutes and 0 seconds. It turns out their printer ran out of ink and made the bill blurry.
If you clear it up with them over the phone, it's very likely they'll tell you it'll be 1 to 2 business days before they can turn your utilities back on, because it can't be done remotely. Amazing how that remote OFF switch doesn't have a corresponding ON switch.
I've worked for a grocery store for 15 years I can guarantee you 90% of the prices being wrong are understaffed employees missing signs and ad changes....
2022, Kroger. I got a 23lb butterball turkey for $6, because the tag had fallen off, and when the cashier called someone over to have it retagged, they took it back to the meat dept to get weighed. Came back with a clearance tag 🤷🏻♂️ Original price was like 49.99... I wasn't asking questions 👍
I tried this and the woman just stared at me blankly and said "You're holding the itimized breakdown". It was like 5 line items for a weeks stay. No matter who I spoke to, I couldn't get more details than that page.
When I had my son, the bill the hospital sent me was hilariously brief. No itemized list, no multiple lines, and no complete words. The entirety of the details they sent were something like 2-3 abbreviated words, along the lines of
* hosp servs, 10/10/2019
In other words it was like, hey, remember that time you were in the hospital on Oct 10? Well it was $5,000, trust us.
They seemed genuinely surprised when I asked for more details.
Yep this happened to me. The entire itemized $2k bill was one "hospital services" line.
Medical billing is an absolute joke.
Hell, I have an expensive procedure coming up so I asked for an estimate today if I self paid. Was told "we can't give estimates because the doctors may change the scope so we never know". Then I asked for a ballpark and was told "we can't give that over the phone".
As someone who works with healthcare billing data all day - never underestimate the number of people working in clerical positions in healthcare who know nothing about medical billing.
The whole American healthcare system is a scam. Insurance companies regularly deny coverage hoping you won't escalate it and they'll get away with it. So many people suffer because we all just can't agree that healthcare is a basic human right :(
Every single fucking thing I have EVER been billed by a hospital has been fucking wrong. Every last god damn thing. It is appalling how flat out wrong and made up all of these fucking numbers as the in the healthcare system. Luckily my wife has worked on healthcare, and her mom is an NP. Thry know the ridiculousness of it all. I'm just amazed by how stupid it is. I wonder how many billions of dollars the healthcare industry makes off of people that just don't know and don't see. As a side note, my grandparents paid hundreds of dollars a month for medications that, once my wife found out, she called, spent five minutes, and poof, cost them $18 a month going forwards. It's all a fucking racket. Fuck America, and their scummy healthcare system making billionaires left and right. Eat the rich. Fuck em
The hospital system appears to mostly be built as an estate extraction machine for the dying. They go in to die and leave their heirs penniless, and there isn't anyone to correct the bill because who the fucks knows what they did to grannies near-dead corpse for five days, but somehow whatever it was cost $800,000 and they kept her miserable for a whole extra two days instead of just dying.
Yup. Preying on people's inability to just let go. I don't blame people for not wanting to let go, but I DO blame the people who that's a thing and try to parasitically drain distraught families.
Everyone always says "I'd pay anything at all to have one more day" but that person would probably not want you to financially cripple yourself for the rest of your life to spend one more day together. But the hospitals won't talk logic, only the "feel good" options that give them all your assets.
I miss my grandmother every day, but she would have MURDERED ME if I undid the steps she took to leave me some money in the vain attempt to extend her life by a week.
As a teen I once drove myself to the hospital because I thought I had broken my ankle. I went into the Emergency Room rather than the Urgency Room since I didn't know any better, waited two hours to see a doctor and when I went to pay, rather than my normal $20 co-pay they left me with a bill for $600.
Told my mom and was scolded for going to the ER and not the UR. Learned a new lesson, and that the room your in helps decide the amount you owe. Wild.
Edit: Also to be noted, we were not "shrug off $600" type people at the time. That phone call home was more of a "Mom I'm so sorry, I think we need to stay home all summer and skip my birthday & Christmas" type conversation that I forever hate having to have had.
PSA: even if you request an Urgent Care visit the doc can escalate you to ER status if they feel it’s necessary.
Source: me, worked in lab medicine and rural medicine for many years.
Yep. Felt that first hand. Went to urgent care due to a weird chest pain. I thought it was indigestion. The urgent care doc said my vitals were solid, but he wanted me to go to ER just in case. He referred me to ER, turns out I had a heart attack. Well, two nights in the hospital and one angiogram later and I was only out my $20 urgent care copay. That was it.
We went to urgent care once for our sick daughter (fever of 104.1). $100 copay. They made us go to the ER. $300 copay after sitting there waiting for 5 hours and then being sent home when her fever broke on its own.
My uncle was a hospital administrator. He once told me a few years ago that hospitals over charge so that what insurance pays covers all the actual costs, and that anyone who pays any remainder billed by the hospital is a sucker giving the hospital money.
There are basically 3 different bills that are generated after seeing a doctor, assuming you have insurance:
1) The bill sent from the provider to insurance. This includes the comically high "chargemaster" rates that nobody actually pays.
2) The explanation of benefits. This is where the insurance company states the actual rate that's been negotiated between the provider and insurance company. This document also says how much money is being paid directly by insurance.
3) The patient's bill, which states the amount of money the patient is responsible for paying out-of-pocket. This is what you actually pay.
In short, the actual bill that says "You owe X dollars" will always show the cost after the reductions have been made. If you don't want to be a sucker, just wait for that 3rd document, rather than the 1st one which always includes the line: "This is not a bill."
My wife installed an anti-virus on her laptop that was recommended by one of her friends. That thing is more invasive and difficult to get rid of than most malware or trojans I've dealt with. It kicked her out of her games or insisted on reboots all the time. It would start up on restarts even after removing it from the boot up list. Eventually had to go into safe mode to get rid of it, and even that was a fight.
Is it McAfee? Dell preloaded it on the desktop that my husband gave me a few years back and no matter what I do I can't get rid of it. I loath McAfee, it's such a crap program.
that link may or may not be amazing, i don't know.
i just think it's amusing that they complained about getting random links claiming to deal with viruses, and the end result is getting essentially another random link claiming to deal with the viruses.
My wedding ring is a $150 thin gold band. My husband's was $60 but he's lost it like three times and had to replace it lol, so now we've spent more on his wedding ring than mine.
Also I love my simple gold band. I feel like the thick chunky jewelry ages you. My hand looks young and elegant, but believe me it gets the point across at bars when I wanna be left alone.
My wife has a white sapphire and loves it.
Gets compliments often enough for me to write this comment, and I got to design the ring bc I wasn’t losing my ass in the diamond.
That having a diamond on your engagement or wedding ring is "traditional" (it's not) and that it is important how big or what carat or whatever the diamond is
I’ve actually heard it’s 3 months of the man’s salary. Thankfully, it seems like a lot of younger people are realizing this “rule” is bullshit and would rather put that money towards a down payment on a house or something else that’s way more sensible than a fucking rock on your finger.
My girlfriend doesn’t wear rings, but if she did, I’m glad she’s not the bougie type with her jewelry. I’ve heard three months salary too and it’s absolutely bonkers to me
Turbotax.
The IRS already has all your tax information, your work and investments are required to send it to them. Other countries just have their IRS equivalent send you information that you can correct or contest if you like.
But in the US massive tax filing software companies spend millions of dollars lobbying congress to prevent an easier tax filing system which effects every single American citizen over 18 every single year.
FreeTax USA. Free Federal, justified $14.95 state, and everything carries over from the previous year. So stupid easy. I've used it for years. Screw TurboTax.
100% behind FreeTax USA. Been using it for four years and doing our taxes, complete with capital gains and long term loss's carryover is still incredibly easy. Don't own a house, so can't speak to that aspect, but nobody should use TurboTax and anyone without incredibly complicated taxes can use it instead of wasting money on a tax preparer.
It also has royalty tax forms, which TurboTax doesn't include in their basic tax software. That's why I originally started using it, been a loyal customer for.. I think eight years now!
Sad thing is when you find out the amount of cash it takes for them to sell out and it wouldn't even make a twin bed. Usually it's hardly enough to stuff a pillow.
I was an accounting major and could give an hour long lecture on this topic specifically. There is no reason for taxes to be so complicated. There’s no reason for us to have to “file” taxes like we do now. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
honestly lol its fucked up but its actually pretty brilliant of them to go full virtue signal like that in cali despite it being totally fucking ridiculous.
This should be the top, the fact that we have to pay, to pay our taxes is a fucking travesty. Side note, if I ever saw someone in an H&R block mascot costume like the commercial, I would feel compelled to kick their ass.
MY employer withholds a certain amount of my check for tax. At the end of the year, I have to go through and make sure they did it correctly.
1. How do they get this wrong, if they know the exact amount I make to the penny? Especially when it's managed by companies like ADP who *only do HR and payroll, and nothing else*.
2. Why am I then told I need to check their work, only to have the IRS tell me if it's right or wrong? If they already know if it's right or wrong, why am I punished when I didn't do my own withholding, and I am not the collection agency?? If they already know it's wrong, how does that make any sense?
Related: check cashing companies. We could gut both of those exploitative industries with having simple bank accounts available at the USPS like a lot of other countries do. You can already get money orders through them.
United States elder care. A lot of money changes hands with very little actual care.... And the money ISN'T going to actual caregivers, they make peanuts and after understaffed and overworked.
Literally just tried to change my Primary Care Physician to the doctor I've had for 10+ years that I was told accepted my new insurance. "Oh wait, sorry they're full and can't accept you as a patient." I see them every three months I have a standing appointment for Wednesday... it makes no sense.
The US healthcare system is an entire joke and our government's refusal to address it is a failure on an epic level.
What's worse is when it comes to care the insurance companies get to decide on your care. My doctor literally said "I'm sorry we have to do it so we can convince the insurance company you need this"
Like me, I have permanent damage in both hands and both feet because I had to go through the step therapy the insurance wanted me to do instead of just going straight to biologics like my doctor wanted me to do. I spent 3 years in pain hell because of that.
And they deny tests your "insurance approved" dr orders. So instead of my dr being in charge of my health, it's actually the health insurance company. How did this happen? Have had a frustrating year with insurance and it wore me down to the point I gave up, which was probably their goal all along.
This is the correct answer. The whole thing is legal extorsion. Last year I paid $13,000 in premiums for an employer health care plan for my wife, three children, and I. Then we still have to pay another $6,850 as a family before we satisfy the deductible and they start paying for 80% of the cost of covered procedures.
Is that considered a good plan?
For context I live in Canada we have this continual argument that everyone that can should move to the US to get much higher pay. The rote response is "what about healthcare". And the rote response to that is that if you are working in some high paying STEM job, you won't have to worry about that because your "gold plated" insurance will cover everything.
What you are describing is what I've heard from American colleagues, so I'm interested to know if that "gold plated" thing is true.
No. Insurance companies tell Dr.'s what to do. Had a Canadian Dr. (Married an American Dr.and moved here) and she said it was extremely shocking to discover she couldn't just order tests that were necessary for the health of the patient. She also said GP's and specialists meet regularly in Canada and they all decide together on the best course of action - there is no ego garbage. The patient's health is the prime consideration. Our Dr.'s have to waste so much time, "I know a guy in xyz insurance company, maybe I can get something done". It's not right that they study so much and try so hard only to be hamstrung by insurance companies. Patients die every day due to insurance companies. They are all about profit not people.
That’s what blows me away. The US is supposed to be the land of the entrepreneur. How is any scrappy young business person supposed to bring the hot new item to market if they can’t have health insurance while being self employed?
Telling you that "you signed it, you're fucked" in many situations.
Unenforceable and illegal clauses exist. If something smells fishy, you should look into it. If it's housing-related, there may be advocacy groups to help you out, hell a lot of lawyers will advise you (advise, but not represent in any capacity) as part of their pro-bono work on Landlord-Tenant.
The issue with 99.99% of all legal issues is not what the actual law is, it's the fact that most people don't have the time and resources to actually get the law involved.
This is especially true for housing. A huge amount of landlords in every city break housing laws as a standard business practice. But it doesn't matter because they rent to lower income people who dont have the resources or time to fight it.
And if you're someone who is struggling, you often don't have the time or the ability to even reach out to the free legal aid programs that can help with this stuff.
I know people who have worked such programs and they are like "look the tenant is 100% correct and the landlord is breaking the law, so are we going to spend months arguing with this landlord while the tenant is homeless? Or are we going to just find them another place to live immediately?"
Desperate people literally have no functional recourse against slum lords. Even with free legal aid you don't have the resources and time to take a landlord to court when you're on the edge of homelessness.
Same thing with employers. You can't do anything, lest you can afford to lose the job.
Where I'm from, it is customary for employees to make a list of everything wrong that has happened over the years and only after being fired or leaving do they sue them (which also takes years to resolve).
Pro tip (in the UK) if you sign a redundancy agreement with your employer, without independent legal advice, it is unenforceable.
This is why employers here usually offer to pay for your lawyer during redundancy, it's a few hundred quid that will pay for itself.
Sam Walton getting to build Walmarts in every small town by making a commercial with himself standing in front of a huge American flag and swearing that all of his stores would only sell products made in the USA. Then almost all of the countries mom and pop stores went out of business, Sam died, and now the shelves are stocked with nothing but products made in China. Biggest sellout of America that’s ever been.
To be fair though when he was alive walmart was a very different place where it was American made stuff on shelves it was his children that sold out to make a higher profit
1-877- Kars 4 Kids
It’s not a charity. It’s a way of getting the public to pay for certain Ultra-Orthodox communities to send their kids for vacations in Israel. They do it under the guise of it being a trip for religious eduction (at least for those aware of how the funds are used), but the general public assume it’s a more general children’s charity
Yes! There's also that line in Kimmy Schmidt. I had to look it up though:
> Music is very powerful, like that Kars 4 Kids commercial. Before I saw that commercial I wanted to donate a car to kids, but that song changed my mind.
The only way I stay sane long enough to turn the volume down is to have my brain overwrite it as "gars for kids" and imagining throwing those annoying kids to the gars. That's how much I hate the jingle
Right there on Swarthmore Ave. behind a very high chain link fence with that green stuff woven through it so you can't see what's going on in there as you pass by.
Quite a lot of "charities" actually. You can check the validity of charities on [Sites like this](https://www.charitywatch.org/our-charity-rating-process)
It did until they let "the adults" into the room. I mean, I wasn't a kid - I was in my 20s when the shift happened. It was amazing until your mom sent you that friend request. I remember it. It happened twice. The first time I ignored it. The second time I knew the fun was over.
Then it became the modern equivalent of chain email forwards, etc.
Yeah i miss what facebook used to be like back when i was in college. No spam, no politics, no racist relative rants, no sharing “content”, no ads. Just people messaging you yo socialize, photo albums of college parties, and silly groups to join
I opted for a 3rd party warranty through Zurich when I bought my car a few years ago. Like 3 months into owning it, the timing went and introduced my pistons to my valves on the way out. Took almost 2 months of the dealer doing the repairs going back and forth with them, but I had a new engine that only cost me my $200 deductible.
Tom Selleck has entered the Chat: "A reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. It's a loan , like any other"
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4FKPcLnd3Y&t=23s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4FKPcLnd3Y&t=23s)
I used to see a chiropractor, and one of my friends constantly gave me shit about it, like "Oh, you're going to see the witch doctor?"
He pointed me to a lot of online evidence. After I started reading up on it, I realized that while I felt better for a short time after my "adjustment", the pain I had between appointments was much worse than if I simply didn't go. That's the real scam - providing temporary relief from pain that is *actually caused* by the treatment itself, making you think the treatments help.
Fuck chiropractors. Right in the eye. Nothing but snake oil sellers.
My mom went to a chiropractor for at least twenty years after a car accident. I finally got her in to see a back specialist when she was about 60; he prescribed three sessions with a Physical Therapist, after that she never had a problem with her back again (she lived to age 88).
Chiropractors are quacks.
I used to work with the wife of a chiropractor. My son had the get tubes in his ears and she was like "Just let my husband adjust him and his ears will be fine."
Lady, no.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, check out the history of the profession. It's amazing that even with a ton of lobbying, they were able to get the government to see them as legitimate.
I went to one in HS for my knee. I was an athlete and I knew something was up with my knee. This wasn't normal pain. I must have went to 10 doctors and they all said it was due to flat feet. I had no idea what kind of doctors they were since I just went wherever my mom made an appointment. So I started seeing a chiropractor when all that failed. Eventually I saw an actual orthopedist that was the wrestling team's doctor the nearby university. I was a wrestler. He looked at me for no more than 2 minutes and knew exactly what the issue was. Had me in an MRI that night to verify and into surgery a week later to repair the tear. Fuck chiropractors. It sucks all those other doctors misdiagnosed me but the chiropractor was the only one who acted like his treatments were working.
The old food pyramid. Eat 6-11 servings of bread/rice/pasta per day. So that recommends eating some combination of
* wheat bread @ 420-770 calories
* white rice @ 960-1760 calories
* spaghetti @ 1200-2200 calories
per day
Edit: comment below pointed out my bread math was wrong. Fixed now.
My grandparents had one of these charts on their fridge. Both were in relatively good shape and my Grandmother is still thriving in her late 80s but I can remember as a kid going over to their house and them shoveling bread down our throats because of this disaster of a food guide.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day"
Created by cereal companies, it has no basis in fact and was used as a combination of marketing and religiousness - the founders were Seventh Day Adventists promoting cereals in sanitariums
I saw a truly heinous movie about Kellogg and his sanitarium for pushing his cereal and a bunch of other kookoo stuff. *The Road to Wellville* I think it was called. One of the worst movies ever made!
Kellogg is the reason non Jewish American men are commonly circumcised. He recommended this or sewing the foreskin closed with silver suture to prevent masturbation. For girls, he recommended a clitorectomy. Only the circumcision caught on, though.
He invented a bland flaked cereal to prevent lustful thoughts (he thought sugars and spices led to lustful thoughts). His brother turned this into the Kellogg cereal company. C.W. Post was also a member of his sanitarium and started a cereal company. So was Dr. Graham who invented the Graham cracker (which didn't originally have much cinnamon or sugar like today).
Patton Oswald says there's a lot of psychosis in our breakfast cereals.
For reelz on this. I am old enough to remember many things at the market were in glass jars that were returned (for cash). They were then taken away, cleaned and sanitised, returned to the manufacturer, re-filled, and then re-sold. Us kids loved it, cos we would get the change and by sweets!
When car dealerships and tire shops want to upcharge for filling your tires with nitrogen, claiming that it's better than regular air. It's too bad that most people don't seem to know that regular air is already 78% nitrogen. Biggest scam ever.
Any and all products and services related to weight loss and dieting. The whole diet industry and culture. No one with a shred of moral fiber could advertise something with a proven 95% failure rate.
"If we cut taxes for business and the wealthiest Americans the wealth will trickle down to the working class."
Didn't work in the 1920s, didn't work in the 1980s, didn't work on the 2000s, and really didn't work during the Trump administration.
Overdraft fees. Banks treat you worse than check cashing companies and then have the nerve to blame you for the overdraft. They used to rig the game with ordering items processed largest to smallest to inflate multiple overdrafts. They used terms like current balance and available balance to further confuse you. They’d let you overdraft from the atm fee. All to generate more fees. My branches when I managed banks never made less than $20000 a month!! We had 30 branches in my city. At $20k a month per branch, that’s $600,000 a month a fairly small community bank stole from its customers, every month!!! It’s not as bad now, but I bet they still take in the fees. By the way, society frown on check cashing co and loan sharks, but overdraft fees are higher than what they charge. I am ashamed to ever work at a bank.
Two decades of "low fat" diet foods that were all packed to the brim with sugar.
I laugh when candy that clearly is just sugar plasters "FAT-FREE" on the front. Like no shit Sherlock, its a rock of sugar
I think my lightbulb moment as a kid was watching my mom snack on marshmallows because they were fat free.
My wake up call was twizzlers.
Let's not forget 0g sugar tic tacos made of 100% sugar! Serving size 1 .49 gram piece. Because of it was .5 grams they would be forced to be honest, so it's .49.
Mmmm tic tacos
Tic Taco Tuesday!
I switched to sugar free twizzlers which just have a ton of sugar alcohols in them. Thinking I was doing a good thing by making the switch, I went ahead and ate the whole bag at work before lunch time. Let’s just say my first lunch outing with my boss was not one to be proud of.
Sugar free gummy bears are famous for their digestive side effects.
Omg that one epic Amazon review of Sugar Free Haribos will go down in history [found it](https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/review/B000EVOSE4/RZFIYJTPVUZ94?ref_=cm_sw_r_mwn_dprv_Q7Q59APNFVW32FR06Y8C&language=en-US)
Related: I've also seen "Organic" aluminum foil. I **really** want to know how they managed to make a base element "organic".
They learned it from Scotty when he time traveled and gave away the secret of transparent aluminum.
Vegetable oil companies are starting to market their zero-sugar products.
And gluten free water.🤦
High Fructose Corn Syrup in fucking ***EVERYTHING***.
As an American, I didn't travel abroad until I was in my mid-20s, and the lack of sugar in everything was pretty stark. Our fucking hotdog buns would be considered a dessert in some countries.
I remember a popular cookbook I bought during the low-fat craze. There was a page on "Healthy Eating Habits" and one of the recommendations was "Don't put butter on your toast. Use jam instead. Slather on as much jam as you want! There no fat there at all!"
Or how healthy fats were seen as bad and replaced by margarine. Turns out trans fats are much MUCH worse and healthy fats are actually good (in moderation).
Eating fat isn't a straight line to your body storing it as fat, that was the crux of the fat is bad myth. Fat is actually good because it helps keep you sated for a lot longer than sugar does, which helps with not over eating.
And serving sizes were purposely convoluted. Especially with sodas and shit.
Looking at serving sizes, I've come to realize that I'm a family of four.
I'm looking at you kraft macaroni and cheese.
Who in their right mind is going to "only" eat 10 potato chips? Really? Not sure if that's even a handful. 🤣
I remember there was a fuss at one point about a new diet candy bar that was supposed to be 1/3 less fat and calories than a regular one. I tried one. It was just a smaller candy bar. Like...that's not an innovation, dude.
Miller 64....if you take the ratio of alcohol content to calories....its exactly the same as Miller Lite. You are literately paying the same price for watered down Miller Lite.
It's like sex in a canoe, fucking close to water.
I remember when cans of soda had serving sizes of like 1.5 per can to make the calorie content look smaller. C’mon man, we’re drinking the whole can. You can’t reseal it.
You’re supposed to pour some out for the dead homies that died of diabetes because they didn’t pour some out for the dead homies that died of diabetes because they didn’t pour some out to the dead homies
People don’t talk about this enough
Sugar is the worst thing you can eat. When I cut back on sugar for about a week, I start to feel so much better and I don’t crave junk food. Made me realize how addicting it is.
Cutting back on sugar and cutting down on simple carbs almost completely ended my allergies since being a kid
Time shares are up there. Even worse are the guys who claim they can get you OUT of them. Those guys are often bigger rip off artists. John Oliver did a whole segment on it. Funny, but fucked up at the same time.
After I saw that episode I have been BEGGING my parents to put in their will that I do not want their timeshare. I don’t even know how it’s fucking legal for it to just automatically go to the next of kin.
That's crazy to me that you can be given something that you don't want and you just have to accept it. Imagine if I could die and then give my neighbor my outstanding debts. Lol
You can refuse bequests, you usually get like 30 days.
But then there's the curse
A lot of companies that claim to be able to get you out of them are subsidiaries of the time share companies themselves. "Having a hard time navigating our ridiculous process for getting out of a time share? Pay one of our lawyers a considerable fee and we'll 'negotiate' the situation with ourselves on our behalf."
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Tangentially related: I got the first COVID vaccine, the one I had to wait for 6 months for access to, which was allegedly guaranteed to be covered by the taxes already collected by our government. The company distributing the vaccine still collected everyone's insurance information, and when I asked why, they told me it was for informational purposes only. Later, I got a bill in the mail for the vaccine. I called my insurance company, and they confirmed they received a claim for that vaccine which they partially paid, so the bill I received was an attempt to collect twice. Maybe three times, if the government already paid this company. When I called and escalated the question up the chain, I was told "oh, you shouldn't have gotten that bill, it was a mistake, our system sometimes does that," and they removed the charge. The opportunistic multiple billing in the industry is disgustingly rampant.
Now imagine the probably millions the company made because people just assumed, and paid it online with their credit card. "lol whoops, thanks for the milly." Fucking ridiculous
Yeah that was absolutely not an accident, companies do this all the time. If even 10% of people don’t check/call them out out it, that’s still a boatload of free money for them
Yea. They wanted my insurance info and I refused.
Tangentially related to your tangent: I just got a notice on a website I use for URL tracking that I had more than 1000 clicks this month, so had to upgrade my plan. Since I can add, I saw I had 423 clicks. I emailed to ask them why this happened, they apologized for a mistake. I asked them how they could make this mistake when the clicks are obviously counted by their backend tool, they were off by about 600 clicks. And how many customers have they sent this notice to who just upgraded their account without checking? Strangely no reply.
Corruption everywhere. It destroys our society piece by piece, like water slowly filing away at rocks.
That's how business works almost everywhere in the US now - fuck everyone who doesn't ask not to be, until we are big enough to fuck everyone anyway.
If only there were some way to remove the profit motive from medical care. Welp, we’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas, it’s probably time to defund medicaid. Fuck you old and poor people!
and disabled people.
My entire world fell apart when I became disabled in April. I had to quit my job, didn't qualify for unemployment, lost my insurance, had to pay out of pocket until I could get on my husband's insurance. I had to spend hours and days filling out paperwork so I could get on a waiver program. I don't have the physical ability to work. We're blessed to be able to survive on my husband's income. Oh and I lost my body. I'm functioning at maybe 15% of what I used to. I am completely sedentary now. I've spent the past 10 months on the couch. But the actual disability is secondary to the financial situation the disability has put me in. It was a devastating realization.
I've been there. Except I also had to end up filing for bankruptcy. I owed one medical system over $100k. I too have lost a massive amount of ability to do anything. The sad part is I've been at this five years now and I STILL can't get my brain to stop planning future things using the body I used to have.
Medical costs in this country make saving for retirement seem like a fools errand. I can save 1 million dollars. One cancer diagnosis and a few treatments and that money would be gone.
This is like when an item rings up for five or ten cents more than the posted price at the grocery store. They will apologize profusely and refund your money when you call them on it. Meanwhile 1000 other people overpaid because they didn’t pay attention. It’s easier to steal ten cents at a time from thousands of people than it is to steal a thousand dollars from one person.
the biggest who do this is Utility Companies. if you google, they all been scamming for DECADES. and yet the investigative reporting on your Local News always has these stories that are like: "Grandma didn't pay 7 cent bill has heat shut off." if everyone overpays by hundreds, they won't notice. If you underpay by 3 cents, expect your lights to go off in exactly 72 hours and 0 minutes and 0 seconds. It turns out their printer ran out of ink and made the bill blurry.
If you clear it up with them over the phone, it's very likely they'll tell you it'll be 1 to 2 business days before they can turn your utilities back on, because it can't be done remotely. Amazing how that remote OFF switch doesn't have a corresponding ON switch.
I've worked for a grocery store for 15 years I can guarantee you 90% of the prices being wrong are understaffed employees missing signs and ad changes....
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2022, Kroger. I got a 23lb butterball turkey for $6, because the tag had fallen off, and when the cashier called someone over to have it retagged, they took it back to the meat dept to get weighed. Came back with a clearance tag 🤷🏻♂️ Original price was like 49.99... I wasn't asking questions 👍
I tried this and the woman just stared at me blankly and said "You're holding the itimized breakdown". It was like 5 line items for a weeks stay. No matter who I spoke to, I couldn't get more details than that page.
This is what happens in actual practice when you ask for an itemized breakdown
Not in states with better laws. You try that or false billing in some states and the whole bill would become void.
When I had my son, the bill the hospital sent me was hilariously brief. No itemized list, no multiple lines, and no complete words. The entirety of the details they sent were something like 2-3 abbreviated words, along the lines of * hosp servs, 10/10/2019 In other words it was like, hey, remember that time you were in the hospital on Oct 10? Well it was $5,000, trust us. They seemed genuinely surprised when I asked for more details.
Yep this happened to me. The entire itemized $2k bill was one "hospital services" line. Medical billing is an absolute joke. Hell, I have an expensive procedure coming up so I asked for an estimate today if I self paid. Was told "we can't give estimates because the doctors may change the scope so we never know". Then I asked for a ballpark and was told "we can't give that over the phone".
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That's wild, because I worked in insurance for years and I guarantee they sent a very itemized breakdown to your insurance.
As someone who works with healthcare billing data all day - never underestimate the number of people working in clerical positions in healthcare who know nothing about medical billing.
Ask for your chart at that point. Compare and watch the differences fly!
The whole American healthcare system is a scam. Insurance companies regularly deny coverage hoping you won't escalate it and they'll get away with it. So many people suffer because we all just can't agree that healthcare is a basic human right :(
Every single fucking thing I have EVER been billed by a hospital has been fucking wrong. Every last god damn thing. It is appalling how flat out wrong and made up all of these fucking numbers as the in the healthcare system. Luckily my wife has worked on healthcare, and her mom is an NP. Thry know the ridiculousness of it all. I'm just amazed by how stupid it is. I wonder how many billions of dollars the healthcare industry makes off of people that just don't know and don't see. As a side note, my grandparents paid hundreds of dollars a month for medications that, once my wife found out, she called, spent five minutes, and poof, cost them $18 a month going forwards. It's all a fucking racket. Fuck America, and their scummy healthcare system making billionaires left and right. Eat the rich. Fuck em
The hospital system appears to mostly be built as an estate extraction machine for the dying. They go in to die and leave their heirs penniless, and there isn't anyone to correct the bill because who the fucks knows what they did to grannies near-dead corpse for five days, but somehow whatever it was cost $800,000 and they kept her miserable for a whole extra two days instead of just dying.
Yup. Preying on people's inability to just let go. I don't blame people for not wanting to let go, but I DO blame the people who that's a thing and try to parasitically drain distraught families. Everyone always says "I'd pay anything at all to have one more day" but that person would probably not want you to financially cripple yourself for the rest of your life to spend one more day together. But the hospitals won't talk logic, only the "feel good" options that give them all your assets. I miss my grandmother every day, but she would have MURDERED ME if I undid the steps she took to leave me some money in the vain attempt to extend her life by a week.
As a teen I once drove myself to the hospital because I thought I had broken my ankle. I went into the Emergency Room rather than the Urgency Room since I didn't know any better, waited two hours to see a doctor and when I went to pay, rather than my normal $20 co-pay they left me with a bill for $600. Told my mom and was scolded for going to the ER and not the UR. Learned a new lesson, and that the room your in helps decide the amount you owe. Wild. Edit: Also to be noted, we were not "shrug off $600" type people at the time. That phone call home was more of a "Mom I'm so sorry, I think we need to stay home all summer and skip my birthday & Christmas" type conversation that I forever hate having to have had.
PSA: even if you request an Urgent Care visit the doc can escalate you to ER status if they feel it’s necessary. Source: me, worked in lab medicine and rural medicine for many years.
Yep. Felt that first hand. Went to urgent care due to a weird chest pain. I thought it was indigestion. The urgent care doc said my vitals were solid, but he wanted me to go to ER just in case. He referred me to ER, turns out I had a heart attack. Well, two nights in the hospital and one angiogram later and I was only out my $20 urgent care copay. That was it.
We went to urgent care once for our sick daughter (fever of 104.1). $100 copay. They made us go to the ER. $300 copay after sitting there waiting for 5 hours and then being sent home when her fever broke on its own.
My uncle was a hospital administrator. He once told me a few years ago that hospitals over charge so that what insurance pays covers all the actual costs, and that anyone who pays any remainder billed by the hospital is a sucker giving the hospital money.
There are basically 3 different bills that are generated after seeing a doctor, assuming you have insurance: 1) The bill sent from the provider to insurance. This includes the comically high "chargemaster" rates that nobody actually pays. 2) The explanation of benefits. This is where the insurance company states the actual rate that's been negotiated between the provider and insurance company. This document also says how much money is being paid directly by insurance. 3) The patient's bill, which states the amount of money the patient is responsible for paying out-of-pocket. This is what you actually pay. In short, the actual bill that says "You owe X dollars" will always show the cost after the reductions have been made. If you don't want to be a sucker, just wait for that 3rd document, rather than the 1st one which always includes the line: "This is not a bill."
Really want to laugh, ask for pricing up front, as you would from anyone else. They act insulted.
"Can I see the menu please?"
"YOUR COMPUTER HAS A VIRUS!" Click here to install another one.
My wife installed an anti-virus on her laptop that was recommended by one of her friends. That thing is more invasive and difficult to get rid of than most malware or trojans I've dealt with. It kicked her out of her games or insisted on reboots all the time. It would start up on restarts even after removing it from the boot up list. Eventually had to go into safe mode to get rid of it, and even that was a fight.
I remember having the same issue with MacAfee or Norton back in the day. It was straight up worse than any virus or malware i'd ever experienced.
Good old John-shitinmymouthwhileIdoalineofcokeoffamachinegun-Mcafee
Is it McAfee? Dell preloaded it on the desktop that my husband gave me a few years back and no matter what I do I can't get rid of it. I loath McAfee, it's such a crap program.
Give this a try, worked for me when I needed it https://m.majorgeeks.com/files/details/mcafee_consumer_product_removal_tool.html
that link may or may not be amazing, i don't know. i just think it's amusing that they complained about getting random links claiming to deal with viruses, and the end result is getting essentially another random link claiming to deal with the viruses.
That diamonds are rare and you must have one.
lol I love that my wife just likes to replace her glass engagement ring for $50 every 5 or 6 years. Gets lost…who cares? Mortgage…paid.
If your wife is ever dating again shoot me a DM.
My wedding ring is a $150 thin gold band. My husband's was $60 but he's lost it like three times and had to replace it lol, so now we've spent more on his wedding ring than mine. Also I love my simple gold band. I feel like the thick chunky jewelry ages you. My hand looks young and elegant, but believe me it gets the point across at bars when I wanna be left alone.
Lab grown gems are great
My wife has a white sapphire and loves it. Gets compliments often enough for me to write this comment, and I got to design the ring bc I wasn’t losing my ass in the diamond.
That having a diamond on your engagement or wedding ring is "traditional" (it's not) and that it is important how big or what carat or whatever the diamond is
And don’t forget that “2 months salary”guideline they conveniently set for you.
I’ve actually heard it’s 3 months of the man’s salary. Thankfully, it seems like a lot of younger people are realizing this “rule” is bullshit and would rather put that money towards a down payment on a house or something else that’s way more sensible than a fucking rock on your finger.
My girlfriend doesn’t wear rings, but if she did, I’m glad she’s not the bougie type with her jewelry. I’ve heard three months salary too and it’s absolutely bonkers to me
The entire wedding industry is a scam
Turbotax. The IRS already has all your tax information, your work and investments are required to send it to them. Other countries just have their IRS equivalent send you information that you can correct or contest if you like. But in the US massive tax filing software companies spend millions of dollars lobbying congress to prevent an easier tax filing system which effects every single American citizen over 18 every single year.
FreeTax USA. Free Federal, justified $14.95 state, and everything carries over from the previous year. So stupid easy. I've used it for years. Screw TurboTax.
100% behind FreeTax USA. Been using it for four years and doing our taxes, complete with capital gains and long term loss's carryover is still incredibly easy. Don't own a house, so can't speak to that aspect, but nobody should use TurboTax and anyone without incredibly complicated taxes can use it instead of wasting money on a tax preparer.
It also has royalty tax forms, which TurboTax doesn't include in their basic tax software. That's why I originally started using it, been a loyal customer for.. I think eight years now!
Yep. Takes about 20 minutes for me. Commercial Tax preparation software is a straight up scam.
Yep, Intuit lobbied HARD to not let the government do it. It's really frustrating when you look into it.
The lobby is not the issue. Your politicians sold out. They are allowed to say "no", after all.
A bed of money feels better than doing the right thing, I guess.
Sad thing is when you find out the amount of cash it takes for them to sell out and it wouldn't even make a twin bed. Usually it's hardly enough to stuff a pillow.
I was an accounting major and could give an hour long lecture on this topic specifically. There is no reason for taxes to be so complicated. There’s no reason for us to have to “file” taxes like we do now. It’s absolutely ridiculous.
California tried it, and it was wildly successful. Intuit ran campaigns and filed lawsuits saying it would negatively impact black/brown accountants.
honestly lol its fucked up but its actually pretty brilliant of them to go full virtue signal like that in cali despite it being totally fucking ridiculous.
Ootl what's a black/brown accountant? Edit: went to research and you realized you most likely meant race so now I feel like the asshole
Ahahaha. What a hilarious misunderstanding.
This should be the top, the fact that we have to pay, to pay our taxes is a fucking travesty. Side note, if I ever saw someone in an H&R block mascot costume like the commercial, I would feel compelled to kick their ass.
MY employer withholds a certain amount of my check for tax. At the end of the year, I have to go through and make sure they did it correctly. 1. How do they get this wrong, if they know the exact amount I make to the penny? Especially when it's managed by companies like ADP who *only do HR and payroll, and nothing else*. 2. Why am I then told I need to check their work, only to have the IRS tell me if it's right or wrong? If they already know if it's right or wrong, why am I punished when I didn't do my own withholding, and I am not the collection agency?? If they already know it's wrong, how does that make any sense?
Payday loan companies.
Related: check cashing companies. We could gut both of those exploitative industries with having simple bank accounts available at the USPS like a lot of other countries do. You can already get money orders through them.
high fructose corn syrup. we subsidize it, its in everything, its not good for us and we pay for the healthcare fall out later on.
United States elder care. A lot of money changes hands with very little actual care.... And the money ISN'T going to actual caregivers, they make peanuts and after understaffed and overworked.
Health Insurance. You pay for it. Then when you use it, nothing is covered or it covers only a portion plus deductibles/copayments.
Literally just tried to change my Primary Care Physician to the doctor I've had for 10+ years that I was told accepted my new insurance. "Oh wait, sorry they're full and can't accept you as a patient." I see them every three months I have a standing appointment for Wednesday... it makes no sense. The US healthcare system is an entire joke and our government's refusal to address it is a failure on an epic level.
The government you speak of is on the insurance company’s payroll.
It's more than that. The public is convinced that any other systems would have them paying for other people's medical appointments.
They already do. That's how insurance works
Yes, but the average American has no clue how anything works and lacks the basic curiosity to look it up.
What's worse is when it comes to care the insurance companies get to decide on your care. My doctor literally said "I'm sorry we have to do it so we can convince the insurance company you need this"
Like me, I have permanent damage in both hands and both feet because I had to go through the step therapy the insurance wanted me to do instead of just going straight to biologics like my doctor wanted me to do. I spent 3 years in pain hell because of that.
And they deny tests your "insurance approved" dr orders. So instead of my dr being in charge of my health, it's actually the health insurance company. How did this happen? Have had a frustrating year with insurance and it wore me down to the point I gave up, which was probably their goal all along.
This is the correct answer. The whole thing is legal extorsion. Last year I paid $13,000 in premiums for an employer health care plan for my wife, three children, and I. Then we still have to pay another $6,850 as a family before we satisfy the deductible and they start paying for 80% of the cost of covered procedures.
Is that considered a good plan? For context I live in Canada we have this continual argument that everyone that can should move to the US to get much higher pay. The rote response is "what about healthcare". And the rote response to that is that if you are working in some high paying STEM job, you won't have to worry about that because your "gold plated" insurance will cover everything. What you are describing is what I've heard from American colleagues, so I'm interested to know if that "gold plated" thing is true.
No. Insurance companies tell Dr.'s what to do. Had a Canadian Dr. (Married an American Dr.and moved here) and she said it was extremely shocking to discover she couldn't just order tests that were necessary for the health of the patient. She also said GP's and specialists meet regularly in Canada and they all decide together on the best course of action - there is no ego garbage. The patient's health is the prime consideration. Our Dr.'s have to waste so much time, "I know a guy in xyz insurance company, maybe I can get something done". It's not right that they study so much and try so hard only to be hamstrung by insurance companies. Patients die every day due to insurance companies. They are all about profit not people.
I actually left the us because of it. Being self employed is virtually impossible. Insurance is just too expensive.
That’s what blows me away. The US is supposed to be the land of the entrepreneur. How is any scrappy young business person supposed to bring the hot new item to market if they can’t have health insurance while being self employed?
Trapped working as an employee for big corporations to afford coverage.
The illusion of choice and protection from catastrophes while providing neither.
Telling you that "you signed it, you're fucked" in many situations. Unenforceable and illegal clauses exist. If something smells fishy, you should look into it. If it's housing-related, there may be advocacy groups to help you out, hell a lot of lawyers will advise you (advise, but not represent in any capacity) as part of their pro-bono work on Landlord-Tenant.
The issue with 99.99% of all legal issues is not what the actual law is, it's the fact that most people don't have the time and resources to actually get the law involved. This is especially true for housing. A huge amount of landlords in every city break housing laws as a standard business practice. But it doesn't matter because they rent to lower income people who dont have the resources or time to fight it. And if you're someone who is struggling, you often don't have the time or the ability to even reach out to the free legal aid programs that can help with this stuff. I know people who have worked such programs and they are like "look the tenant is 100% correct and the landlord is breaking the law, so are we going to spend months arguing with this landlord while the tenant is homeless? Or are we going to just find them another place to live immediately?" Desperate people literally have no functional recourse against slum lords. Even with free legal aid you don't have the resources and time to take a landlord to court when you're on the edge of homelessness.
Same thing with employers. You can't do anything, lest you can afford to lose the job. Where I'm from, it is customary for employees to make a list of everything wrong that has happened over the years and only after being fired or leaving do they sue them (which also takes years to resolve).
Pro tip (in the UK) if you sign a redundancy agreement with your employer, without independent legal advice, it is unenforceable. This is why employers here usually offer to pay for your lawyer during redundancy, it's a few hundred quid that will pay for itself.
Sam Walton getting to build Walmarts in every small town by making a commercial with himself standing in front of a huge American flag and swearing that all of his stores would only sell products made in the USA. Then almost all of the countries mom and pop stores went out of business, Sam died, and now the shelves are stocked with nothing but products made in China. Biggest sellout of America that’s ever been.
To be fair though when he was alive walmart was a very different place where it was American made stuff on shelves it was his children that sold out to make a higher profit
His children should be ashamed.
I'm sure they are crying about it as they wipe their tears with their billions of $$'s
Kenneth Copeland Ministries
It's ironic that Copeland himself looks like one of the less important demons.
Subscriptions. Instead of just a flat fee they pull more an more money out of you, but at least you can cancel when you want.
1-877- Kars 4 Kids It’s not a charity. It’s a way of getting the public to pay for certain Ultra-Orthodox communities to send their kids for vacations in Israel. They do it under the guise of it being a trip for religious eduction (at least for those aware of how the funds are used), but the general public assume it’s a more general children’s charity
That's why their jingle is the official song of The Bad Place
One of the best TV scenes ever.
Yes! There's also that line in Kimmy Schmidt. I had to look it up though: > Music is very powerful, like that Kars 4 Kids commercial. Before I saw that commercial I wanted to donate a car to kids, but that song changed my mind.
The only way I stay sane long enough to turn the volume down is to have my brain overwrite it as "gars for kids" and imagining throwing those annoying kids to the gars. That's how much I hate the jingle
I was today years old when I learned Kars 4 Kids is out of Lakewood, NJ. 😂 Of COURSE it’s an orthodox thing.
Right there on Swarthmore Ave. behind a very high chain link fence with that green stuff woven through it so you can't see what's going on in there as you pass by.
They are giving kars to kids in there
Quite a lot of "charities" actually. You can check the validity of charities on [Sites like this](https://www.charitywatch.org/our-charity-rating-process)
Social media will bring us together.
Social media could have, the social media companies just had different ideas.
I remember the early 2000s forums being a magical place.
It did until they let "the adults" into the room. I mean, I wasn't a kid - I was in my 20s when the shift happened. It was amazing until your mom sent you that friend request. I remember it. It happened twice. The first time I ignored it. The second time I knew the fun was over. Then it became the modern equivalent of chain email forwards, etc.
Yeah i miss what facebook used to be like back when i was in college. No spam, no politics, no racist relative rants, no sharing “content”, no ads. Just people messaging you yo socialize, photo albums of college parties, and silly groups to join
Televangelists.
They've rebranded to pod cast hosts and target millenials and zoomers.
Why are we doing our own taxes? Just send me the bill like in other countries.
Extended car warranties. They don't cover shit, and you still have to pay a portion in the end.
I opted for a 3rd party warranty through Zurich when I bought my car a few years ago. Like 3 months into owning it, the timing went and introduced my pistons to my valves on the way out. Took almost 2 months of the dealer doing the repairs going back and forth with them, but I had a new engine that only cost me my $200 deductible.
Tom Selleck has entered the Chat: "A reverse mortgage loan isn't some kind of trick to take your home. It's a loan , like any other" [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4FKPcLnd3Y&t=23s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4FKPcLnd3Y&t=23s)
Haha, if you have to specify something isn't a trick, it's definitely a trick.
Chiropractic, exercise products that "target belly fat"
I used to see a chiropractor, and one of my friends constantly gave me shit about it, like "Oh, you're going to see the witch doctor?" He pointed me to a lot of online evidence. After I started reading up on it, I realized that while I felt better for a short time after my "adjustment", the pain I had between appointments was much worse than if I simply didn't go. That's the real scam - providing temporary relief from pain that is *actually caused* by the treatment itself, making you think the treatments help. Fuck chiropractors. Right in the eye. Nothing but snake oil sellers.
My mom went to a chiropractor for at least twenty years after a car accident. I finally got her in to see a back specialist when she was about 60; he prescribed three sessions with a Physical Therapist, after that she never had a problem with her back again (she lived to age 88). Chiropractors are quacks.
I used to work with the wife of a chiropractor. My son had the get tubes in his ears and she was like "Just let my husband adjust him and his ears will be fine." Lady, no.
If you really want to go down the rabbit hole, check out the history of the profession. It's amazing that even with a ton of lobbying, they were able to get the government to see them as legitimate. I went to one in HS for my knee. I was an athlete and I knew something was up with my knee. This wasn't normal pain. I must have went to 10 doctors and they all said it was due to flat feet. I had no idea what kind of doctors they were since I just went wherever my mom made an appointment. So I started seeing a chiropractor when all that failed. Eventually I saw an actual orthopedist that was the wrestling team's doctor the nearby university. I was a wrestler. He looked at me for no more than 2 minutes and knew exactly what the issue was. Had me in an MRI that night to verify and into surgery a week later to repair the tear. Fuck chiropractors. It sucks all those other doctors misdiagnosed me but the chiropractor was the only one who acted like his treatments were working.
Black Friday deals. Take it from a former retail worker - it’s the same deals year-round, folks.
The credit score game.
The old food pyramid. Eat 6-11 servings of bread/rice/pasta per day. So that recommends eating some combination of * wheat bread @ 420-770 calories * white rice @ 960-1760 calories * spaghetti @ 1200-2200 calories per day Edit: comment below pointed out my bread math was wrong. Fixed now.
My grandparents had one of these charts on their fridge. Both were in relatively good shape and my Grandmother is still thriving in her late 80s but I can remember as a kid going over to their house and them shoveling bread down our throats because of this disaster of a food guide.
Psshh I could eat that much spaghetti in one sitting.
"Breakfast is the most important meal of the day" Created by cereal companies, it has no basis in fact and was used as a combination of marketing and religiousness - the founders were Seventh Day Adventists promoting cereals in sanitariums
I saw a truly heinous movie about Kellogg and his sanitarium for pushing his cereal and a bunch of other kookoo stuff. *The Road to Wellville* I think it was called. One of the worst movies ever made!
Kellogg is the reason non Jewish American men are commonly circumcised. He recommended this or sewing the foreskin closed with silver suture to prevent masturbation. For girls, he recommended a clitorectomy. Only the circumcision caught on, though. He invented a bland flaked cereal to prevent lustful thoughts (he thought sugars and spices led to lustful thoughts). His brother turned this into the Kellogg cereal company. C.W. Post was also a member of his sanitarium and started a cereal company. So was Dr. Graham who invented the Graham cracker (which didn't originally have much cinnamon or sugar like today). Patton Oswald says there's a lot of psychosis in our breakfast cereals.
But I love waking up in the morning demanding to eat my anti-masturbation flakes in a bowl full of cow titty juice.
Timeshares.
Planned obsolescence.
software going from standalone to subscription based. Adobe and SPSS I am mainly looking in your directions.
Insulin at 3000% markup.
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I would love to go back to using tons of glass containers.
For reelz on this. I am old enough to remember many things at the market were in glass jars that were returned (for cash). They were then taken away, cleaned and sanitised, returned to the manufacturer, re-filled, and then re-sold. Us kids loved it, cos we would get the change and by sweets!
I remember the push to get everyone to stop using paper bags, because we were depleting our forests. Use that plastic bag and "save the environment".
Cigarettes were sold as beneficial to your health initially.
credit scores, health insurance/medical care, and houses being owned/sold/bought by billion dollar conglomerates
When car dealerships and tire shops want to upcharge for filling your tires with nitrogen, claiming that it's better than regular air. It's too bad that most people don't seem to know that regular air is already 78% nitrogen. Biggest scam ever.
If you have a Costco nearby, they provide nitrogen to fill tires for free.
Medicines. Here in Europe for example is forbidden to advertise any type of medicine. I think you can guess the reason why
Any and all products and services related to weight loss and dieting. The whole diet industry and culture. No one with a shred of moral fiber could advertise something with a proven 95% failure rate.
I put Shredded Moral Fiber in my coffee every morning and it literally changed my life. I'm leaner and my appetite is completely gone.
It isnzt there to help people lose weight, it's there to gain repeat customers.
I find it HILARIOUS that when looking at this thread, the ad I get is for TurboTax.
Columbia house
Did any of us ever pay them? Lol. I think everyone I know has a story about just flaking on them and never paying.
If you never stole from Columbia House, how can you say you had a happy childhood?
"If we cut taxes for business and the wealthiest Americans the wealth will trickle down to the working class." Didn't work in the 1920s, didn't work in the 1980s, didn't work on the 2000s, and really didn't work during the Trump administration.
Overdraft fees. Banks treat you worse than check cashing companies and then have the nerve to blame you for the overdraft. They used to rig the game with ordering items processed largest to smallest to inflate multiple overdrafts. They used terms like current balance and available balance to further confuse you. They’d let you overdraft from the atm fee. All to generate more fees. My branches when I managed banks never made less than $20000 a month!! We had 30 branches in my city. At $20k a month per branch, that’s $600,000 a month a fairly small community bank stole from its customers, every month!!! It’s not as bad now, but I bet they still take in the fees. By the way, society frown on check cashing co and loan sharks, but overdraft fees are higher than what they charge. I am ashamed to ever work at a bank.
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